New Honey Hunters - 18, Emilie

[Armistice]

On my good headphones now. I think the vocals are sitting with everything else and not in front of it—but there are some parts where it sounds fine. I think when the guitar swells, it buried the vocal juuuust a tiny bit.

Tone on everything is great. Nice song!

Thanks Crows

[WhiskeyJack]

Yea but....

We're all largely audio nerds who will sit up till three AM twisting knobs and adjusting 3700khz by +0.753db because we need to hit that sweet spot to our vocals to pop just that extra little bit.

We notice shit. We notice shit good.

Lest ye forget that one song of yours a few years ago that i heard an incessant little pop artifact or a crossfade edit glitch in one of your songs that went ot market with it still intact and i still haven't forgiven you for that.

LOL - I always assume people are hearing something... what gets lost sometimes is in the description of what it is that's being heard, which I struggle to unpack. I'm completely good with comments about adjusting 3700hz (I mean we're probably a few million years of evolution away from caring about what's going on a 3700khz) by +0.753 db, but I'm always thinking "Yes, but what does XXX actually mean...?" with some of the other stuff.

There's very little difference with anything I'm doing here than anything I've done in the past, drum-wise, so I'm not entirely sure what it is that's being discussed because the words being used mean perhaps different things to me than they do to you. I know, it's tough, but I am honestly always trying to work it out.

That said, I found, for some reason, a gate on the main snare drum channel and I turned it off because I don't really know why I put it there in the first place, so now the snare sounds a bit more "open" and "natural" - perhaps less "robot"? Who knows... So on that basis, plus a few more fiddles with this and that, including but not limited to, reverb levels on harmonies, EQ on harmonies, levels on harmonies, levels on main and double vocals generally and at an individual syllable level, additional work on de-essing main vocal here and there, scoop in EQ on main vocal at about 200hz, EQ on snare, EQ on overheads, extension of the envelope on Tom 3 to get a touch more ringage, adding toms to the ending that always should have been there.... etc. etc.... there is a version 5, up in the OP.

I've deleted all the other versions as it's just getting too confusing.

(And happy to revisit whatever the song is with the inaudible pop in it, you just have to tell me which it is.)

I dig this new mix. That snare performance floats my boat. It's got a bit of life to it. It's breathing and i can actually hear a hi hat hit sitting under it too. I don't remember that hat sitting under it from the previous listen of Mix 4. Job well done.

[Armistice]

Cheers @WhiskeyJack - I literally just turned the gate off on the snare - trying to get a drier snare at the time, I guess - so it's a bit more rattly. Nothing else changed in the drums. The hats are where the hats were...

Seems unlikely at this time, as we enter the silly season, that I'm going to get another tune out before Christmas due to various conflicting time constraints, but we'll see. I have another 5 pieces of music ready to go, another being developed with the new strat, and 3 sets of lyrics I'm reasonably comfortable with, so if not this year, early next. Hard to find a clear time slot for singing at the moment...

The GF is off to the optometrist to get her eyes checked this morning, and then has a gap of about an hour or so and then plays pickleball, so she'll be gone from 10.30 about 3.30 - "Perfect!" I thought, until I remembered that at 8.30 I'm down at the endodontist getting two root canals finalised and handing him several thousand dollars for the privilege. The teeth still hurt, and that shouldn't be possible at this stage of the process, but he doesn't seem too concerned. Think he's just sick of me.

So I don't think vocals will be on the agenda today - might be a bit slurry with a mouth full of anaesthetic.

On which, I'd best go get ready....

[musicturtle]

Just listening now to mix 5.

Sounds good to me.

I like the song, and the music fits the content well.

[rayc]

VERY occasionally the toms drown the bass but it's no big thing.
Sad story, the spoken/sung balance is cool and reminds me, yet again, of "The Infanticide of Marie Farrar".
Cool thing.

[Armistice]

Just listening now to mix 5.

Sounds good to me.

I like the song, and the music fits the content well.

Thanks turtle...

[Armistice]

VERY occasionally the toms drown the bass but it's no big thing.
Sad story, the spoken/sung balance is cool and reminds me, yet again, of "The Infanticide of Marie Farrar".
Cool thing.

Yeah, I've sort of struggled to get everything clear there... not even sure it's possible without a huge amount of envelope control of EQs.

Not really getting the reference to TIOMF to be honest - but on which, the gig I mentioned somewhere else here last Sunday was Mick Thomas. He didn't play TIOMF, however...

[JD01]

Jesus - you're up to Mix 5 - you've been spending too much time with Ray up North! At least they're labelled sensibly.

This is really good now. I really like the way you've got the vocal mixed with the backings.
Whatever nip/tuck you've done on the drums work 'cos they're no longer jumping out at me.

Really good, Armi.

[liv_rong]

Wow this is sweet, man! I dont like the ride cymbal sound, but that's a personal taste thing. Great work!

[jonny deep]

I have a Honey Hunters CD on the shelf right in front of me! Listened to version 5 - lovely production and songwriting. Sounds just as good as I expect from you @Armistice. I don't have anything productive to give you, I'm afraid.

[Armistice]

I have a Honey Hunters CD on the shelf right in front of me! Listened to version 5 - lovely production and songwriting. Sounds just as good as I expect from you @Armistice. I don't have anything productive to give you, I'm afraid.

Welcome back @jonny deep - been quite a while!

Thanks for listening. I'm pretty happy with this one now, although I'm still tinkering with the minutiae. I have 7 other songs I have to sing... but it's summer here and that makes it interesting as my best mic position is right beneath the return aircon vent.

[Armistice]

Wow this is sweet, man! I dont like the ride cymbal sound, but that's a personal taste thing. Great work!

Sorry, I missed this. Thanks Liv... funny thing is I have no idea what a good or bad ride cymbal sounds like... I rarely change the actual drums I'm using in the VST and every time I try I end up going back to what I had before ...