Sweet Sweet Illegal Horse Meat - ft JD01

[vomitHatSteve]

A while back, JD said that I need to have him contribute some regular alt-rock kind of guitar tones to a song, so I asked him to hop onto this one.

I also asked him to throw in some vocals since some of the parts are honestly low for my range

As always, I'd love feedback on the mix.

Mix 3

SweetSweetIllegalHorseMeat.mp3

Mix 4

SweetSweetIllegalHorseMeat.mp3

Mix 5

SweetSweetIllegalHorseMeat.mp3

Unmastered version of mix 5: https://test.regdarandthefighters.com/t ... aster.flac

[rayc]

Horse meat is exported from Australia in HUGE quantities but there's little appetite for it domestically so only small pockets of legal sales.
Cool song, I can HEAR the Jamesness of some guitars and def. his voice. It's an interesting blend of Indie indie and vHS Indie.
The bass is very round and mushy and seems in the left channel and to be most defined during the quiet section.

[CrowsofFritz]

This is a fun song. I think JDs vocals in the beginning to Steve’s vocals kinda clash in a way. When you both sing together at the same time, though, it works!

[vomitHatSteve]

Thanks guys. For the most part, JD's guits lean right, and mine (which includes the bass) lean left.
Maybe I'll put some automation so when he's playing higher parts there's more of my low end on the right too.
I'll also try futzing with EQ to make our voices sit better together. I just used JD's own default EQ so far. For the lyrics stepping on each other in v1, I was going for something like Pain's Suckerpunch.

Honestly, I don't know anything about eating horses - it's such a taboo in the US that it basically isn't done at all. The phrase just popped into my head unbidden one day and wouldn't leave until I wrote the song!

[CrowsofFritz]

Thanks guys. For the most part, JD's guits lean right, and mine (which includes the bass) lean left.
Maybe I'll put some automation so when he's playing higher parts there's more of my low end on the right too.
I'll also try futzing with EQ to make our voices sit better together. I just used JD's own default EQ so far. For the lyrics stepping on each other in v1, I was going for something like Pain's Suckerpunch.

Honestly, I don't know anything about eating horses - it's such a taboo in the US that it basically isn't done at all. The phrase just popped into my head unbidden one day and wouldn't leave until I wrote the song!

I have a song called throw that cat away, which is considered animal cruelty. But I do remember a Bristish dad of my friend 15 years ago where a kitty snuck his way into his house and he chucked the cat outside

He was a very stoic and brutish kind of dude.

[vomitHatSteve]

Honestly, I don't know anything about eating horses - it's such a taboo in the US that it basically isn't done at all. The phrase just popped into my head unbidden one day and wouldn't leave until I wrote the song!

I have a song called throw that cat away, which is considered animal cruelty. But I do remember a Bristish dad of my friend 15 years ago where a kitty snuck his way into his house and he chucked the cat outside

He was a very stoic and brutish kind of dude.
[/quote]

[vomitHatSteve]

I have a song called throw that cat away, which is considered animal cruelty. But I do remember a Bristish dad of my friend 15 years ago where a kitty snuck his way into his house and he chucked the cat outside

He was a very stoic and brutish kind of dude.

[/quote]

[TripleM]

Tone on most everything sounds great. I'm guessing JD's guitar is on the right? It sounds awesome.

I agree with the comment that the vocals at the beginning are clashing in terms of timing. From about :06 to :20. JD's vocals are also noticeably wetter than Steve's - not sure it matters much.

Great song ideas throughout. Excellent song.

[vomitHatSteve]

Tone on most everything sounds great. I'm guessing JD's guitar is on the right? It sounds awesome.

Correct. Thank you!

JD's vocals are also noticeably wetter than Steve's - not sure it matters much.

That is possible. I currently have them set to send the same amount of signal to the reverb bus, but I think the raw signals have different volumes

[JD01]

i actually think the original version that you sent me sounds better at the moment!
Reckon there's way too much reverb on my vocals! Could possibly do with a bit more compression too - that's just me though, I compress the fuck out of my vocals.
My guitar might be a bit quiet in comparison the abomination too, but then you have loads of bottom end in that too.

You can't hard pan the guitars can you? 'cos you don't have a separate bass I think? So if you panned the abomination out left you'd just end up with nothing in the middle?

[WhiskeyJack]

My guitar might be a bit quiet in comparison the abomination too, but then you have loads of bottom end in that too.

I second this and feel it needs attention. There is an imbalance there and it doesn;'t resonate well with my ears and it makes me uncomfortable. I feel like all your songs should make me feel uncomfortable VHS, but they never do. But this time. It does. The imbalance is weird. And not a good kind of normal fun VHS weird. It's bad weird.

everything else seems to gel. I partially agree with Crows comment about clashing vocals, but i don't think that is a make or break kind of thing. It starts to come together once you guys get going together.

Very Cool effort lads !!!!! What and odd subject matter.

[vomitHatSteve]

You can't hard pan the guitars can you? 'cos you don't have a separate bass I think? So if you panned the abomination out left you'd just end up with nothing in the middle?

The bass string has a separate channel, so it can go more towards the middle, but I usually don't try to spread the guits/bass too much from each other. Since the bass and guitar strings are playing exactly in sync with each other, gluing the bass nicely to a different guitar is tricky.
I'll mess with it a little tho to see what I can pull off.

[JD01]

The main thing is the vocal reverb. Once that's sorted the rest of the mix should be easy to sort. I sound like I've accidentally jumped into an empty swimming pool.

[vomitHatSteve]

Ok. New mix in the OP.

Some EQ on JD's voice
JD's guitar boosted about 2 DB
Bass dragged pretty far right during down bridge (it was originally dead center, that's how much it snaps to the rest of the abomination!)
About 7 DB less reverb on JD's voice. Turns out I totally forgot to set that level!
I also tweaked the mastering parameters, so it's much more obvious.

[Tadpui]

Ha, this is a good one Listening to what's labeled as Mix 3.

I think that all of the vocals (or I guess it's just the the main vocal parts) need to come up. JDs voice is especially buried, as your voice has a tonality that lets it poke through a bit better. Both lead vocal parts sound a little mid-scooped, for lack of a better term...which may be why I'm hearing them as too low in the mix.

I feel like the guitar parts could come up a dB or two as well.

The low end sounds solid to me, and the synth appointments sound just about right.

This sounds like it was a lot of fun

[JD01]

Listening to Mix 4. This is much better!
The guitars sound more balanced now while still retaining that signature VHS sound.
My vocal might still be a bit dark, I normally do a pretty drastic scoop of low mids on my voice. I think I'm naturally "boxy"!
Possibly still a bit too much reverb for me, but then this whole mix is way wetter than anything I'd do, so I think that's just a VHS thing.

The interlude bit sounds really good.

[rayc]

#4 is cool but things still lean left.

[CrowsofFritz]

The vocals aren’t clashing as much now that there’s less reverb on them. I think the remaining clash is just a tonality thing.

[stratmonkee]

Listened to mix 4....guitars sound great, maybe vocals could come up a bit? Really like the 2 completely different vocalist, gives song a very cool feel, great job on this!

[vomitHatSteve]

Mix 5 is in the OP.

My ears are a little stuffy today, so all I did was boost the vox by 2 dB or so.