gcolbert
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The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
I make no claim of having any talent and have no professional ambitions. This is a song my Wife and I are working on for our young Grandkids. I'm looking for advice and suggestions (other than replacing the performers) to improve the sound as a part of a learning experience on my part. Your comments and suggestions are more than welcome. The Pony Man (Gordon Lightfoot cover) Folk (Edited per suggestions) The Pony Man Glen
post edited by gcolbert - 2011/12/04 21:40:49
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RobertB
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/03 22:59:12
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Glen, I've learned to take the Soundcloud waveforms with a grain of salt.
I took the liberty of recording this to an audio track in SHS6, and it looks fine.
As for the song itself, not too bad. Cindy's track has a lot of energy in the 2k to 4k range, making it sound kind of brittle. A significant dip here (around 8-10dB) softens it up quite a bit, and she sounds much more natural. A lot of that may be coming from the reverb. I'd be inclined to dial that back some.
VoxengoSPAN is an excellent, free tool for helping to see where you have too much energy, or not enough, in a mix.
Your vocal track is hardpanned far left. It sounds like you are off to the side of the room. I think if you were to pan your track about 50% left, and hers about 30% right, it would feel more like you are sharing the stage. The BGV's sound about right.
Nice tone and separation on the guitars.
This is a happy little tune. I think the grandkids will like it.
My Soundclick Page SONAR Professional, X3eStudio,W7 64bit, AMD Athlon IIx4 2.8Ghz, 4GB RAM, 64bit, AKAI EIE Pro, Nektar Impact LX61,Alesis DM6,Alesis ControlPad,Yamaha MG10/2,Alesis M1Mk2 monitors,Samson Servo300,assorted guitars,Lava Lamp Shimozu-Kushiari or Bob
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drumstixkev
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/04 18:07:06
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Hey Glen,
I like to think I'm still a kid so I really enjoyed it. I like the arrangement and performance. It has a very live/folky warm quality. Mix wise I think Robert has hit it on the head. Love the sleigh bells. GREAT JOB!
Kev
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gcolbert
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/04 21:44:59
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Robert - Thanks so much for the suggestion. I cut the EQ per your recommendation and it sounded spot on like Cindy. Then I noticed that I had a couple of other equalizers in the chain and cleaned than up. Now I'm not sure what I did to Cindy's vocals. Possibly I need to add more EQ at 2-4K? I also cut the reverb back quite a bit. (modified version is posted on Soundcloud).
Kev - Thanks for the compliments. I'm having a lot of fun with this, but it is a pretty steep learning curve.
Glen
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Janet
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/04 22:13:32
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Glen, the first song I recorded on Sonar was for my first grandson 4 years ago! :) I can totally appreciate the steep learning curve!!! (just ask Bob who helped me IMMENSELY that first year or so.) I'm surprised he's still sane!
Anyway, this is quite nice. Great tune and you're great singers. Don't say you don't have talent. I like the guitar playing too. Keep it up and don't give up! :)
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RobertB
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/04 22:33:58
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Janet
Glen, the first song I recorded on Sonar was for my first grandson 4 years ago! :) I can totally appreciate the steep learning curve!!! (just ask Bob who helped me IMMENSELY that first year or so.) I'm surprised he's still sane!
Sanity is overrated. I tend to dance around the edges of it. 
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Janet
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/04 22:38:15
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You wear near-insanity quite well then, my friend. :) Sorry again for my contributions to yours!
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Danny Danzi
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/04 23:15:45
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Glen: I think you're way too hard on yourself man. The only thing I hear on this that could make it a bit better would be some of the vocal timing/deliveries. Like one of you may be out of time either with each other or the song timing. But the production itself...is perfect for what you wanted to achieve. Of course you've already received good advice on some other stuff, so I won't touch on that.
The more I listen...is the kick drum done by hand maybe? I think that may be one of the contributing factors in the timing. Did ya play any of this to a click track or anything? If not...it's a really good habit to get into because it really does keep things tight. Like, you could have used the Sonar Step sequencer for the drums/percussion and it would have automatically timed it up for you. That's really my only crit without being super picky man. Sure there are always things we can do to our mixes to make them better. But I usually don't mention things like that unless they really leap out at me...and what IS leaping out to me is the timing thing. Other than that, this is really well done and you and your wife should be proud. I've heard engineers with supposed years of experience produce mixes that don't sound half as good as this...honest. Just see what can be done about the timing if you can in the future...but other than that...this is a keeper. Thanks for sharing it...really enjoyed the song, the instrumentation and the vocals. :)
-Danny
My Site Fractal Audio Endorsed Artist & Beta Tester
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RobertB
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/05 00:55:58
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Gotta agree with that. This version is much better, more intimate. It's a lot softer. Now you are singing side by side. And that tasty little slide action on the one guitar is more exposed. I didn't really hear that before. You could possibly boost the vocals slightly around 5k to brighten it just a tad, but really, i doubt the kids would notice. Yeah, this is a keeper. On a side note, I have a taste for a candy apple now.
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gcolbert
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/05 16:39:59
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Danny - Thanks for pointing out the timing problems. I did use the metronome while recording the scratch track, but added the kick drum manually to make it easier to follow while doing the other tracking. I really needed to be more careful here than I was. I redid the drums today using the step sequencer instead of trying to do it by hand. You know, it was actually a lot faster that way. Listening to the old and the new drums soloed reminded me that Cindy and I flunked out of two consecutive semesters of introductory dance. Must have been my fault With the drums in time I can hear a lot of other places where the timing needs work. Probably time to redo the vocal tracks. Robert. Thanks for the guidance on this. I did kick up the EQ at around 5Khz and it does address the unclarity that I was hearing. I'm trying to be more conservative in making these adjustments after the last mess I created trying to clean things up (plus paying more attention to what I put into the chain).
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Danny Danzi
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/05 16:59:58
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Glen: yeah, unfortunately once we fix a drum track...we find other things that are a little iffy in the mix. This is why I always use the step sequencer for my click tracks/real tracks rather than that annoying click click click thing. It helps me to have a full kit with a beat playing and then if I construct a drum kit after that...I always know where one is. I can copy and paste chorus vocals that are the same later in a tune...I can always line up things that I didn't play in time right to the beat...or just replay them. There are lots of things where this can help us. The problem doing it after things are recorded is...well, you hear your other things that need to be fixed. But it's a good thing...for one, you'll probably never do the manual thing again unless you have a click (which is ok, you can always use the auto-quantize feature during midi record and it will fix you up in real time too) and for two, you'll probably never have timing issues as apparent as you found in this. You still did a great job no matter how we talk about this bro...seriously. I only say things that are obvious to me and hope I help out. I spent a lifetime of doing manual things without a click that came back to haunt me later. Yeah SS is so easy to use, it's probably quicker than doing ti manually. Press the buttons, get it right, slide the clip out until it's long enough...hahaha...I so love that feature. :) At any rate...well done Glen...I still enjoyed this song whether you fixed anything or not. :)
-Danny
My Site Fractal Audio Endorsed Artist & Beta Tester
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Guitarpima
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/05 17:48:28
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This is quite nice. I like it.
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BIABDude
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/06 18:38:04
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bandontherun19
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Re:The Pony Man (Lightfoot Cover)
2011/12/06 18:48:31
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I hadn't heard this cover before, but I guess it's better for them than Sundown? :-)
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