Child of Life

While my wife was in the hospital recovering from our latest edition to the family I burned the midnight oil to get this recorded. This is my first rough draft. The vocals are just for reference, it's a scratch track. I will be adding a harmony at the bridge, and some backing vocals still. All in all it turned out pretty good for a simple arrangement. It sits at 14 tracks right now. And that's with 2 mics on the acoustic, 2 on the electrics.
 
Let me know what you think so far!
"Child of Life"
http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=8006759&q=hi
 

Pretty tasty Ron. Congrats on the new addition.

Randy

In all fairness I should clarify what I mean by "first rough draft"!

I wrote this around 89-90ish, and this is the 5th time (I think 5th) that I recorded it. However, this is the first time with this arrangement. I did a go on it in Sonar 2.5xl in 2003, and I used a peavey mixer into a soundblaster card to record it using a dr-660 for drums. It had like 5 vocal tracks plus 3 live female backers, lots of guitar work, etc. I just wanted to strip it down and have a nice tone and feel. I usually scream out the bridge/chorus, but I want to keep a laid back rock feel to it this time.

I was really into Lenny Kravitz when I wrote this...so if you hear any similarites between this and "Rosemary" off of Let Love Rule...it's purely coincidental! BTW, that song and album are awesome!

Ron, this is very nice - the vox are really great.

Congratulations on the little one. I've got one that's 31 - she's still my little one.

Great tune.

Happy baby, Pops!!  That is a wonderful time of life FOR THEM!!  Seriously, congrats on the baby and the song.   It is a very pretty arrangement.   It is a very pretty song!

Congratulations on the birth of your daughter!  Cool song.  You've got a really good voice, man.  The mix sounds good to me, even you claim it's a rough draft.

Nice tune! At least on my bedroom speakers, there's a bit of 'one note bass' going on I think, in the choruses anyway, though it's always hard to judge on these speakers. The emphasized bass frequencies don't seem to be complementing the guitars so well in the choruses, and there's some kind of resonant frequency showing up on most notes. A lot of it may not be the bass itself, I dunno. Might be just needing more complentary EQ between the guitars and bass, something I always struggle with.

Nice start!! Cool to write something "in the moment...". Great vibe to this. Can't wait to hear the final version.
 
Now get back to changing those diapers!!!

Well...never say never!!!
 
 
I did some touch-ups today after I had my wife's sister check it out.  Think I can put a fork in it...that is unless someone notices any minor easy mix fixes!

I don't know about taming the low end (on my K701 cams) ... it is easy on my ears (the way I personally like mixes to be)

But this is my fav of yours to date.

(I note your judicious use of tambourines)

alkie


What a bloody awesome song..got such a late 60`s early 70`s vibe  you couldn`t have named this tune any better than Child of Life.
 
 
It actually used to have a working title of "Fly"...but there are like 10,000 songs named that!
 
 
 
 
I did some minor tweaking to soften the trails on the lead in vox, but that's about it.
 
 
 
 
I have something truly awesome going right now....I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I am doing a Beatles cover that I changed the arrangement on. It's one of those deals where it sounds WAY better than I envisioned it. So trying to stay true to the masters by not hacking this up I plan on putting in the hours to get it right! I can't wait to post it, but there are some key elements not in it yet.

Hi, Ron,

Congratulations on both the new addition and the really great song!  Nice playing, clean, full mix and dynamite vocals!  The layered harmonies in the chorus are excellent and really put the icing on the cake!

Bob

Rodar6


Wow! Very impressed. The quality of the recording/mixing hit me first and made me realise that I've got a lot to learn.

The acoustic guitar made me think of the Black Crowes for some reason, maybe 'Thorn in my Pride'

It was a pleasure listening to this!

If I do have a suggestion then maybe it would be in the last minute of the song. To add to the dynamics of the piece, have you thought about singing 'Child of Life' an octave higher in the outtro to give it that lift.

Cheers for letting me listen to a great song

Rod

Could you tell us a bit more about the plugins/settings, processes, mic's etc that were used PLS?    
 
 
 
 
 
 
Thanks for the kind words, but egads that would be a lot to go through! 
At least for vox..
On the main vox I did 3 tracks. The initial track, then I doubled it. I intended to just pull together the best parts of both, but ended up running the double at about a quarter of the volume just to fill it out. If there was a timing problem, I use the envelope tool (volume) on the secnd track. Like if held a note too lonng I just dropped the volume. If you listen to the doubled track alone it sounds pretty weird, but you can't hear it mixed together with the initial vocal. The main vox are pretty monotone, so I didn't use any compressors until it hit the bus, which helps the blend anyway. For that I used the vintage compressor plug. I used a mild verb plug (lexicon), then the sonitus delay synced to the tempo. The delay is mostly off, I used the envelope tool to control the delay mix, and automate it to trail the end of a passage. The third track just comes in at the bridge, and it harmonizes with me pushing the vocal harder.
I'm using an AKG4000B into a Mackie sattelite (onyx pre). Everything else is done in digital.
 
The backrounds were a bit harder. I did 3 tracks of different harmonies. I try not to sing too well on the backs, because frankly most backs are sung by the other players (and they don't sing too well in my experience). In other words, I guess using the kiss principle for back harmonies works for me. I then used a symphonic chiors vst and did 2 different types of settings as a fill (just the basic notes)...then mixed it way back. I tightened up the backs better now; it's funny how a minor tweak can completely change a sound.
 
The acoustic sound is not really there for me on this track, it sounds a bit brittle. I don't think there is any more I can do to it though. I used the same AKG, and an SM57 at the 12th fret about 6 or more inches away from the strings. The problem I had is the dynamics of the picking part is much quieter, so when the strumming came in, it stuck out of the mix like a sore thumb. I had to throw a compressor on it, and even backed off a bunch it still squashes it quite a bit. It would have been better if I just made different tracks for the different parts. Anyway, each mic gets it's own track. I try to optimize the charachter of each track, then send them to their own bus. I used a mild chorus, then reverb.
 
I may try that octave thing...but I have to finish the next tune first though before I can get back to it....well, hmmm...I am doing vocals tonight, maybe I'll just do it while it's set up?