Indie Rock forward! Strokes, Neon Trees

[bronstine]

Shane,

What a great song - the mix was dead on. I'm still cutting my teeth on the production end of things. Do you have any tips/advice on how you got the vocals to sit in the mix like that? Clearly you have tons of experience (I read your bio), so I know there's a lot to it, but any thoughts would help. I'm eager to learn.

Congratulations again,
Christine C.

[shanegrla]

Oops, I had this mixed up with another listing. I actually have heard back about this one, and did end up signing a deal with these guys. Though, curiously, not for this particular song. Turns out, though the listing was for a vocal song, they don't seem to be very interested in pushing vocal songs, so I decided I probably don't want to tie up my song in a situation where they don't seem to want to emphasize vocal songs.

Christine, that is a huge can of worms to address. It might help if we can hear the stuff you have now. If you can tell us what kind of setup (if any) you have now. What DAW (ProTools, Logic etc.). Do you have a Taxi page with some songs up yet?

What I can tell you is it really helps to have a decent mic. I use an AKG414 (but others here can probably give you some advice on some more affordable quality ones). Anyway, gotta run for now, but would love to hear more and maybe help out a bit later.

Shane

[bronstine]

Shane,

Thanks for the response. I appreciate any input or tips on how to improve my mix, especially related to vocals. I'm working with ProTools 9. Once I figure out how to have my signature include my taxi page, I'll do that. In the meantime, it's: http://www.taxi.com/christinecochrane

All but 2 of the songs were recorded/mixed/mastered by professionals - only two of them were recorded by me- "With You" and "Desperation".

Again, congrats on the forward. Best of luck on signing it.

Christine C.

[shanegrla]

Christine,
So before I forget, I should point out that the link to your CD Baby page doesn't work. I think you're missing one slash in the http:// part. And I also clicked the Christine's Music link and that didn't work either (sorry, can't help with that one).

Anyway, I took a listen to most of your stuff on there. I think you're doing fine with your vocals. I think they sounded at least as good as the pro recordings. In fact, I thought your vocals on "With You" sounded possibly the best of all of them because they sounded the most upfront, big and full. But that might just be because there's only other a piano in there. It's a lot harder to get the vocals sounding nice and big when there's a whole bunch of other instruments in there competing for audio space.

I might just EQ them a bit. Generally I put a high-pass EQ on just about all my tracks to get rid of some unnecessary boom that can show up at the bottom of the frequency spectrum. But especially anything that was recorded with a mic (vox, acoust. gtrs, etc.). You can get that on the 1-band EQ. (Good thing you’re on ProTools, we might speak the same language then.) With the 1-band EQ, click the little high-pass button and then adjust the frequency to around 120hz.

And then I would add the 7-band EQ and roll off maybe about 3-4 db at around 200hz or so. And then, with the same EQ, I might add maybe a touch of high end, like about 2-3 db at around 12-14k. (A lot of it is just using your ears and listening to what sounds best to you, so just play around with some of these frequencies and db levels I’m giving you. These tips are what sound good for my voice.)

And then, if your song has a bunch of S sounds in it, you probably wanna add the de-esser. Generally the default frequency they start with (5k) is okay, and then I just take out about 2 db. You can’t do too much or it gets too noticeable. I didn’t really hear that problem with what I heard though. That’s just something to keep in mind for future recordings.

I always compress my voice too, because it helps make it sound a bit more “radio ready” to me. I don’t know if you were using it or not, but if not I think you’re okay without it. (The downside of a compressor is it squeezes the sound down, so it doesn’t sound quite as big and full like I was talking about earlier.) If you do use any, I don’t think you need any more than about a 1.5:1 ratio.

So far, all of this is stuff you can do with just the stock PT plugins. If you really wanna get serious though, then you’re gonna have to eventually get a few third-party plugins. Particularly, a decent reverb. The stock PT verb, Digiverb, is crap. I hardly ever use it. The AIR verbs are a bit better, but still just barely okay in my opinion. The one I use is TL Space. A couple years ago, it came with a PT add-on bundle that made it worth it then. Now, most of those other add-ons come stock now, so I don’t know if it’s worth it to shell out the cash just for that. A lot of people say good things about Altiverb (though I don’t have any experience with it myself).

But probably my main secret weapon is a limiter. Specifically the Massey L2007. It’s actually a mastering limiter, meaning I use it as the very last step to louden the whole mix to “broadcast quality” level. But I also sometimes use it on the vocals too. It can really help make it “pop” out of the mix. Pretty sure I used it on this one. With a really dense mix it’s usually more necessary to help cut through everything without having to just turn up the fader level and make it sound out of context. It’s totally pro quality, and it’s less than $100.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling dissertation. I tend to get carried away because I enjoy production so much. But hope some of it helps.

Shane

[jaysoul]

congrats, catchy & driven tune, harmonies before final chorus are real nice.