Finally squeezed another one out :-) Put Down the Stone

Well, howdy doody, Dean managed to squeeze another one out. It took long enough. Though, actually, by my standards I've not worked on this one very long at all. Something has definitely shifted for me because this one is so far ahead of anything I've managed to do before that it's a pretty quantum leap and it's the first one I'm really proud off I think. It's a nice suicidally depressing tune :-) But a beautiful type of suicidal hopefully.
 
A new mix, based on feedback (on SoundCloud this time):
http://soundcloud.com/writhingbabymonsterheads/putdownthestone     
 
The original mix:
http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/TmpAudio/Final/PutDownTheStone-Final.mp3
 
There's almost no 'mixing' at all. There's one compressor in the whole thing, on the overall drum buss, just tapping it down ever so slightly. There's EQ, reverb, and some delay, and by my previous standards not a lot of EQ either. That's what I'm mostly proud of, that it took very little mix effort to get it to sound like this.
 
Mix-wise, it's very much in the Dark Side of the Moon vein. I don't flatter myself that it's at that level of quality, but just that it's a quite uncompressed and dynamic mix, where the 'musicians' are controlling their own dynamics while playing. There are a couple of in/out clip fades, and a couple sibilances notched out of the lead vocal, but that's it in terms of automation. As with such mixes, best to listen on good speakers at a comfortably loud volume.
 
All guitars, BTW, are an early 70s Vibrochamp, which I have just fallen in love with. It's da 6 watt bomb.
 
Anyway, comments and criticisms welcome.

Musical constipation is probably pretty wide spread around here I imagine. I guess no one makes Milk of Imagination. Well, to be fair, I guess Mother Nature, Inc makes a few products in that category, but they have pretty strong side effects.

Yeh, a couple other people mentioned that. Probably a speaker specific thing, but I could adjust that. I'm already notching it down a bit in the presence frequencies, so probably just a little widening of the filter would do it.

Dean,
I enjoyed all the nice chord changes that you have woven into this one.

I like when I read "almost no mixing at all". Gives it a certain purity. You have a great 'front-end' sound on this one!

This has a very mellow, balanced flow to it, and as other's have stated, PF influences are very evident.

Listening a 2nd time and I like that clean picking tone.

I was thinking from a creative aspect..some bgv's oooh's/ahhhh's would go nicely with this.

I like that bass line too..very understated, but holds down the fort.

No crits from me..this works very well to my ears.

Larry

Nice tune. Especially like your voice and the changes. I would loose the intro up to like 44 sec though. Just that little drum fill there, song starts, you start singin:) But, then again, some folks around here don't like vocals comin in too abruptly:)
And, the paddy synth could come down a bit. 
Very nice. 

Thanks, guys (and gals.) Being from the Floydian school, a mere sub-minute intro is already kind of quick on the draw :-) Real Floydian men don't even have the first chord change until two minutes in!

Thanks. I get the Neil Young thing a lot. Not a bad thing of course, at least not for me, maybe a bit insulting to Neil :-)

Nice work dr. oddey (that's who you'll always be to me !)

Very atmospheric amd easy to listen to. I thought the swirly pad sound was a little loud and the vox could stand being a liitle more prominent. I guess that adjusting the pad level would prolly sort that at the same time. Minor nitpick aside I enjoyed it.

Great mix and production!  Nice mellow mood and concept/lyrics/instruments all gel very nice.  Good job!  thanks for comments on Abandoned Orphanage, mike

OK, I updated the first post with a new mix, based on feedback. I also this time broke out the outboard gear as well. It's got a little more automation. I removed more of the low end from the synthy parts and gave it back to the guitars and bass, which is kind of nice because that Vibrochamp sounds so nice and this way you can hear that lovely breakup. And I tamed the spacey synth pad down.

Anyway, it's both better and not as good, as I guess is usually the case. It gained things, and it lost some of its youthful exuberance perhaps as well in the process. At least that's my take. Do you think it's better or worse? It's I think 'more professional', but I don't always equate that with better.
 
The outboard is basically just on the drums. The compressor and EQ that was on the drum bus was moved to outboard, plus I put another compressor box on the overheads where there wasn't one before. And the overall mix went through the 1968, with the needles just twitching, but pushing up the output for most of the final gain to CD levels in order to get some of that tubiness of the 1968's output stage.
 

Yes, very Floydian.  Is that a word?  Though it's sounds more pre-Dark Side to me.  It's more Obscured/Atom Heart/Meddle sounding.  Your voice is good.  It reminds me of Stuart Murdoch from Belle & Sebastion and I mean that in the most complimentary way.  I listened to both mixes.  I liked the first mix better except for the swirly thing.  The first mix has more "presence" than the other mix.  The intro is a little long though the Floyd always did have long intros but you know what they say, "don't bore us, get to the chorus".  Nice job Dean.

didn't find the intro too long. then again, i rarely write a song less than 6 mins long! excellent (listening to mix 2), pretty perfect mix, drums could come up a tad, but otherwise i love the swirling guitars and pad. in defiance of the PF tag, i'd also add some of the shoegazing bands from the early 90s, such as Slowdive and Lush...excellent from start to finish.

love the tune....although I would use a different veb on the vox...the "room" seems too small for the tune....I'd open that up some..give it a more mystical feel...but I (like you) have a love to longer-floydish tunes so yea...lol...a 2 min. intro it like a drag race to me..lmao..but again each ear has its own delight!


cool tune and thanks for the share!~

Thanks guys! And yeh, I could see actually rolling off more of the vocal's low end and adding a separate, lush reverb with a lot of diffusion to sort of put it into a bigger space.

But, at this point, this one has worn out its welcome, so I'm going to move on and put these lessons learned to work in the next one. I have a great lyric worked out, I just need to come up with something musican the serves it. And it won't even be suicidally depressing, a big change for me.