This took 5 months. How's it sounding?

Bottle it Up= Cover song, not original, sung by Emily

  This is one of 6 songs we recorded with my band "Uncle Ruclkel" for Emily the bass players 17 year old daughter who is attending music college this year.
I used it as a learning tool to get my brain around all the features of Sonar.
We recorded live drums/bass/scratch vocal/ guitar. Overdubbing some keyboards ,accordion, dobro and misc. guitar parts . Emily was home for Christmas so I had her finish the vocals. Her dynamics were all over the map so took a lot of editing to even them out.
I like the mix on this song, Bottle it Up. I will need to re do most of the others.
So, I think this is good, but as this is a learning tools for me any feedback that will lead to improvements is much appreciated.  Thanks in advance for taking the time to listen.

Recorded live to Sonar 7 Tascam us1641 interface, Win XP 32 bit.   July 2010
Mixed last week and mastered in Wave Lab 5.

Bottle it up = http://www.soundclick.com...&q=hi&newref=1

Main song Page if you have time for more songs too.
http://www.soundclick.com...ult.cfm?bandID=1119880

http://www.soundclick.com...ult.cfm?bandID=1119880     Fixed link edit

Try this or I also post above main page thanks kroneborge

http://www.soundclick.com...ult.cfm?bandID=1119880

This is probably the link you want

http://www.soundclick.com...&q=hi&newref=1

When the player opens you can grab the link from within it.

Agreed that her vocals are a bit over the place, maybe a bit more compression?


As far as the song as a whole, it's played decent, and overall the mix is ok, but I'm just not really feeling it that much (course it's not my style of music, so take that with a grain of salt).

Thanks,

rsp@odyssey.net


The vocals need to be clearer. She probably could use some work on her mic technique, but you can make some adjustments to clear things up some. An eq boost in the higher freq might do it, and perhaps a little roll off in the low end and mid lows also. It's a good performance, but her track has no sheen to it. Cool song.

Randy

My comments would echo Randy's -
Nice song but the vocal makes me have to listen to hard to hear and understand what she is saying. 

Do you actually want my review? After 5 months I think somone lost the mix. To me the vocals should have been at about 2dB louder (and if that can not be done - the rest down about 2dB). It seems like a pretty good song, but her soft parts of the vocal should be what the mix goes by. Of course I would have added more low end also, but then a mix is all subjective anyway. The vocals needed to be a bit louder to me.
 
Thanks for your time, but I am an old crazy one perhaps.
 
________________________________
 
new RME Babyface with old computer,
and what do I know?, along with Sonar 7.
----- old sound card blues - if anyone even
calls that thing a sound card. Poorly done also,
in a hurry for reasons explained above. (crazy old person)
But redo and redo and redo is an option also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXkDneBKOmo
and now I get to do it all again, along with a bad video.
Playing a musical instrument is a state of mind where a person can be insane!
 
 

I like this tune. The snare could use a bit more snap, but that just may be me.

As said above the vox seem 'dull' but she has the chops for sure.

ok...first let me throw out here...I love this lil ladies phrasing..very interesting and she takes loads of chances...and if she can sand-out all the lil rough ends she would be a great leading end to some very cool music....btw I really like the way the band worked together so that whole thing seemed to be in place...

second point...knowing when to call it quits w/a tune is really important! What we've done (on Distant Towers songs) is draw a magical line in the sand at the 80% mark. In other words once we think a tune is at (or above) above 80% of "As good as we can get it" we call it a day. We all assume that our deficiencies be it performing, recording or mixing/mastering, lack of gear and/or time hide/hold that last 20%. I'm no suggesting that this is "right" for anyone else but it just give us a place to "Let go" and start anew. But here's the whole point to my comments...we NEVER leave any KNOWN glaring issues unattended. So thats my first point of attack when I'm mixing.....to fix glaring issues...and in this case is seems that it was the main vocal part(s) based on what I'm reading and hearing.  Getting her vocals 100% where you need them is 'prolly the most important element for this tune...your very very close so your not at all wasting your time!!

And now to the tune....it seems to me (to my ears) that you got everything above the 80% mark...everything seems to sit well....unfortunately I'm on the road so I'm on earbuds (albeit quality ones) and not monitors so I can't give you the very best listen...but I'm thinking now you just need to keep squeezing her vocals to bring them forward in the mix...this is a damn cool song..so dont give up on her!!!

Take a bit of time off....get a fresh set of ears...and get back in there!! If you need a blow by blow of what I'm hearing PM with your email addy.

good job!

This is good tune, and pretty well done.  While it needs some mixing work, really it's all there, just need to get the EQ, Compressiong, Reverb, Presences... and all the other  pieces of the mixing mystery in place.

Vocals a touch flat in a couple of spots, but easily redone or you may be able to fix them with V-Vocal.

It's a good tune and its close.

Daryl

 I think somethings wrong with the link, I was able to get to the soundclick one yesterday, but I can't access either today.  I really enjoyed the tune I heard yesterday. Good performances from all. I'm not much of a producer, but to me it had a natural live session sound that I liked.

OK now that makes perfect sense. I had trouble with the direct song link and a few people helped me out so I posted the main page link as well, I'll go clean that up. I did put the song title in the original post.
So you must have listened to "Us" and yes that one is up for a major re do. The pitchy stuff is impossible to fix as it's a heavy vibrato. ( I tried) She happy and has no problem with it. Its a weird song.
You'll notice all songs are prefixed with "mix1"
I posted them all here so the Band and Emily can input.
I thought I'd post "Bottle it Up" on song forum for critique as I thought it was 98% and was not going to re mix but I value opinions here more than I will the family and friend factor. After a few pointers I will also remix Bottle it up"

OK an experiment-

Full song page link =
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10230940

Player link =
http://www.soundclick.com...&q=hi&newref=1


Main Artist page =
http://www.soundclick.com...ult.cfm?bandID=1119880