My first shot as producer only...

[teledude66]

Man On A Mission

Hi all I'm posting this for the producer critigue. The back story is my Dad's a minister and for his 20th anniversary at his church the bass player wrote this song for him. It has to do with his mission work and the impressions he's made. Well this coming Sunday will be his 25th anniversary at the same church (quite a feat nowadays). So I'm making a video of the church's mission work and I wanted to use this song, so we got together and recorded it. There is a tele in it straight into the interface, we really had a week to get this down, so the guitar is one take on the lead and rythym. The guy singing doesn't profess to be a singer, but I think he does very well, also I believe he has some big time gospel songs that he's wrote with some notoriety.

I'm really just learning to get the separation of instruments down, and I'd appreciate comments about that, or tips about what I could do to clean it up...thanks in advance.

[woodman]

no can get yer link -- apparently the software thinks you're pointing to a TDPRI thread, if i read the shadows on the cave wall correctly.

[teledude66]

Originally Posted by woodman

no can get yer link -- apparently the software thinks you're pointing to a TDPRI thread, if i read the shadows on the cave wall correctly.

My bad, I first posted in twanger central, but Chris S. moved it here and I forgot to edit my post. Actually I had linked my post here to the TC post, so it really was linked to a tdpri thread. ...sorry.

[woodman]

i'll jump over to TC and see if any vestige of it remains!

[teledude66]

Originally Posted by woodman

i'll jump over to TC and see if any vestige of it remains!

whoa, look at the first post in this thread for the link, I just clicked it and it works. I deleted the second link in the second post...sorry again

[Moderator edit: Geez, could I have made that any more complicated? My apologies. But it looks like everything's working fine now. CS]

[StuH]

I'm at work and only managed to stream 1 1/2 minutes. The mix sounds nice and clear to me but it sounds a bit empty. Maybe some piano chords along with the rhythm guiatar?

[woodman]

Originally Posted by teledude66

whoa, look at the first post in this thread for the link, I just clicked it and it works. I deleted the second link in the second post.

OK, now we diggin' where there's taters!

are you saying this project is a wrap? or do you still have some tweaking time? just trying to get clear on where you're at.

putting on my producer hat, here's some quick critique off the top of my head:

* i'd try to make that voice bigger through doubling the track and trying the Tim Armstrong trick on it.

* i'm hearing a lot of space for clean Tele fills, especially among the ooh's and aah's.

* i would tweak the snare EQ (if possible) to tighten it up ... somewhere between 1K and 2K there's a brash frequency you could pull down.

* the kick and bass could be made more distinct by dipping the kick EQ at about 250-300 and nudging the volume up a tad.

of course i'm no engineer or sound expert in any way! but i've done a lot of quickie home recordings and these are merely my humble conclusions. it's a lot easier sitting out here than it is being the guy sweating in the control room!

[teledude66]

To reply to both of you at once, time is of the essence. As far as what I'm using it for it's 90% done, for it being totally done, no it will probably have things i.e. keys added definitely. I got a very late start, and had to work around peoples schedules basically everything on here is one take, the guitar was laid down, one pass for the lead and everybody else got maybe a listen through and then I hit record, so yeah this is guerilla recording to say the least. Our piano player at the church, who'll lay down the keys, is phenomenal. He's been playing in southern gospel groups since he was a wee thang and he's near 50, but we just didn't have time to get him on the project. The drums are actually done by the drummer from my band, because when we did the first drums (by the singer) we played them back they were out of sync for some reason. We decided to go with just vox and guitars, but I called my guy up and he had time to lay down the drums.

I appreciate the tips, from both, I will definitely try them out tonight, and try to repost the results...thanks again.

[teledude66]

Originally Posted by woodman

* i would tweak the snare EQ (if possible) to tighten it up ... somewhere between 1K and 2K there's a brash frequency you could pull down.

* the kick and bass could be made more distinct by dipping the kick EQ at about 250-300 and nudging the volume up a tad.

of course i'm no engineer or sound expert in any way! but i've done a lot of quickie home recordings and these are merely my humble conclusions. it's a lot easier sitting out here than it is being the guy sweating in the control room!

That's a predicament I have, I struggle with drums. The other thing is, I used a MXL condensor just above, or really between the cymbals over the toms. I also put a Samson CO3 about 3 feet in front of the bass drum, it has a lil bounce sound to it. So as far as the OH mic goes, would I still focus on the snare, and would those eq adjusts still be valid? I was afraid I was too strong on the drums, I also, not just with this track, but others too, have a problem with the snare sounding fake, or toyish. Just wanted to put out where my head is at. Oh one other thing, how about the bass any critique on that? Thanks again...

[getbent]

teledude66,
Your congregation will love this with a slide show, it will be awesome! The lyrics are easy to hear and the two voices are very nice... This will work perfectly, nice job.

When you get ready to make the cd, bump the thread... Woody and Stu have some great ideas....

Way to go!

[teledude66]

Originally Posted by getbent

teledude66,
Your congregation will love this with a slide show, it will be awesome! The lyrics are easy to hear and the two voices are very nice... This will work perfectly, nice job.

When you get ready to make the cd, bump the thread... Woody and Stu have some great ideas....

Way to go!

Hey man, I appreciate that...Thanks. It's a pretty big deal Sunday there will be an article in the paper and people from the church are sending him on an Alaskan cruise.

[woodman]

my notion is, if you dip that overhead at 1K or 1.5, it won't hurt the cymbals and hi-hat at all, in fact it may help. could might could bring that track up a little and maybe the snare would sound fatter.

[benmeza]

...if you could revisit the arrangement for a second, it really needs an organ in it - if for nothign else than the part where the backup vocals come in(but I think it probably could stand to be in the entire song). You might also try a high pass filter or a gate on many of the tracks because it sounds like you have a lot of floor noise there you might be able to cut out and that will help a lot in freeing up some space...

[StuH]

Originally Posted by teledude66

That's a predicament I have, I struggle with drums. The other thing is, I used a MXL condensor just above, or really between the cymbals over the toms. I also put a Samson CO3 about 3 feet in front of the bass drum, it has a lil bounce sound to it. So as far as the OH mic goes, would I still focus on the snare, and would those eq adjusts still be valid? I was afraid I was too strong on the drums, I also, not just with this track, but others too, have a problem with the snare sounding fake, or toyish. Just wanted to put out where my head is at. Oh one other thing, how about the bass any critique on that? Thanks again...

I would think it would be pretty hard gaining a huge amount of control on a drum kit with just a few mics. Have you considered programming a midi drum track just to spice up the drum hits that your not happy with. I betcha that would work very well. Probably even better if you did this for all drum hits.

Are you applying any compression to your drum tracks?

[woodman]

Originally Posted by StuH

Are you applying any compression to your drum tracks?

now there's an idea!!!