Steven Wilson's Personal Shopper Remix project

[Dede]

Hi

After two "confinement months" full of collaboration and working remotely on other people's tracks, this came as an unexpected one:
Yesterday and today I worked on my remix of **Steven Wilson**'s latest track **PERSONAL SHOPPER** from his upcoming album THE FUTURE BITES

https://soundcloud.com/daniel-diaz/personal-shopper-by-steven-wilson-2020-remix-by-daniel-diaz

 

Fully  done on CbB of course

 

I got the masters from SW (18 tracks), the original recording performed by Steven Wilson and his band, Elton John guests on spoken vocals.

I used 13 of those tracks and added:

3x bowed upright basses
1x Pizzicato upright bass
1x Electric bass guitar (disco section, Drake Custom)
1x Drums (brushed) and some programming
1x Matrix 12 synth
3x acoustic guitars (Martin J15)
1x solo cello performed by my friend Damien J . Jarry

Original track here:
[open.spotify.com/album/6YhimvvGtlk2je6ZPwNeHU](https://gate.sc?url=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Falbum%2F6YhimvvGtlk2je6ZPwNeHU&token=4307a8-1-1591305719743)

My track is as long as the original (followed the structure all the way), so for those with patience and for fans of SW's work, check it out, comments and critics are most welcome. This is an unusual paradigm for me.
Cheers
dd

[David Sprouse]

I listened through a pair of  infinity speakers.  The bass sounded a little *hollow*..   Maybe a high pass on both acoustic and bass.  Elton's voice was too buried to make out the words.  remember, just another amateur's opinion. :D:D

[Dede]

Thanks for listening and for you opinion.

8 hours ago, David Sprouse said:

 The bass sounded a little *hollow*..   Maybe a high pass on both acoustic and bass. 

You mean the reason might be that I used a HPF or you suggest I should use a HPF on bass and guitar?

I did use a slow HPF on the guitar, I recorded close miked and there are like 30 tracks total, i must create some room on the low end.

TBS I did not use a filter on the basses, you hear it full range.

8 hours ago, David Sprouse said:

Elton's voice was too buried to make out the words. 

Ok, Elton was an issue. His voice as all the vocals I've got from SW are very wet on reverb and delay. Really  lot of fx on those stems.

I did many different tries with volume envelopes to make it as loud as possible without being annoying. When it was too loud you could hear the rev and delay a lot and it was really annoying, he is not really singing, just dropping words so it made no sense to have him upfront like a singer.

But I hear you cause I know I hesitated on that point. I will surely re think that passage now that you say you can't understand some words. Off course I did understand, I listened to that track solo and  dozens of times mixing it, 3dB up, 3dB down etc.....

 

Thanks a lot

cheers

dd

 

[Dede]

10 hours ago, David Sprouse said:

  Elton's voice was too buried to make out the words.  remember, just another amateur's opinion. :D:D

Yeah, listened again "the day after" and you were right,  just replaced the mix with a new one with a louder Elton. Added like 6 dB to his track.
You were right.
Tweaking a 10 minute long mix is compulsory , isn't it? I never upload "MIX1" but with this one I was over exited, and just went online with my first try. Not good. 

I'll probably keep tweaking the beast when I have time.

Love

dd

[David Sprouse]

I turned off my subwoofer and it wasn't as bad.  Whatever was doing it was in that nether region of the bass.  What I meant is slap a HPF on both the acoustic guitar and the bass,  I like acoustic guitars (and bass) to sound present ,  like you're hearing them live.  My mixes sound atrocious so take this with a grain of salt.

Edited June 5, 2020 by David Sprouse

[Mahavishnu]

This sounds fine through my headphones. If anything there needs to be more bass in the last section. I'm mainly pleased you are promoting Steven Wilson who to my mind, oxymoronically,  is grossly underrated. I'm impressed you've spent so much time on this track - kudos. i also wasn't aware that one could download individual SW tracks. I would love to work on 'Perfect Life' and cut out the excess verbiage which, without, to my mind would sound heavenly.