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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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And in the spirit of accountability and sharing stuff rather than just sitting on it not-quite-finished, here is the first thing I've "finished". I could definitely do a million vocal takes and go nuts on mixing and I've honestly done none of that here because that's not what this recording was for. God knows I haven't even thought about mastering...
Anyhoo.. comments invited and very much welcome!
The timing isn't all 100% perfect but the energy is about right and after a couple of takes I genuinely only had to fix a relative handful of notes - a couple mishits and a tiny bit of alignment of kick & snare where I got messy. I'm absolutely determined not to quantise as that kills energy however you do it.
Soundwise it's Logic's default SoCal kit with a little bit of EQ & tuning tweaks. That's then sent to master compression and reverb for the whole kit but nothing else.
Next on my to-try list is separating out the drums into separate tracks, not least just to learn how all that actually works.
Small steps but I'm getting there and v happy with progress.
I decided to try and get some more realistic sounding drums on my Cover Challenge L entry. I don't play drums so I had to type it in on the midi roll thing hence very quantised, in order to do that I had to look up what drum tab was all about and then added it all on one track based on a youtube video tutorial on how to play the drums for the song I was doing. After a while I decided, like you, that having each part of the drums on a different track would be a better bet, as it was really hard for me to amend the velocities etc when there were so many notes on the same beats etc, it was certainly easier to edit each one specifically with tuning and EQ and volume etc, for example having a high velocity to smack the cymbal but have the volume low without having to lower everything else. Also I could technically have used a different drum kit on the plugin I was using on each track if I wanted, if i liked the kicks and snares on kit a but preferred the cymbals of kit 2.
I then put them all through an fx channel I think, which had the post effects, reverb and comp i think. I don't know how convincing they are, probably about as convincing as me barking and telling everybody i'm now a dog, but it was an interesting thing to mess with.
Previously I've either not used percussion sounds at all, or just used a deliberately unrealistic electronic drum type sound
https://www.justgiving.com/page/pianomatt-1000lights
For your velocity editing thing in reaper at least you can select the notes on the piano roll and then move the selection using the "graph" view at the bottom if you want to adjust single notes on the same grid line as others.
I think throwing away the utility of seeing the whole part on one midi track to get round the velocity thing would be kinda shooting yourself in the foot and I also think that it would tend to steer you away from anything where multiple kit pieces interacted with each other like say a groove where you are para-diddling between hi-hat and snare etc. Or fraction fills (althgouh you guys prob dont care about those). Anything linear really.
of weeks
I think it could be a bit more polished, but I don't think the tune wants to be overly polished. Maybe just a touch more compression or something to pull it all together?
It's all there though.
It took me 117 attempts to get anywhere near that good.
It's Ryan Adams' My Winding Wheel, which I've loved for a very long time, and was the first thing I ever learned in Open G iirc.
I spent a lot more time on this (i.e. up to 5 takes on a couple of elements!).
- Stereo acoustic with Rode NT1 and Beyer M88TG pointed at my Bourgeois dread and panned quite wide.
- Vocals have choky bit of EQ and a tiny bit of distortion in parallel just to give some beef, plus a little bit of snapback on the lead but not the harmonies
- Drums are Roland TD17 MIDI-ed into Logic's Roots kit - admittedly it's only a snare so not that critical here!
- Bass is my trusty P straight into Logic's SVT sim
- Electric is my recently-acquired 355 into Helix Native emulating a Klon into Deluxe Reverb with an AC30 cab. Again a hint of slapback on the solo
I also did a little bit of automation and spent a little bit more time on the overall mix, then ran it into a master comp, reverb and Logic's default Mastering option, which seemed to help it sound quite cohesive. I fully admit I don't fully understand this last bit but it's better with it than without. At least it does right now - I'll see how I feel in the morning...
https://soundcloud.com/stickyfiddle/my-winding-wheel-20240328
Impressed!
I do enjoy this stuff when I actually get time. Still a shitload I know exists but no idea how to achieve, but I'm determined to improve and learn something with every recording
Not Strong Enough is a boy genius song - Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Davis. Absolutely gorgeous song and perfect for the sort of vibe I know how to deliver.
Nude is from Radiohead's In Rainbows and honestly a massive challenge, between the bonkers exposed vocal, sparse arrangement and general gorgeousness of any latter day Radiohead recording. I'm very happy with how this has turned out, though I'm sure I'll spot extra bits I didn't do the next tie I listen to the original.
What's actually really nice is I can already hear a shitload of stuff in the first one recorded in April that I would do very differently now, having learned a huge amount of how to actually engineer & mix to make things sound good in the last couple of months. Which is great but also makes me want to go and have a second go at the mix from scratch. Anyway, maybe in a few weeks...
As ever, all played by me using Roland TD17 into one of Logic's onboard kits, ES-355 into Helix Native for guitar and custom P bass with flats again via HX Native. Vocals are all me through a Rode NT1.
And though I'm learning how to pitch correct for my band's promo stuff I'm also mixing in parallel I promise I didn't do any on these
https://soundcloud.com/stickyfiddle/notstrongenough-20240611
https://soundcloud.com/stickyfiddle/nude-20240628