New Acoustic tune / first mix... Comments please on mix

Hey folks. I recorded this guy Saturday, and I think he has a really nice song and voice. This is just a first mix of it, and I realize there is a little too much verb on his vocal and the guitars need a little level adjustment, but what do you think.

If you're interested, here are some details. The guy wanted to record his vocals and acoustic at the same time, he really wanted to "feel the groove", so I set him up with a rhode NT1000 on the acsoutic (a Taylor something), and an AudioTechnica condenser (a 3035, I think) on his vox, and just let the two bleed. I had to do some phase inversion on the vocal mic, but I thought the technique turned out pretty well. I then setup the "lead" acoustic player in the other room with 3 mics on his acoustic (a Taylor 314CE through a CAD cardoid condensor, and a matched pair of small cardoid condensors (Superlux (yeah cheap mics, but they sounded decent)). I setup a click track for them and hit record, and this is what came out of 1 take. They were both happy with it, so we kept it. 1 take and that's all. He recorded 10 songs this way in about 4 hours, most were 1 take.

Take a listen and please critique. I can't do anything about the song, but I'll pass on any info you may have for him. I'd appreciate comments on the mix.

http://www.nspirestudio.com/songs.html
Thanks,
Nelson

Thanks Ed for the comments. The vox just has a VERY short Reverb (Waves True-Verb starting with the "STUDIO A" preset and tweaking a bit), but I think the additional reverb is coming from the extra verb on the guitar tracks. I did process the vocal quite a bit with EQ and Compression, but I had to in order to get it to seperate from the guitar since they were both recorded at the same time and the bleed over. I rolled everything off below about 1K on the vox and allowed the vox on the guitar track to kinda fill it up, but that also accomplished a lot in the ways of getting rid of the guitar on the vox track which allowed me to add some compression and bring it up a bit without affecting the guitar too much. I actually tried playing with moving the lead guitar to the left a tad, but didn't like it, however I didn't try using a delay to do it. I'll try that and see how it goes.

Thanks again.

Nelson

errrr, wait a minute...the lead guitar is on the right isn't it??? Don't tell me I've got my ears on backwards again. <G>

it sounds to much to the left ...
the lead guitar is on the right isn't it??? Don't tell me I've got my ears on backwards again. <G>

You're correct. I meant my other left, the one on the right side.

only listening on head phones. Like the guys vocals. Nice clear acoustic guitar.

Hi Ron,

I did not like the accoustic guitar sound. As it is the only intsrument I thought it has too many highs and not enough warmth. Just IMHO OK. This is the Taylor sound though and it may be how your man is strumming, not bringing in the lower strings? Maybe it's teh verb doing that, I don't know. Something I tried on one of my songs once was to play the same part twice with emphasis on the lower two strings in one part and the higher 4 in the other part and then mix the two tracks together at different volume to get the right amount of body. Of course you know my accosutic setup isn't ideal. Just my 2cts.

Hi Ron,

First of all, how'd you know my name was Ron? <g> It really is my first name...well atleast part of my first name. I actually went and looked at my profile to make sure I hadn't put it in there....weird..

I did not like the accoustic guitar sound. As it is the only intsrument I thought it has too many highs and not enough warmth. Just IMHO OK. This is the Taylor sound though and it may be how your man is strumming, not bringing in the lower strings? Maybe it's teh verb doing that, I don't know. Something I tried on one of my songs once was to play the same part twice with emphasis on the lower two strings in one part and the higher 4 in the other part and then mix the two tracks together at different volume to get the right amount of body. Of course you know my accosutic setup isn't ideal. Just my 2cts.

I understand your thoughts, but I kinda like the lighter (more pick) sound. Plus it keeps me from allowing things to get muddy !<g> Like I said earlier, it was done in one take, so there was no double tracking done. If it's a big enough issue, it could possibly be done later (much later) though.

Thanks for listening.

NB

Yes it is...REALLY. My first name is Ronald. That's why I thought it so strange. <g>