vocal and guitar recording

[lebouche]

Hi I just finished a 13 hour shift..in the evening I mixed two takes.

These are of a fairly soulful singer/guitarist who's agent wants a demo to get her gigs...I however want it to sound like Rick Rubens work.
The tracking was done before christmas and I cant remember the vox mic but its prob an NTK the guitar is NT1a.
The guitar and vox were tracked seperatly and I have used four eq's on the nylon string and colourtone.
I was considering posting the whole chain to see if people could tell me what faux pas I am prob committing.

Here are the two songs, one being 'Never too much' by Luther Vandross the other being 'Time of your life' Greenday.
If anyone can be bothered as per usual feedback would be most appreciated.

Thanks:)

[Scratchy Potts]

This Chicks got a nice timber to her voice!!


:Twisted: I`d like to rip her knickers off with me teeth an,,,a..:icon_eek: Oops!!...wrong board!!!

"Cough"!!....aherm!...:Roll eyes: ...guitar sounds a bit scratchy and uneven to my ears,but that dont mean Jack shit!
could use a little comp on both the voice and guit ????

[dikledoux]

I'm with Scratchy that the guitar sounds... um... scratchy. In the first song at least. I like it better in the second song. Maybe take the guit and re-amp it along with what you have to get some spread on the guitar part and then you can push the vocal against it instead of having to keep it under the vocals.

If it was me, I'd lose most of the reverb and get the whole thing MUCH more up front and warm. The girl rocks, but the reverb makes the stuff sound lonesome. I wanna hear her RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME knocking this shit out. And she is - but the mix has her all the way across an empty bar from me and the bartender, the only people in the club.

Does that make any sense?

dik

[lebouche]

Great, thank you both...thsi is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I stripped the guitar of most its warmth because it was so boomy but I dont really have a clue with nylon stringed. I'll take some more reverb off and add compression to both.

:Thumbsup: Thanks v much for your time!

[lebouche]

Hello Mr Scratchy and Dikledoux...
I'm too bored at home doing nothing so I gave these a crack on my cans at home. Just putting up one track though.
Added little comp, more bottom end, shorter reverbs and less of them.
In retrospect I'm thinking the NT1 may be a poor choice for a classical guitar...anyway, if you get time have a listen.
Thanks!

[airborne]

Hey mouth. Her style of guitar playing and her voice make me forget what you're doing recording wise and take me for a ride. Nice and soulful..

[lebouche]

Hey mouth. Her style of guitar playing and her voice make me forget what you're doing recording wise and take me for a ride. Nice and soulful..

Well...I'm not sure if that means the recording is bad...or good cos its good enough for you to enjoy....
hhhmmmmmmnnnn:Confused:
But thanks either way for listening.

[airborne]

It means it's good. The listener is meant to hear the music, not the engineering. When you hear the engineering it usually means it's bad engineering..

[dikledoux]

I like this version better, personally. If the intention is for her to have a demo to get gigs, you're done. I don't think you're edging up on the Rick-Rubin (en?) feel much, but you'd likely have to reconsider the mic choices and other stuff to get to that as you've mentioned before.

She's strong, no doubt.

dik

[Scratchy Potts]

Yea I like this girls voice!..realy cool,,shame about the Acustic tho!
but as Diks said if it`s just a Gig Demo it`s ready to go...:Thumbsup:

[lebouche]

What would you have done? Stereo mics?
My brief was to get her as she sounds live..
I was wondering if that style would be more suited to a steel string...
Heres the guitar raw...maybe you could tell me if its worth saving i.e. if you think it could be eq'd it better and how. I know its just a demo but I would like to learn from this...
Thanks again for your time, it really is much appreciated:)

[dikledoux]

If you were going for aggressive Rick Ruben, I'd have gone more for something more like this:
Da Link (http://dikledoux.com/mp3_files/acousticguit.mp3)

Granted, it's phasey sounding, but that's because there were some resonant freq's that required some pretty retarded EQ to make them go before I started just destroying with compression and saturation.

But you get the basic idea.

Thing is, if your choice of mic/placement/room gives you a ton of extraneous stuff (like your raw track did) to FIX before you start screwing with it, you don't have as much latitude to destroy things in a good way. You end up just trying to fix rather than build from a foundation.

dik

[lebouche]

Thanks man thats great. What you did sounds great and is 10x better. I'm gonna use your example as a guide.
I think the room is pretty fucked...its a 10x10 booth, I made the idiotic mistake of building it a perfect square:lol: I was in a hurry and knew F all about recording...just had a pc and about 2 mics and a bunch o instruments. Its got two layers of carpet in it and some auralex. I figured if I'm gonna work with such a small space I dont really want to hear much of the walls so I'd dampen them. It works well for vox but sucks the life out of drums...I've recently put in a few wooden panels to liven it up a little.
Thanks again:)

[lebouche]

This may bore you but just finished...its 3.52 am here and I'm tweeking on cans...I started to hear a high freq in the vox and found it so rolled a little top off. This version is really soft on the ears maybe too much so.
oh...n heres her myspaz too.

www.myspace.com/catherinetaylordawson

[dikledoux]

There ya go. Done.

:Thumbsup:

dik

[lebouche]

Thanks Dik....just heard it on my studio speakers...cant belive how loud the vox is!! Fuck Fuck Fuck..
anyway i think its generally better so thanks a bunch.
D

[dikledoux]

I noticed the vocs were pretty up-front... but it didn't seem out of control loud. And the guitar is aggressive enough under that to hold its own. Just my personal take.

dik