Quick Sunday Cover - Testing Gear

[JD01]

Figured it was about time I properly tried my new vocal mic and Superior Drummer.

No compression on the bass on the guitars - they're just hi-passed.
There's not much on the vocal either, hi-pass, "deathcore" compressor, bit of EQ.

Also - didn't realise how high the chorus is in this song. There's an F#4 which is the highest noise I've ever hit when I'm actually aiming for it. Its on the word "in"

I Believe In Miracles Mix 1.mp3

[Armistice]

Vocal track is sitting nicely JD.

I was thinking that can't be F# as I can reach that and I considered my upper limit to be E, but and F# it is. Now being able to reach it and making a noise that would constitute actual singing are two different things - not sure my F# is ever going to appear on a recording. You seem to be hitting it much better than I could.

Nice one.

[JD01]

Vocal track is sitting nicely JD.

I was thinking that can't be F# as I can reach that and I considered my upper limit to be E, but and F# it is. Now being able to reach it and making a noise that would constitute actual singing are two different things - not sure my F# is ever going to appear on a recording. You seem to be hitting it much better than I could.

Nice one.

I wouldn't be able to sustain a note there... its a momentary 2 letter word.

[Armistice]

Vocal track is sitting nicely JD.

I was thinking that can't be F# as I can reach that and I considered my upper limit to be E, but and F# it is. Now being able to reach it and making a noise that would constitute actual singing are two different things - not sure my F# is ever going to appear on a recording. You seem to be hitting it much better than I could.

Nice one.

I wouldn't be able to sustain a note there... its a momentary 2 letter word.

When I was in a covers band decades ago I had to hit "a nice day to ... START AGAAAAAAAAIN" in Billy Idol's White Wedding 3 times during the song. I think that was E and it's a slightly longer note. By the third time around I rarely got it well...

[JD01]

Haha. All my earlier punk songs that I'm in the process of rerecording the vocals for were originally in E but I've changed all the guitars to drop d to make it possible.

[Tadpui]

Vocals sound good, man! I bet it took much less jacking around with them to get them to sit in the mix. That mic (I'm assuming the NT1?) compliments your voice nicely.

This song reminds me a bit of The Hold Steady at times, although I like your voice more than Craig Finn's

[Armistice]

I can sort of hear the tonality of Craig Finn in there, but Craig Finn does what Craig Finn does and it's not exactly singing in the classic sense.

[JD01]

Vocals sound good, man! I bet it took much less jacking around with them to get them to sit in the mix. That mic (I'm assuming the NT1?) compliments your voice nicely.

This song reminds me a bit of The Hold Steady at times, although I like your voice more than Craig Finn's

Its actually a Ramones cover. I found that I quite like 80s Ramones. Was a toss up between doing this one and Pet Cemetery. Yeah, its all NT1

[Greg_L]

Lol I never in a million years would have imagined you doing a Ramones cover. This is one of the better songs off what is probably their worst album. The late 80s was a dark time period for my favorite band.

You left out the entire bridge pre-solo vocal part, left out a harmony, you got some of the phrasing off, and the solo is wrong. It's Ramones song, I will not let anything slide!

But the vocals sound nice. Pretty smooth. I think I'd like a little more "air" in the vocal track, but it's smooth and even and definitely better than your previous vocal tracks.

See if you can get more focus out of the snare. It's a little splatty, maybe too much bottom mic. It's kind of like a raw snare track with nothing done to it.

[vomitHatSteve]

Sounds pretty good.

How heavily are you EQing the vox? They're sitting in the mix well, but they feel kind of mid-rangey, like they've got a LPF in the mid thousands or something

[JD01]

Lol I never in a million years would have imagined you doing a Ramones cover. This is one of the better songs off what is probably their worst album. The late 80s was a dark time period for my favorite band.

You left out the entire bridge pre-solo vocal part, left out a harmony, you got some of the phrasing off, and the solo is wrong. It's Ramones song, I will not let anything slide!

But the vocals sound nice. Pretty smooth. I think I'd like a little more "air" in the vocal track, but it's smooth and even and definitely better than your previous vocal tracks.

See if you can get more focus out of the snare. It's a little splatty, maybe too much bottom mic. It's kind of like a raw snare track with nothing done to it.

haha, I do like the Ramones. Just the early stuff has been done to death... there's some great tunes in their later stuff though. Basically Pet Cemetery came on in the car the other day so I put the album on and then immediately decided I want to cover this.

Re: missing out the bridge - I basically ran out of time. I programmed the drums the night before, then I had two hours to learn and track the guitars and vocals. I might add it in but I think the 2nd "its not too late" might be a bit strangled cat for me.
You mean the chorus harmony? Yeah - again, just way too high. I ended up just triple tracking the chorus and panning them 50, Centre, 50 - and then just juggling the tracks around for the 3 choruses - so left in chorus 1, is lead in chorus 2 etc. Solo - sod it - I didn't try and learn it, I just had a rough idea of what he was doing and did a few takes! haha, that's probably more than Johnny Ramone did when he recorded the original!

OK, more importantly the mix, and following on from what VHS was saying too.
Bit of detail here 'cos I actually want help with this:

VoxChain1.JPG

VoxChain2.JPG

VoxChain3.JPG

VoxChain4.JPG

So, I start off with just a hi-pass. Don't want any mega-lows hitting my compressor.
Its then walloped really hard with the compressor.
The idea with the EQ is to take away the muffled boxiness at 300 or so, then add some mids to make it cut, then its low passed to take away crispyness right at the top.
The delay, is just Reapers stock vocal fattener, with the wet turned down so the effect is just an improvement without sounding like an obvious delay.

Splatty... i'll have a fiddle with it. I actually quite like it though. When you say splatty - do you mean its kind of all snarey and crunchy with no tom-like thump behind it? Snare is a black beauty
Mixed like this:

Snare Mix.JPG

I also have the bleed into the overheads turned down -10 to stop it dominating the whole drum mix.
EQ is this:

snare eq.JPG

No compression

[Greg_L]

Johnny Ramone did when he recorded the original!

He did not do that solo....or any solo. If you ever hear anything resembling a guitar solo in a Ramones song, it was not Johnny.

Splatty... i'll have a fiddle with it. I actually quite like it though. When you say splatty - do you mean its kind of all snarey and crunchy with no tom-like thump behind it? Snare is a black beauty

Yeah it's missing the punch.

[vomitHatSteve]

I think that crispiness right at the top of the vocals is what I'm missing. Now it may not actually help the mix to put it back in, but I'd be interested to hear how it sounds.

[JD01]

Made an adjustment to the vocal EQ based on what Greg and VHS said.
Basically, I've got rid of my mid-hump, removed my low pass and added a hi-shelf above about 8k to try and give it some "air"

I'm quite pleased with the difference it makes actually.
Ooo, just listening to it through I realised that I still haven't sung that bridge!

I Believe In Miracles Mix 2.mp3

EQ Adjustment.JPG

[vomitHatSteve]

Yeah. I like it. It's a subtle change, but it feels like it spreads out the energy across the spectrum better

[Greg_L]

Made an adjustment to the vocal EQ based on what Greg and VHS said.
Basically, I've got rid of my mid-hump, removed my low pass and added a hi-shelf above about 8k to try and give it some "air"

I'm quite pleased with the difference it makes actually.
Ooo, just listening to it through I realised that I still haven't sung that bridge!
I Believe In Miracles Mix 2.mp3
EQ Adjustment.JPG

I like the clarity better, but the sibilance is a little spiky in spots.

[WhiskeyJack]

This one slipped by me and i am so sorry [mention]JD01[/mention] !!!!Cool to hear you go after a ramones song hah! I'm no where near the ramones Cork sniffer greg is so i can't comment on the finer stuff.

Vocally speaking the latest mix is much better. It sits nicely, sounds way better than your usual offerings. Your investment was definitely a sound one. Sounds really good.

not sure how much truth there is in this "trick" but i once read that if you tip the LDC so that the top of the capsule is leaned a little more towards you it gives you a bit more sparkle clarity and air in vocal takes. Supposed to save you from adding it in in post. I do it that way but i find i end up adding some in anyways. But i do recall it making a bit of difference actually. YMMV.

[TripleM]

I thought the guitars and bass sounded fantastic. Just great.

Good drum sound. You used Superior Drummer? What kit did you use?

Vocal sound was good.

Not much I'm hearing that I'd change.

[JD01]

This one slipped by me and i am so sorry @JD01 !!!!Cool to hear you go after a ramones song hah! I'm no where near the ramones Cork sniffer greg is so i can't comment on the finer stuff.

Vocally speaking the latest mix is much better. It sits nicely, sounds way better than your usual offerings. Your investment was definitely a sound one. Sounds really good.

not sure how much truth there is in this "trick" but i once read that if you tip the LDC so that the top of the capsule is leaned a little more towards you it gives you a bit more sparkle clarity and air in vocal takes. Supposed to save you from adding it in in post. I do it that way but i find i end up adding some in anyways. But i do recall it making a bit of difference actually. YMMV.

Cheers, mate. It just came on in the car and I figured it would be a relatively simple way of me doing a test mix of Superior Drummer and singing using my new mic. Its also one of my favourite Ramones songs.

[JD01]

I thought the guitars and bass sounded fantastic. Just great.

Good drum sound. You used Superior Drummer? What kit did you use?

Vocal sound was good.

Not much I'm hearing that I'd change.

I'm basically simplifying a lot of things, trying to only use any VSTs when I am sure that I have a purpose for something and I can actually hear in my head what I want to achieve. My normal bass template has a compressor on it, I thought this bass sounded pretty good so just left it as it was.

I'm gonna be transferring a lot of old stuff to my Superior Drummer template and then re-mixing as I re-record the vocals.

Yeah, so Superior Drummer.
Kick and toms are a Pearl Masterworks - I started out with SD as basic as possible, no effects, fancy mic options etc. and then just went over all the different drums to find the ones I liked the basic sound of the most.
Did the same with the snares and ended up with the Ludwig Black Beauty - sounded the best by a fucking mile to me.
Then did the same with the cymbals - to be honest I was a little disappointed with them when I was selecting them but they sound pretty good in this mix.

I then worked on a simple mic set up.
Found a blend of kick in/kick out/sub that I liked and bussed that.
Same with snare top and snare bottom.
Individual mics for the hi-hats and toms.
The overheads are selected as a pair of condensers and I've just tweaked the bleed from each of the direct mics to get a basic drum mix that sounds a bit like sitting in a room listening to someone play drums. There's also mono "ambient near" mic which is low in the mix. Just adds a little something.

There's still no effects or EQ added to anything. I found that all of the presets I flicked through in Superior sounded a) shite and b) tailored to do something really specific and not suitable for a general starting point anyway.

So then, my SD Kick Buss, SD Snare Buss, direct mics for hi hats and toms, the overheads and the ambient ribbon are then dealt with on separate tracks in reaper that form my drum buss.

That's where I'm doing any EQ, compression and reverb.

Basically - get a decent sound, send it to separate tracks in reaper and treat it like I'm mixing a real kit.
I still have plenty of tweaking and stuff to do in SD to get things quite how I want them but I'll get there.