Semi-fleshed-out idea, and perhaps in honor of sheltering at home...

[SweetDan]

Everybody's getting the blues from having to stay at home all the time, you say? (I'm not so blue myself, being that I've worked from home for the past 4 years anyway...but it's certainly not normal for the wife and kids.) I didn't plan to write a song about it, but while noodling around the other day I ended up coming up with this:

aHandfulOfDays_mix2.mp3

Update 4/22/2020 - new mix, 1.3dB less in the overheads

aHandfulOfDays_mix2b.mp3

The lead guitar's a bit too loosey-goosey; the solo is more of a scratch track at this point. I'm curious about your thoughts nonetheless, esp. in relation to the combination of sounds, etc. Other notes: 4-mic drum setup (2xLDC's overhead, Sennheiser e602 inside the kick, SM57 on snare), with the overheads in Recorderman positioning. Bass through a compressor pedal, pre-amp, and then directly into the interface. Guitars mic'd up with a 2-mic combo of a dynamic mic (near the speaker's dustcap/cone seam) and an LDC (at the edge of the speaker) then blended to taste.

Standard stuff in the mix treatment - EQ/comp on some tracks as needed, bit of delay on the guitars, signal from all component parts sent to a reverb bus and blended to tasted, hint of compression then limiting on the master bus.

[JD01]

I like the sound of this - it has a pretty authentic 60s vibe to me.
Your drumming and drum recording is getting way better too.

That ride cymbal is a bit loud, but that could be the overheads in general.
Also, when you have the stops - it would be better if you didn't have the cymbal it before the stop, ringing out over the gap - just when you come back in.

I like the guitar tones and the bass.

Listening through again - I think your overheads are just a bit loud.

[vomitHatSteve]

Sounds alright.

I didn't listen too critically, but nothing jumped out as not working.

[WhiskeyJack]

Everybody's getting the blues from having to stay at home all the time, you say? (I'm not so blue myself, being that I've worked from home for the past 4 years anyway...but it's certainly not normal for the wife and kids.) I didn't plan to write a song about it, but while noodling around the other day I ended up coming up with this:


aHandfulOfDays_mix2.mp3

The lead guitar's a bit too loosey-goosey; the solo is more of a scratch track at this point. I'm curious about your thoughts nonetheless, esp. in relation to the combination of sounds, etc. Other notes: 4-mic drum setup (2xLDC's overhead, Sennheiser e602 inside the kick, SM57 on snare), with the overheads in Recorderman positioning. Bass through a compressor pedal, pre-amp, and then directly into the interface. Guitars mic'd up with a 2-mic combo of a dynamic mic (near the speaker's dustcap/cone seam) and an LDC (at the edge of the speaker) then blended to taste.

Standard stuff in the mix treatment - EQ/comp on some tracks as needed, bit of delay on the guitars, signal from all component parts sent to a reverb bus and blended to tasted, hint of compression then limiting on the master bus.

dude this is great!!! I didn't even listen to the mix yet i am just stoked on the surfy/ spy / spaghetti-ness of it all. Outstanding.

I think i did hear a little bit of fingering flubs missed timings on the lead / solo-y thing but it was nothing i would say that screams "track it better" I think it sounds great as it is. By all means go at it if you want to. The tone of the lead is especially spectacular. What guitar / pick up / amp are you using there?

Also i disagree with [mention]JD01[/mention] about the crash / stop thing. i think the crash washing over the break the way you have it really lends itself to the surfy kind of vibe you got going on. Like a little ocean wave coming ashore. Love it.

[heatmiser]

Cool.

I like the tones of the various elements at play, and I definitely dig the overall vibe you're going for. Kinda early-mid 60's movie soundtrack-ish. Very fun listen.

For me, the lead guitar part was a little busy at times. I'm hearing basically that same tone and style, but simplified and maybe more melodic with a bit more verb and maybe some tremolo. Enjoyed the listen!

[liv_rong]

Yeah dude, this is cool! The only drum thing is the crash is a little loud around 1:30ish but otherwise I think the levels are just right. I like the level of the ride here, it fits the song IMO, drives it forward in the style. Also, I like hearing the drums, being a drummer and all! Nice work all around and cool song!

[SweetDan]

Thanks, everybody ([mention]JD01[/mention], [mention]vomitHatSteve[/mention], [mention]WhiskeyJack[/mention], [mention]heatmiser[/mention], [mention]liv_rong[/mention]), for the feedback. Interestingly, I wasn't going for a 60's spaghetti/surfy vibe (even though that's how it ended up), more a "blues", and mostly I was just noodling around and then trying to make it sound good.

I'll have to experiment with setting the level of the overheads in relation to everything else to see how the various elements interact. For example, how low could I drop the overheads without losing them completely? Or could I push up the snare instead? Stuff like that...

One thing I noticed when trying to put together this rough mix was that the crash cymbal sounds like it's on the other side of the room, while the hats/ride are much more present. I wished the crash had more "crash" to it and less "wash", but I'll have to experiment to determine if the difference is recording technique / mic positioning, playing technique*, or maybe even material/design properties of the crash cymbal itself (though now might not be the best time to GAS up for more cymbals).

I think the arrangement's a little short. If I were a better guitarist, I think it would be nice to have one additional verse, filled with better improvising, between the two I've got now.

The tone of the lead is especially spectacular. What guitar / pick up / amp are you using there?

Tele-clone-ster for all the guitars. Rhythm was bridge pickup, into a comp pedal with a hair of compression dialed in (and the pedal itself contributes a slight bit of brightness), then into the AC15 model of my modeling amp (single 10" speaker). The gain/eq on the AC15 model was set just to where it would start to distort if I hit a chord really hard on the guitar, and with a bit of bass cut and treble boost.

Solo guitar was both bridge/neck pickups, into the same comp pedal / same settings, into a tubescreamer-clone pedal set with hardly any gain and a more-or-less unity level (no tone control), into the "Champ" boost/distortion pedal I DIY-ed a while back, and then on into the AC15 amp model set the same way gain/eq-wise, along with the delay available in the modeling amp (delay on the rhythm part was added at mix time).



*I tried to hit that crash hard and tried to play the hats lightly while tracking. I do like how the ride sounds and how it sits in relation to everything else.

[SweetDan]

New mix posted in thread starter. I dropped the overheads bus track down about 1.3dB. It's very subtle when doing an A/B comparison, but it's there. I couldn't really pull it down any further than that without negative effects to the sound of the snare; the overhead tracks had enough of the snare "bite" that I missed it if I pulled it down any further.

[WhiskeyJack]

Mix 2 is really good dude. I like the snare a bit better where it at now to be honest. And the crashes seem a to be sitting a bit nicer as well. Well done!

[liv_rong]

Second mix sounds marginally better to me, but I liked the first one, which means I like both! For the crash I believe its just because of how you are hitting it, that is why it sounds like that. Sounds like you are hitting it with the tip or just lightly striking it with the wide of the stick. Either way it works here because it seems a larger blow is unnecessary for the song.

[Tadpui]

Love it, [mention]SweetDan[/mention] ! I did something in this vein last summer and this recording reminds me of it a lot.

I do think that the overhead is too loud relative to the rest of the kit, but the song is too fun to nitpick. That was just a great listen.

[rayc]

I hadn'tlistened before now because, from the title, I feared it was another isolation lament/God willing/We'll Get Through This Thing.
It's NOT _____YAY.
I like the whole thing.
Garage surf!

[musicturtle]

I agree with the others [mention]SweetDan[/mention], this is really cool.

Just listened to the second mix. Sounds good. Bass and lead guitar especially.