Drifting Away - reworked/remixed in CbB

[The Downstream]

A sloppy recording from 2012 that started with a practice room first attempt to record drums with a 4 mic Glyn Johns technique mixed into a two channel audio interface. The kick and snare were mixed too low to hold up when any other instruments were overdubbed, and the tempo is all over the place. I've always thought it is one of my better songs, but the original recording wasn't great. I have been using the original stems to test new DAWs over the past month before settling on Cakewalk. Today I had a go at it in Cakewalk, reinforcing the kick and snare by isolating them with eq as best as I could from one of the drum channels and trying out Drum Replacer. I also did a new lead vocal, since I was an even worse singer in 2012. Back then, my friend David played the drums, bass, backing vocals and the three 12 string Rickenbacker parts on this. I was mostly focused on the (poor) engineering while we were recording and just played the acoustic guitar and sang the lead vocal. It is still sloppy and has a live feel to it, but it sounds a lot better than what I did almost 7 years ago. And better than what I have done in Reaper and Mixcraft over the past few weeks. Any suggestions to clean it up more would be appreciated.

Edited January 4, 2019 by The Downstream

[daryl1968]

it is a great song with some very nice parts.

Sound quality-wise, it sounds like it has been over compressed - how did you master it?

[The Downstream]

I had done some basic compression (a master bus preset from Presswerk) and then limiting with Boost 11. I enabled the BandLab website to use its auto mastering when uploading and publishing it there to post here. I'm coming to realize it smashes things a bit. I may switch to the no mastering option. 

[Will]

Don't know what a stem is, but I thought the song itself was pretty good overall. I think you have a good voice that would benefit from a better mic. The Ricks sound real good. Like you say, the drums could be better, but they aren't bad. You've got something pretty nice happening here in my opinion. I would keep at it though. It's too a good a song to not make it as good as you can. It really is a good song with a great feel to it.

[The Downstream]

Regarding the over-compression of the mastering, I made a couple small changes to the mix and uploaded it to BandLab without using their mastering this time. Definitely less squashed (I updated the version in the player in the first post).

 

And Will, thanks for the comments. I did use a cheap dynamic vocal mic when I redid the vocal for this reworking. I moved 6 months ago, and I stuck my condenser mic in storage and have been too lazy to bring it n and set it up. And I will definitely be re-recording this song at some point with the band I play with now - although it will be less jangly without David's Rickenbacker 12 string.

[Lynn Wilson]

This is a terrific song - the kind that I like to listen to.  The main thing that stood out to me was the brightness of the acoustic and electric guitars.  Perhaps a db or two of 200-350hz would warm up the acoustic.  I agree with Will about changing mics, but other than that, this song is a gem.

[James G]

This is a good song, I like how the vocal and guitars fit together, really nice. I would get rid of Boost 11 straight away, it's not doing the mix any favours. Agree with Lynn about the brightness on the guitars.

With a little work this will be very nice, cool live feel to it.

[thegaltieribrothers]

Hi,

Great song, nice vocals + love the hook.

Thanks for sharing.

Good Job!

regards

paul

 

[Starise]

This has a nice retro kind of sound garage band sound to it IMHO.  I like that real genuine feel it has.