Night Meets Light - a Dixie Dregs Cover - hoping for feedback on the production

[Robert Bone]

Night Meets Light - a Dixie Dregs Cover - recorded by Robert Bone and Mike Reidy

This is a remake/cover of the Dixie Dregs song, Night Meets Light, that I finished in 2018, and posted in the old forums, and just plain forgot about sharing it with all the folks here in the new world of CbB.

Both my friend, Mike, and I, would love to get some feedback on the production aspects of the song - which we mostly were fairly faithful to the general sound of the original song, though I did "modern it up" a bit here and there. 

Feedback from you folks would mean a lot to both of us, because while we chose this song because of a profound love and appreciation for the beautiful playing in it, we also wanted to use the process of engineering an existing song, as a way to gauge where we stood in terms of crafting a finished product, and by replicating the original song, we could compare our version with the original, we could figure out how well we were "getting it". 

There is a considerable pool of diverse talent from the Cakewalk community, as musicians and as engineers, and I consider folks here to be my giant disfunctional musical family, and there truly are some experts inmusic production here - certainly way better than me (I am pretty much a keyboard player who tries to additionally wade through the music production process). 

So, be gentle - and also, please be honest, because I will be taking any feedback to heart, to help me get better at all of this.

As far as the playing of the parts, we tried to nail those as best we could, to put our best into honoring the Dixie Dregs, and in particular, Steve Morse, who authored the original song way back in 1978 (their What If album).
 
My friend, Mike Reidy, plays the guitar parts, and the remaining instruments were played/sequenced up by me on my keyboards (violin, keys, bass, and drums).  Transcribing the drums took me almost 3 weeks, because they are different pretty much all through the song.  Then, near the end, the drums get pretty active, and that was a challenge to faithfully decipher.
 
Oh - lastly, the video was just made to give folks watching in YouTube something to look at while listening to the song, and is simply a series of pics of the Dixie Dregs, pulled from the web.  It is the music itself that I hope to get feedback on.  THANKS to anyone who read all of the above, and even MORE thanks to anyone who invests around 8 minutes into helping me and my friend, Mike, get better at music production.

I hope you guys like it - I edited this post, to now include a  link to the real Dregs studio cut of the song, down  below mine, for comparison. 
 

 

Link to real studio cut by Dregs: 

 

 

[Hidden Symmetry]

I know the time & effort involved trying to pull off a Dregs tune & I really enjoyed listening to this. I'm on laptop so can't really comment on the mix. (Maybe a maybe a touch too much room on the opening guitar?. )

It's excellent though, you all did a fantastic job!

[dcumpian]

Having never listened to the original, I can only comment on this version. I think you guys did a really good job pulling this together, with the odd rhythms and multiple instruments, I'm sure it was a huge endeavor.

To my ears, the opening guitar seemed to be slightly out of tune, not horribly so though. The mix is good, nice and open. I might have compressed things more here and there to bring things in more, but that's me, and again, I haven't heard the original mix.

Dan

[Robert Bone]

29 minutes ago, Hidden Symmetry said:

I know the time & effort involved trying to pull off a Dregs tune & I really enjoyed listening to this. I'm on laptop so can't really comment on the mix. (Maybe a maybe a touch too much room on the opening guitar?. )

It's excellent though, you all did a fantastic job!

Thanks for giving it a listen, and for the kind words.

I have edited my original post, so that it includes a link to the real song, in case you want to compare. 

Bob Bone

[Robert Bone]

42 minutes ago, dcumpian said:

Having never listened to the original, I can only comment on this version. I think you guys did a really good job pulling this together, with the odd rhythms and multiple instruments, I'm sure it was a huge endeavor.

To my ears, the opening guitar seemed to be slightly out of tune, not horribly so though. The mix is good, nice and open. I might have compressed things more here and there to bring things in more, but that's me, and again, I haven't heard the original mix.

Dan

Thanks - I added the studio cut, by the Dregs for comparison, to my initial post.  (I should have done so to start with - DOH).

[Hidden Symmetry]

38 minutes ago, Robert Bone said:

Thanks for giving it a listen, and for the kind words.

I have edited my original post, so that it includes a link to the real song, in case you want to compare. 

Bob Bone

I know the original, the intro guitar sounds thin. Again I'm  on laptop & seem to be hearing allot of room fx. It's also wider than the original too, which is more centered.

Edited February 6, 2020 by Hidden Symmetry

[David Sprouse]

Nice one Bob Bone!

[Wookiee]

Not heard the original, have not listened to the post of the original you provided @Robert Bone.

It sounds like the sort of tune one needs to hear a few times to almost learn it, I can hear it is one that would grow on you over time.

Mix and production wise it works well here on the Adam's nicely done chaps. 

[amiller]

I generally don’t comment on covers...’prefer originals here.  However, since I’m a huge Morse fan, I have to commend you on the effort and the stellar result.

EXCELLENT!😊👍

[Robert Bone]

On 2/6/2020 at 7:16 AM, Hidden Symmetry said:

I know the time & effort involved trying to pull off a Dregs tune & I really enjoyed listening to this. I'm on laptop so can't really comment on the mix. (Maybe a maybe a touch too much room on the opening guitar?. )

It's excellent though, you all did a fantastic job!

Thank you for the kind words.

[Robert Bone]

50 minutes ago, amiller said:

I generally don’t comment on covers...’prefer originals here.  However, since I’m a huge Morse fan, I have to commend you on the effort and the stellar result.

EXCELLENT!😊👍

Thanks - I will be trying to get some of my originals worked up enough to where I can record them, a bit later into this Spring.

[garybrun]

I think this was a fantastic effort.
A lot of work has gone into this for sure.
Too my ears a few things sound a little out of tune...  the guitar at the beginning??
I also believe the track could be a little more dynamic and I think you could achieve that with compression.
I am sure a good mastering engineer could make this track sparkle.

Once again ... well done.
I always state this...  but we all paint very different pictures...  these are just my personal views and what I would have done and in no way is it meant to diminish the work you have done here.

I am listening on  Focal TRIO6 BE

Edited February 9, 2020 by garybrun

[bjornpdx]

As a casual listener comparing the two versions I think the original sounds better. Not being a sound engineer I can't tell you exactly why but I did notice the stereo separation seemed a bit better which gives the original version a fuller sound. But my subjective opinion takes nothing away from what you've done. The musicianship and the sequencing are excellent, esp considering the tricky (to me) timing.