steve@baselines.com

Here's a new track produced at Baselines Designs.  A great old classic from when I was coming 'of age'.  Ok, yeah, old.

....still kicking though.

Vocals performed by the Treblettes, from down under.

https://baselines.com/?p=5670

3 hours ago, mark skinner said:

Great job! I like the way you captured the way Paul Simon can half talk and half sing a phrase. You sure know how to choose what songs to cover.  Enjoyed it  ..  mark

Thanks a lot Mark!  Fortunately this vocal was with my tiny range 🙂

1 hour ago, freddy j said:

Well done!  I love that guitar work that is panned left.  It has that sound that often appears in the songs of Rokia Traore.  I have tried to duplicate that sound but have failed miserably.  You managed to capture that rhythmic push that is inherent in most west African music.  The vocals sounded great.  Well done indeed!!

Thank you for the kind words Freddy.  I used the THU American Classics pack with the Compressed Arpeggio settings.  I also put it through the room reverb R4 (From izotope) Large Hall, Fat Vintage Hall setting.

Steve

On 7/30/2020 at 9:03 AM, Wookiee said:

I just like that you manged to capture the groove that is so intrinsic to the song.  If I can have the courage to sing some one who can should push their vocal a little more forward.

Nice one @steve@baselines.com  

Thank you my friend!

On 7/29/2020 at 6:24 PM, emeraldsoul said:

I found myself liking the bass, the ocassional fretless sweep up into a note, and the way it was a taut and not mushy tone. Well done!

I think the mix holds up really well, I'd only echo the comment that your lead vocal could be louder, particularly when in tandem with your talented female bgv.

I also wanted this tune to kick into that wonderful doubletime that some Graceland (actually African! )songs do, but I guess this one is just mellower. It's a great mix and an ambitious song choice, well done!

 

cheers,

-Tom

Hi Tom - thank you for all your comments!

Steve

5 hours ago, Hidden Symmetry said:

Enjoyed this, the ld. vocal has a kind of Simon quality to it.  Maybe the bv's a tad over the lead in the verses? hard to tell. I'm on laptop but sounded good overall, nice production too.

Thank you!  And you are correct.  Whenever I sing I have a tendency to disguise it with other vocals because I don't have a lot of confidence in my voice.  I fixed it up now based on your suggestion, and I also boosted the slap bass part a bit.

This is a song by Paul Simon. It was the fifth single from Graceland (1986). It pains me to admit that I didn't know it was Linda Ronstadt singing on this classic. @kiwichrys sings magnificently on this one.  Recorded and Produced at Baselines Designs (www.baselines.com)

https://baselines.com/?p=5660

Great job, Mark!

That was really cool - thanks for sharing.

Top notch.  It's got a little bit of a George Harrison feel on the music.  Great vocal tone.

On 7/15/2020 at 12:24 PM, Jim Fogle said:

@steve@baselines.com

I read and reread what your saying but I'm not familiar enough with the CbB interface, tempo maps or editing tempo maps to understand or visualize the steps to perform what your saying.  Videos or animated GIFs are most helpful to me.

By the way, I enjoy and admire your music.  You have a nice touch.

Thanks Jim.  First, try this. 

- Get a recording of a song you may like to cover.  mp3,wav,whatever can be imported into Cakewalk. Select a track and do a File->Import.

- Once the track is in Cakewalk, check out the start of the file, cut out anything at the beginning that is before the song actually starts.  In this image I am about to delete the quiet part and move the rest of the track over to the left to the zero position.

Now if you select the track and hold down the shift key and the left mouse button while dragging up to the topmost bar (it will change color when you have done it), then release, cakewalk will calculate the tempo map from the file.  It may take a while to complete.  Often it is not perfect.  You can go into the tempo map to edit it as much as you want.  This is the time consuming part, but it is worth it if you want to record and line up other tracks with it.

Click on Views->Tempo to open up a graphic of the tempo map.  Then you can use the mouse to move the numbers pane to the right and expose the chart.

You can use the + and - horizontal and vertical magnifying glasses to size the chart appropriately.  Beats per minute is to the left.

This is where the time consuming part comes in. I turn on the metronome and look at the audio waveform to find out where the major beats are.  Here the audio is slightly after the beat. 

To correct something like this, you can actually hold the mouse button down and pull the tempo map line down before the cursor.

Like I say, it takes some time to get it right, but if you do it a few times, you get used to it.  Once you adjust it, you can use all of the midi tools to line things up close to the grid for any other midi tracks you will add, and you can also adjust the audio on any tracks where needed.

1 hour ago, freddy j said:

This takes me back indeed!  I love the low Fi "60's sound to this.  You have done an great job on duplicating this cover but still you have made it your own.  BTW great job on the vocals and harmonies.

Hey thanks Freddy - vocals aren't my strong suit, but every once in a while if it's in my limited range!

18 hours ago, Jim Fogle said:

The Beatle's Rubber Soul album was released in both Mono and Stereo versions in the US.  Stereo was some tracks full left and other full right with almost no center.  Even then it felt very strange to hear vocals and bass hard panned.

I read someplace that days were spent on getting a mono mix right but sometimes less than an hour was spent on a stereo mix.  Back in those days mono was the preferred mix for popular music and stereo the preferred mixed for classical so no one cared about pop music stereo mixes.

Yeah Jim - I had read that they spent hours getting the mono track correct as well.  I think I saw it in Geoff Emerick's great book.

That is a lot of work.  If you are going to invest that much time in it.  Personally, I will drag a track up to the top bar (which changes color) and then go directly to the tempo map.  Looking at the track, I will edit the tempo map so that the beats fall where I want them to.  It is still some work to do, but you end up getting an exact tempo map without having to deal with the terrible audiosnap interface.

Yes!  I loved that line as well - so memorable.  And yes some of those beatles stereo mixes were really weird...they were experimenting.  It was fun for anyone who was into audio at the time.  Turning down one side to hear what was going on.  I did Martha My Dear a little while back, and one side had pretty much only vocals and bass.  The beginning piano was all to one side as well.

1 hour ago, mark skinner said:

Enjoyed hearing that again .  Great song and good job covering it. I always played in acoustic harmony bands and did a tremendous amount of CSN(Y), America, Poco etc ..  That took me back mark

Thanks a lot Mark. That sounds like it must have been a lot of fun.  I always enjoyed playing out.  But I am sure I am whitewashing some of the bad parts of it these days!

54 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

I remember my Dad moaning about the Kinks when this was released, Oops did I just age myself, well done cover Steve.

Ha!!!  I'm right there with you buddy!

11 hours ago, Jim Fogle said:

Very nice cover.  Good vocals and backing tracks.  The arrangement is JUST different enough to remind the listener this isn't the original.

To my ears the stereo field is a little wide;  but that's a matter of taste.  For many songs of the era mono was the preferred mix because  the songs were played either on AM radio or a jukebox.  So the pop stereo mixes either were heavily center weighted or full left and right with little center.

Hi Jim - thanks for leaving your feedback.  You are right.  I am trying to be more disciplined with the image widener, but haven't made it all the way back yet 🙂 - A while back I downloaded Sultans of Swing from Spotify to check the settings in Insight2 - I put a post of the results here - https://baselines.com/?p=5510 - the image was much more narrow then I anticipated compared to what I have been doing.  I guess I need to check things on the speakers more often, as I mostly use headphones.

Thanks to @kiwichrys and @cocobark who added their great vocals to this classic tune written by Graham Nash when he was living with Joni Mitchell.

21 hours ago, Bajan Blue said:

Clear mix and sounds good - like the bass

Nigel

 

Thanks Nigel - hope things are moving along nicely for you.

Steve

8 hours ago, Barry Seymour said:

I like the bass too. However, it sounds to me like the voice is all alone in the center and everything else is off to the far left or far right. Perhaps something to fill it in a bit? Either add something or add some supplementary separation to the vocals?

Very nice song, great playing!

Thanks Barry - Maybe I split the image too much on it.  I'll have to go back and check.  I appreciate the feedback.

Steve

4 minutes ago, Wookiee said:

Sounds good here Steve mix works well, vocal clear without over powering, good stuff  

Thank you for the nice comment!

1 hour ago, Harry C. said:

This is really a good sounding song, coherent in itself. I especially like the bass sound and the voice as it was mixed, with that certain shimmer, if you know what I mean. Very good work, I like it a lot.

Hey thanks Harry - I appreciate the feedback.  The band members are all remote (I guess that is par for the course these days) - England, Florida, Mass, Georgia.

A poignant song about life at the (now defunct) Red Road hi-rise flats in Glasgow.

https://baselines.com/?p=5626

4 hours ago, AndyB01 said:

Great honky-tonk piano, vocals and mix - loved it! Andy

Thanks Andy!