Well I have to put this somewhere, seeing there's no General Recording forum

[Armistice]

OK - ever have a disaster with a 'puter mix issue that makes you go "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" but ends up being for the best?

Last night I'd finished all the backing vocals for my latest tune and I was bedding them in - and fuck me it was a big job. I had several sessions worth of tracks to sift through and audition and stack and tune and edit.

I'm way out of vocal practice, and when you're inventing songs that you've never sung before, you spend a bit of time on the lead vocal, which I had pretty much OK, but I was working out the harmonies as I went along and my pitch control down low wasn't great as I just haven't sung the lines before. So I just did lots of takes, figuring some would hit the mark, but then I needed to sort them and in the end there was a bit of snipping involved.

I'm ruthless on leading and trailing sections. I cut them out immediately so I don't have to listen to myself warming up and stomping back to computer, but somewhere there I'd chopped an entire string of takes too soon - after the first actual line instead of before it. FUCK!

OK - don't panic. I saved the project, then saved it as a new version, opened a new project tab, reopened the first version, went back to the new version, hit CTRL Z about a MILLION times until I got back to where the tracks weren't chopped, then copied them, dropped them into the old version and deleted the chopped tracks. Felt smug. Fuck you Reaper. Then did about 90 mimutes of editing and trimming and other shit and had a listen, saved it, went to bed.

This morning, to sanity check what I'd done, I fire it up and for some reason, 2 tabs of the original song open up and NEITHER OF THEM HAS THE EDITS - there'd been some sort of regression to the raw tracks. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Check the project folder, open the newer version - same same. How is this even possible?

Sort of resigned myself to having to do it all again tonight, but then, during the course of the work day, started thinking, "What if, instead of 6 harmony lines going against a song with a reasonably soft and intimate (ewww) lead vocal, which might, actually, in the cold light of day, sound a bit OTT, do it way, way simpler and have just one or two?

Obviously less editing as well.

And so I did, and fuck me if it doesn't sound so much BETTER than the first version.

All's well that ends well, I guess. And it only took me 90 minutes to redo. Minor victory for good taste...

[rammer24]

Yes, I used to always do 3-part harmonies when I could. Now, I often find that 2 and often even just one Keef Richards type harmony over the vocal sounds better and less "Journey-ish". I've also found that singing the harmony UNDER the lead can work better than singing the one OVER the lead. It's all about what works better for the song.

[rammer24]

"....seeing there's no General Recording forum"

Isn't there a "Recording and tracking" forum right on top of where you posted this?

[Lt. Bob]

"....seeing there's no General Recording forum"

Isn't there a "Recording and tracking" forum right on top of where you posted this?

which would be a fine place to have this however, you were mixing right .... getting your mix/vocals edited right?

So this is a fine place for it also.

[rammer24]

I just realized that "Mixing" gets double billing.. There's "Recording and Mixing", and there's also "Mixing and Mastering". I hope I never have mixing question. I might explode.

[Lt. Bob]

and then there's interracial 'mixing' too .... where do we put that?

[Armistice]

and then there's interracial 'mixing' too .... where do we put that?

We need a miscegenation forum!

[Armistice]

Yes, I used to always do 3-part harmonies when I could. Now, I often find that 2 and often even just one Keef Richards type harmony over the vocal sounds better and less "Journey-ish". I've also found that singing the harmony UNDER the lead can work better than singing the one OVER the lead. It's all about what works better for the song.

Yeah, that was it, it was sounding too 70s/80s power pop. Better now. And I almost always go under seeing I only have a three note range and I have to save the top two for the melody.

[Lt. Bob]

and then there's interracial 'mixing' too .... where do we put that?

We need a miscegenation forum!

yessir!!