For all the Reasons Why

[RexRed]

New song, let me know what you think. 

[mark skinner]

 Got to be your best vocals yet .. Nice and smooth , it's got a little bit of Stephen Bishop "On and On" feel , and a great crooner tone. Fantastic job ..  mark

[RexRed]

Thank you Mark for the really nice comment, I am not sure if it is done yet. I hear lots of things I want to fix but it is done enough to let it out there I guess. Best to you! 

[jack c.]

good job recording.how about a string synth memorymoog and more other strings here and there.jack c.

[RexRed]

Thanks Jack for the excellent suggestions, I think more fill instruments would be nice in this song. The vocals took me so long to do that I released it on ReverbNation early.

I will take a look and probably indeed, add some strings and a Moog would be nice too.  

[Max Arwood]

Is this with the new equipment?  It sounds good to me. A tiny dry. Nice song - Good writing!

Max Arwood

 

[RexRed]

Yes Max, this is with the new audio interface but not the new mic. 

I am still having issues (though much less) with my mic. 

The new audio interface is very tight sounding. And it does not lock up Cakewalk constantly like the Roland did.

Again I say, maybe it was my box was defective but that is the way it has always performed. So maybe I got a bad one from the get-go.

I got by with it by just constantly rerecording lines.  

I much less frequently have to rerecord due to inaccurate transients.

I think my mic is the final problem to fix this. 

Maybe it just took me a long time to really hear these problems and finally do something about it.

I will be revisiting this song and I will look into more reverb and adding some more supporting embellishments.

It has parallel reverb so it is just a matter of upping the fader.

 

[KSband]

Very nice! Pretty song, good vocals. Another hooky song, very good.

[RexRed]

Thanks, Mark, Jack, Max and Kurt! Your suggestions really helped out a lot!.

I went looking for a free VST Mood knockoff and IK Multimedia (Fender) is giving away one free! 

All you have to do is create an account download and install their installer manager (offer is only for February).

First I tried adding more hall reverb to the vocals and it just got lost

So I instead added some convolution room reverb (rematrix)

That worked.

Then I had an idea, I panned the guitar chords to the hard right

and added new Lounge Lizard Rhodes chords and panned them hard left.

It balanced it off great but something was off.

I tried all of the lounge lizard presets and still was not happy

So I added Dimension Pro and copied my new midi chords to the Dimension midi track.

I first added the Ballad Piano the top preset and it was still no right

Then I added the Chime and Wave preset and wow! It was bassier than then Rhodes and it grounded the song.

I fine tuned the mix a bit and there it is.

Thanks for you help!!!

 

[Max Arwood]

Yes I like it better. Do you want more? Ok I take that for a yes. 
1) Shorten reverb length about 1/3-1/2 second shorter. 
2) High shelf on the snare about 3k then down 2?db listen to it and add a little more bottom on the snare. 
 

Great job!!

Max Arwood

[RexRed]

I hear what you are saying about the snare. I think you are saying the snare should be lowered on the upper end and given a bit more bass on the lower end.

If that is what you are saying, I agree.

The only problem is that snare and bass drum are a single unit sample I got off splice.com

Now, I think I could use drum replacer to isolate the snare drum and then I could add effects to it independently. 

I just don't remember how to use drum replacer and the last time I tried using it I failed at isolating the drum I wanted to affect.

I will have to look at videos on YouTube to refresh my memory.

I actually wanted a hand clap instead of the snare the wave currently has and found the perfect wave for it.

But I tried to use the hand clap additively and it threw off the balance of the drum sample.

I ran this drum sample through Ozone 9 and this is the setting it came up with using the dynamic auto detect function.

I don't' always leave that as is but I did in this case other than cutting out some lower end near 20hz.

I will look into your changes Max.

Please let me know if you indeed think I should "lower" the snare at 3k about 2db or so. It does seem a bit hot to me and adding some bass to it would warm it up and make it more palatable.

 Thanks for your insight Max!

   

[Max Arwood]

It's not going to break the song! Yes bottom EQ and 3K top.  Take an EQ plugin and make a bell curve raise it up 6-8db then run it up and down till you fine that frequency. Then you can lower it.  Splitting drums is hard sometimes. If it's just the 2 sounds - if you do midi stuff you could recreate in  Addictive Drums 2  or EZDrummer. This is a lot of trouble! Might not be worth it. It is good practice LOL!! The notes won't be that hard to match but sometimes the groove /feel is hard to match.  Yes - drum replacer could help keep the groove!

 

Max Arwood