The Jongleurs Remix Project 7 - Peddler

[Armistice]

His turn. We do seem to be in a bit of a rut with titles though - all single word songs... Not many more of those.

This one doesn't have any faux drums, so much less to do. It does have an actual djembe however, played by Richard. It is of course one of his tunes. He's on lead and harmonies, acoustic, djembe, I'm on acoustic, electric, harmonies, bass, shaker egg, tambo and handclaps... really getting my percussionist thing going...

It's where Richard goes full folkie pop - I felt I had to fire up the lava lamp to even work on it at all... I love this song, but it never really took off live - maybe because we couldn't do the percussion, big ending, 6 part harmony thing live. We'd scratch our heads when we attempted it, executed it well, and got a lukewarmish response, relative to other songs. As usual with Richard's stuff, I have no idea what it's about.

I have to laugh when I remember what I needed to do to get the djembe to work. R was sitting there tapping away madly like he was on a 5 minute extemporaneous djembe solo, rather than simply establishing a beat and then doing occasional embellishments. It really didn't work at all. Lot of cutting and pasting went on to straighten it out... And I think I made up the ending completely and just presented it to R as a fait accomplis - luckily he liked it.

It's probably not too far removed from the original - bit clearer perhaps... slightly different drum mix





Updated based on feedback from [mention]TripleM[/mention] and [mention]vomitHatSteve[/mention]






Original for reference:

[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWXwCIrcxQM[/BBvideo]

[vomitHatSteve]

This is the one that tends to get stuck in my head when I'm biking. ("I'm out pedaliiiing")

Comparing the two, I think Richard's voice sounds better in the new mix. Yours was a lot warmer in the original, which I think added a lot on the held notes. It's especially prevalent on the bridge. With those 3 (or more) vocal lines going at once, your warmer voice really works as glue between them. The new version is clearer there, but it feels less like a single blended polyphonic sound and more like 3 distinct parts.

Really, it's nit-picking tho. This is among the least changed of these songs so far.

[Armistice]

Yeah - it's interesting the effect that cleaning up some of the guitar mids is having on the vocals and how they sit - and I haven't really changed much there anyway. I tend to play things loudly in my car and that highlights problem vocal areas - often single syllables that just stab you in the ear - haven't done that much on this one yet. When I find them I tend to solve it either via a little more EQ or more often volume automation - and that has the effect of meshing the various vocal lines in a little tighter. Will see how this progresses.

I took the mix a few places, tried to big up the ending a little more, but that didn't really work. Tried different balance on the two djembe mics, but that didn't really work either, and more by luck than design ended up with the mix sounding pretty much the same as it did before. I did push some of the extra percussion out to the sides a bit more, just because.

[TripleM]

Overall it sounds great.

I like the drums. Cool part. Handclaps are a nice addition.

Harmonies are very nice.

electric guitars all have a nice sound.

My picky nits...

The acoustic guitars are compressed pretty hard. They're tough to be heard over.

There is a little rumble in the lead vocal on some notes here and there.

The mix is limited fairly hard. Maybe a bit much for a song like this.

[Armistice]

Overall it sounds great.

I like the drums. Cool part. Handclaps are a nice addition.

Harmonies are very nice.

electric guitars all have a nice sound.

My picky nits...

The acoustic guitars are compressed pretty hard. They're tough to be heard over.

There is a little rumble in the lead vocal on some notes here and there.

The mix is limited fairly hard. Maybe a bit much for a song like this.

Thanks Trip - interestingly there's not a compressor to be found on any of the acoustic guitar tracks, but I take your point and have done some automation to push them back a little and bring the voices forward a bit. Also unwound the limiter a reasonable amount, did some on-the-fly EQ automation on the final sections where he goes for the big notes and they do come across a bit on the harsh side.

And to [mention]vomitHatSteve[/mention]'s point above, I've done some more work on the interplay between the various voices which hopefully will mesh them together a little better. I do have a natural antipathy to my croaky low harmonies on this tune so perhaps I've made it worse...

[rayc]

at 2.58 there's a touch of sibilance on "preciate"that isn't repeated at 3.06. That cold be a quick cut n paste of the single word.
There's nothing much in the way of sibs for the rest of the song which is why that one stood out I suppose.
Cool work.

[TripleM]

I'm surprised there isn't a compressor on the guitars. Maybe I was just hearing the limiter's affect on them. I'll try to give it another listen later.

[TripleM]

Lightening up on the limiting sounded better to me.

I still think there is some excess low end on the lead vocal. It pops out on words here and there. I'm guessing it's like 140hz and below.

It's a really nice/full sounding mix thought. it's really good.

[Armistice]

Lightening up on the limiting sounded better to me.

I still think there is some excess low end on the lead vocal. It pops out on words here and there. I'm guessing it's like 140hz and below.

It's a really nice/full sounding mix thought. it's really good.

Ok - thanks - I think I sort of noticed that a bit myself when I was doing some automation on it yesterday. I'll head back in and clear it up. Cheers

[JD01]

Right off the bat, I like the acoustic tone at the start, mate.
Very minor thing... there's a kind of resonant thing going on when you sing "pedalliiiiiiiiiig" doesn't really matter. But you could probably dial it out pretty easily.
Recon you could bring the bass up a bit, but I say that about all of your mixes.
I think the hand-claps could do with moving back a bit - they're very up front.
This mix is great, mate. Great song, too.

[Armistice]

Right off the bat, I like the acoustic tone at the start, mate.
Very minor thing... there's a kind of resonant thing going on when you sing "pedalliiiiiiiiiig" doesn't really matter. But you could probably dial it out pretty easily.
Recon you could bring the bass up a bit, but I say that about all of your mixes.
I think the hand-claps could do with moving back a bit - they're very up front.
This mix is great, mate. Great song, too.

Thanks JD - I reached the same conclusion about the handclaps myself yesterday when I was doing some more adjusting, so I've already turned them down and pulled in some of my backing vocals a little. I'll have to wait for a trip in the car to decide on the bass...

I just haven't put a new mix up with the changes at this point,