Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

[JD01]

Was singing Where Did You Sleep Last Night in the shower yesterday morning and thought I'd have a crack at it
Its only 2 minutes long.

WDYSLN Mix 1.mp3

[vomitHatSteve]

Old school!

Vox are probably a little dark.

Guits sound good. Got a nice amount of rattle to the bass. Drums are good.

[JD01]

Yeah. I thought they sounded dark too when I listened back to it. At least they're not too whiney, which I always struggle with.

Just had a good play with the vocal. Removing the low pass, shifting up the high pass, moving my 3k "bright bump" Nothing works, that's just the way it is. Moving up the high pass is weird, makes it both thin and dark.

The bass has actually got a fair bit of overdrive on it, the solo bass track is quite an unusual tone for me, its actually quite fuzzy. You'd like it!

Here's an excerpt of the bass.

Bass Tone.mp3

[rayc]

It's cool - has a Nirvana covering the blues feel to it.

[Bubba]

Yeah, it's good - but as has already been said the vocals are extremely dark and lacking in presence. Sort that out and I think you have a decent mix on your hands.

[JD01]

Yeah, it's good - but as has already been said the vocals are extremely dark and lacking in presence. Sort that out and I think you have a decent mix on your hands.

Cheers, I'm not sure what I can do about that. Removing my low pass didn't seem to make much difference. I'll have another go over the next few days.

[rayc]

James - vocal presence is a perennial issue. Why not ry the Motown Exciter method?: duplicate the vocal track. On the dup apply HEAVY compression, cut any problematic low end and then boost, heavily, the high end that sounds good between 5K - 10 K. Pull the fader out of the dup and then slowly add it until you can hear the change but not too much.
That or use an exciter/enhancer or even the BBS Sonic Max if you're really struggling. It's an awful thing but it does, VERY occasionally, work on some things.

[SweetDan]

...I'm not sure what I can do about that. Removing my low pass didn't seem to make much difference. I'll have another go over the next few days.

Another idea: have you hunted around the frequency spectrum for any mids in the vocal that may be masking more of the clear, higher frequencies? Severe (6-12dB) but narrow-ish cuts, maybe 700-800Hz, or maybe somewhere around 1.1kHz, have been known to help other vocals. YMMV, as well as the specific frequencies you might need to cut.