JPF Home Page Forums Lyric and MP3 Feedback MP3 Feedback Forum Little Bit Of Loving II

Ok, I am trying to get serious about this mixing thing (not necessarily good -- just serious!) I stumbled upon this whole series of 5-minute mixing tips at http://www.youtube.com/user/recordingrevolution/videos?sort=dd&view=u . There were 31 from May 2011 and now he is doing 31 more (one a day) in January. Very interesting stuff. Of course, I will be "over-doing" the lessons and going in all directions at once -- but that's half the fun.

Here is a remake of "Little Bit of Loving" from this summer's 50/90 exercise (original thread HERE. I like the original just as much -- it is just different.).

My main issue seems to be getting my main vox to sit in the mix and not be cold and stark. A lot of that has to do with singing improperly! Oh well. On this one I just did a "scratch" vocal. I like it, but I didn't use a pop filter and there is lots of noise in there (that you mostly can't hear), but I will be re-doing a lot of the lead vocal again. It needs more singing "energy". Ending needs work and I am adding more guitar to fill in some more on the left side at times.

Much more work and mixing to do, but here is an early version. I think I am going to be spending more time mixing than writing and recording!

Kevin

1/16: Based on comments, I did a slight remix -- I can't tell any difference -- ha, ha.

********************************************************
Little Bit of Loving
(c) Emmrich 2012

(Intro – chorus chords)

(chorus)
She don't make me wonder
she don't make me wait
a little bit of loving
goes a long, long way
yea, a little bit of loving
goes a long, long way

(verse)
Way down south where the magnolias grow
How did I get so far away?
I must have turned left
when I should have turned right
so I'm heading back home this night,
cause ...

(chorus again)

(lead section -- verse)

(Key Change and bridge/verse)
sun's peaking thru
another day closer to you
i wonder what tomorrow will bring
breakfast at rosie’s diner
Everyone’s smiling at this hiker
it makes me want to sing,

(chorus again and outro)

Kevin: vocals, electric guitar
Sam: vocals
BIAB: bass, drums, harmonica, acoustic guitars, banjo, piano

KEVIN--

YES, I CAN HEAR THE IMPROVEMENT--I DO HAVE A LOT OF HF HEARING LOSS--SOUNDS SHORT ON HIGHS, BUT THAT'S MY EARS--I LOOKED AT A LOT OF THE RECORDING TIPS, AND LEARNED SOMETHING FROM EACH--MUCH OF THE PROCESS IS OVER MY HEAD, THOUGH I CAN SEE THE BASIC PROCEDURES.

KEEP ON KEEPING ON!

LATER,

Mackie

Hi Kevin....Great sound...I didn't hear the original, but this sounds really good. I like the writing, too!
Take care and good luck Kevin..... -Tom

Kevin, Sounding good to me. You got a good lyric and an easy rolling melody. Kinda reminds me of the songs Don Williams used to do. Keep rolling them out.

Hey Kevin,

The whole recording has a mellow sound and good sonic space to it.

Are you scared of your own vocal ? Like most vocalists who mix their own stuff, I think you've turned it down a bit to "componsate" your own ears.

Don't be afraid to use Autotune or Melodyne, and give it some solid line compression to make it sit above the music.

The drums are crisp and have a good snap to them and everthing fits well.

I'd like a bit more tops on the track as a whole ( I'm old, and loosing top end ) and perhaps just a bit more compression on the master fader to give it some punch, but it's all sounding well balanced to my ears.

cheers, niteshift

PS - you could pan the harp and banjo each about 20, and they would find their place better in the mix.

Hi Kevin,

Seems like I remember this one...

THIS sounds really good, I like what you're doing here.
I thought it was Neil Young :-)

Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

Hi Kevin,

To me this sounds very good. I especially love the title and the chorus, nice job!

Dottie

Mackie: Thanks for the ears. I'll try and investigate the lack of "highs" (Nite mentioned that, too).

Tom: Thanks for stopping by and giving it a spin!

Dan: I always liked that Don Williams fella. Thanks for the listen and comments.

Nite: Hello. I don't think I am "scared", it is just that I can probably hear "me" just fine since I know what is coming. Being a solo home recording guy, it is hard to wear all the hats successfully (writing, recording, mixing, mastering,...). Lot to be said for getting outside opinions on everything -- so here I am (ha, ha).

After all 12 songs for the CD are "finished", I will go back and tweak the pitches as needed (using Sonar's V-Vocal plugin). I am not against having things more perfect in a "commercial" CD.

I am just learning about compression on the master fader -- so I will probably have to go through that learning curve, too! More mixing to do, also.

Thanks to all and I will come back to finish the follow-up replies.

Kevin

hey just doing a first page bump to rid the site of that long title -- sorry for the interruption!

You sure keep yourself busy, Kevin.

This sounds pretty fine to me. Really nice, mellow groove. Love that harmonica as well.

Donna

Yeah, that harp is cool...

This sounds good to my ears too.

In the first verse when you sing "night" to rhyme with "right", I was expecting instead of "night" a word rhymed with "away". I wasn't going to mention it because it works pretty well the way you have it. But then I got to the third verse where you rhyme "sing" with "bring" - which is the structure I was expecting in verse 1. So I decided to mention it.

Man, I don't really have time to get sucked into those videos you posted a link to - but I might not be able to resist!

Scott

hey Kevin,this is a smooth tune ya got.I really enjoyed the listen!

Sounds good with headphones on Kevin. I think this might be my favorite of yours. Best vocal I've heard from you. The mix sounds very good to my ears. I'd rather record, mix and master than the writing process myself.

Stevie

Calvin: Thanks for the visit and comments. I like Neil Young, so that's a fun comparison.

Dottie: Thanks for stopping by and giving it a spin.

Donna: I haven't done too much writing lately -- must be saving up for FAWM/RPM. I guess I will see you over there. Thanks for the listen.

Scott: That is an interesting observation on the rhyme scheme. The original only had a 3-line 2nd verse and every one thought it needed more, so that's why the Rosie's diner section was added. I could change that last line in verse 1 to "I best be heading home today". I'll play around with that. Your mixes always sound super, but there is always more to learn!


I'll come back for the others later.

Hey Kevin,

That mix is sounding good. I pulled it into my DAW and looked at it with Voxengo SPAN, a plug in that shows a frequency chart. The mix sounded just a little boomy to me on my good system and SPAN showed a pretty hot bass note at around 150 Khz - a problem I get from my bass at times.

I agree with Niteshift that boosting the highs above 2000 Khz a little would be worth checking out.

Overall a good song and performance and a nice mix!

Michael: Thanks for listening and commenting.

Stevie: I am working on mixing and it is interesting -- but I am not sure how long it is going to be interesting (ha, ha). Thanks for the visit.

Colin: I downloaded that Voxengo SPAN plug-in a few weeks ago, very cool. It really can show how much rumble from vocals and guitars that you can get in the sub-20hz range that you can't hear but is still there and muddies things up. I cut the bass at ~150 and added a 3db shelf at 2K. I can't really say that I am improving the mix at this point -- my ears must not be that great. Thanks for the comments and ideas.

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

It makes me want to sing!! NICE!!

Lisa

Lisa: Thanks for the visit and listen. I hope you were singing along!

Hi Kevin,

Sorry, I didn’t hear the first one so I have no comparison. Just listening through my computer speakers it’s sounded fine. So I put on the headphones to get a better listen. First off, you need a pop filter on the mic as I heard a lot of pops ether on your vocals or just hitting the mic. With headphones, the mix sounded very mono. A cool trick to add depth is to copy a track. Pan the first track hard left and the copy hard right. Now move one of the tracks a hair off the other one. This would have thickened up your backing vocals which sounded a little thin. Like I said, it’s a nice trick if you can do it.

Enjoyed the listen

Hi kevin, that's another amazing one! me too think about n. young. but wait, what do you mean "BIAB: bass, drums, harmonica, acoustic guitars, banjo, piano"? did you made all tracks with band in a box?

oh, sorry I made confusion with your other post: this must be obviously the BIAB one ;-)

Kevin, It is an improvement, and I really liked the first one. I was able to hear Sam better, Love the harp and Banjo, also the "un-congested" arrangement.

Pam

Iggy: Thanks for the visit!! The last thing I expected to hear was that it sounded mono under headphones! I think you must have listened to the one-mic, 2 guitar version (that was mono). My lead vocal on this one was a "scratch" vocal (w/o a pop filter) just to get things underway -- but I liked it and I didn't hear any 'artifacts'. I will be doing it again, anyway.

MaxG: Ha, ha -- yes there is a lot of BIAB in this one, for sure. Thanks for the extra listens and for the kind remarks.

Pamela: Thanks for the re-visit. This one is close to final, but I need to re-sing some of my parts for tuning purposes. thanks for stopping by.

Kevin