My first foray into recording a song..

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StratMatt
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My first foray into recording a song..

Post by StratMatt »

I helped a friend of mine record one of his songs that he wrote last year. We spent half a dozen afternoons putting this together. Took longer than expected as I'd never actually had a proper go at recording anything and I'm still just figuring out how to get going in Logic. I've done the guitar parts, he's done bass and vocals. Drums are cut and paste Logic drums. Ended up getting a bit carried away and put some cheesy keyboards in there, but it was a fun experiment to see how it would turn out.

Its pretty poppy/cheesy, but as we're gonna have a go at a couple more songs this year I'm keen to get any feedback on how to improve; especially on the mix side of things. All comments welcome.

Loving it so far

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Re: My first foray into recording a song..

Post by MattAnt »

StratMatt88 wrote:I helped a friend of mine record one of his songs that he wrote last year. We spent half a dozen afternoons putting this together. Took longer than expected as I'd never actually had a proper go at recording anything and I'm still just figuring out how to get going in Logic. I've done the guitar parts, he's done bass and vocals. Drums are cut and paste Logic drums. Ended up getting a bit carried away and put some cheesy keyboards in there, but it was a fun experiment to see how it would turn out.

Its pretty poppy/cheesy, but as we're gonna have a go at a couple more songs this year I'm keen to get any feedback on how to improve; especially on the mix side of things. All comments welcome.

As someone who has produced and recorded (on both sides of the desk) I'm happy to give some feedback, bearing in mind heaps of this kind of stuff is very subjective! One mans flaw/fault is another's preference. I lean towards a pretty modern style.

Song is really fun! It's got a great vibe. Love that rolling vocal rhythm in the second verse.

Mix wise its actually pretty decent, no really offensive frequency bloat and pretty balanced. I think the stereo field could be improved a bit by playing around with your panning. It feels quite 'down the middle'. Then again, for the style of music (which feels quite old school), that might be exactly what you were going for! There are heaps of different ways to approach your stereo field, even just from a guitar perspective. Play with the following:
- Intro section you could double track rhythm left and right, and put the lead guitar in the centre. As there is no vocals here this can be the main instrument
- Put your rhythm guitar further right to balance the left lead
- Play with double tracking
- Play with stereo amps/effects
- Keys can also be done in stereo to great effect

The guitar solo is probably just a smidgen too loud. And the rhythm guitar track could probably relax a little bit, watch out in that first verse with the stabby/rhythmic keyboard line.

Lastly there are a few times the vocals have expelled a bit too much air into the mic, not sure if you were using a pop filter or not but this is a must.

Great foray mate, 10,000 times better than my first :)
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Re: My first foray into recording a song..

Post by Darth Sabbathi »

I reckon that sounds sweet! Nice. Not that I know much about recording, but it is a good tune, and well played.

Could maybe use some variety in the drum loops? I say this largely because I'm trying to figure out how to do that on my own stuff (and have been criticised for the lack...) And the keys are little too much fromage for my taste! And obviously it needs more fuzz. :wink: Otherwise thumbs up. :thumbup:

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Re: My first foray into recording a song..

Post by StratMatt »

Thanks alot guys, all very good stuff and I'll take it on board. Its been a few months since I'd last listened to it, so a few things definitely pop out at me straight away listening with fresh ears. The landscape could certainly be broadened a bit - will play around with panning and stereo effects. Pretty apparent that the lead was a bit loud (bloody guitarists... :roll: :D ) Drums are something I want to remedy by getting a small midi keyboard for ease of programming, using just a mouse for everything was pretty time consuming. I'll be sure to get some fuzz in my future tracks :) Cheers. Oh yeah and vocals were done straight into a Zoom condenser mic lol, an upgrade would be nice for next time.
Loving it so far

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Re: My first foray into recording a song..

Post by MattAnt »

StratMatt88 wrote:Thanks alot guys, all very good stuff and I'll take it on board. Its been a few months since I'd last listened to it, so a few things definitely pop out at me straight away listening with fresh ears. The landscape could certainly be broadened a bit - will play around with panning and stereo effects. Pretty apparent that the lead was a bit loud (bloody guitarists... :roll: :D ) Drums are something I want to remedy by getting a small midi keyboard for ease of programming, using just a mouse for everything was pretty time consuming. I'll be sure to get some fuzz in my future tracks :) Cheers. Oh yeah and vocals were done straight into a Zoom condenser mic lol, an upgrade would be nice for next time.
Make sure your drum kit is panned appropriately as well and that will broaden the sound :)
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Re: My first foray into recording a song..

Post by danmunners »

Great for a first recording. Has a cool vintage feel. The rhythm guitars were a bit muddy to my ears. I think you could improve next time by carving out the frequencies a bit with EQ to leave some space for everything else. As others have said, it might also help to widen the stereo image. I've found that recording two rhythm guitar takes and then panning them hard left and right really helps for this. In saying that, make sure that you mix in mono first and get all the tracks sounding good together before you start messing with the stereo field. A few pieces of advice that helped me with EQ:

1. Try to cut frequencies in EQ, rather than boosting.
2. Try to get as close to "the sound" as possible before EQing by using proper mic placement.
3. Don't try to just get tracks that sound great by themselves. Mix them to sit well with everything else. A full sounding acoustic guitar might be good by itself but once it's sitting in a mix with drums, bass, keys, electric guitar and vocals, it can turn the track into a muddy wash.
4. Use high and low pass filters on every track you can get away with doing it on.
5. Think about where the main frequencies are for each instrument and cut some of those frequencies in the other instruments that share it.

At the end of the day, mixing is as subjective as guitar tone. If you're happy with the sound you're getting, carry on. If you're looking for a bit more space in your mix then the EQ thing might help.

Using compression and side-chains can really help with the instrument separation too.

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Re: My first foray into recording a song..

Post by willow13 »

sounded kind beatle-y to me...nice job first up.
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