Ver 2 : What's Up In The Sky? by John/JD1813

Posted a Ver 2 last night after reworking the balances a little bit.  I also decided that the EZDrummer groove needed some variation so I slipped in a different beat rhythm in the chorus parts.  

Here's a draft of a new song I recorded this weekend, it's for a Children's Songs CD that I am putting together.  I wrote most of the material between 2004-2008 but never got it  recorded, so I'm finally getting around to it.   I have a few things to tweek yet but I wanted to get a mix together and put something out there.  My SoundClick is at the below link and this song is at the top of the list.   Your comments welcome.   

John's SoundClick music page

John, this sounds good.  I know a lot of parents and kids that would like this.  You have a good voice for this.  Nice job.

Thanks John. This sounds very good already.

Frank, Lynn, Matt:   thanks very much and I really appreciate you taking the time to listen and comment!   I'm having a lot of fun with the material I have written for this children's CD, and I'll enjoy posting more on here soon as I get further along.  Funny that regardless of the type of song, there are new things I'm picking up in Sonar X-1 every time I record and it's sure been a blast!   Thanks again!    
~ John  

cool man.... you shouldn't need gates unless you have something really noisy. 

Yeah... that soft singing style..... lots of singers have careers based on it ......   but as you say, with kids especially, it is important to have them be able to understand words clearly. 

John, automating the eq is pretty straight forward, open the eq you want and click the "W" at the top right, then whatever knob you click and drag during playback will be automated. Just remember to unclick the Write button. EDIT for clarity. HTH.

Guitarhacker


Listened again this morning.... try pulling the mids and low mids out of the vocal track a bit.... that will thin it out a bit....I'm hearing a middy... boxy sound which tends to make the voice too fat and hard to listen to. Also drop the EQ curve off below 80 on the voice...there's nothing down there you need. 

The EQ in the mid range should be flat or perhaps a slight dip in the 100 to 400 range... and the highs maybe flat to a slight raise a db or so, and drop off steeply past 8k.....  

You'll need to play around to get it right...... but try that and see if that vocal track doesn't clean up real nice.

Herb thanks, and I got your PM as well.  I want to say up front here that I have had this EQ advice elsewhere and frankly, my skillset on EQ is just not there.  I have upgraded several times, between MC4/MC5, Sonar 8.5.3, now to X-1 PE,  but aside from pulling up for example, X-1's beautiful Vintage EQ_64 tool, and selecting one of a couple nice default settings, I can not understand EQ further.    I'll try to explain specifically:  when I'm told to "drop a EQ curve" or "dip in 100-400 range" I am not able to understand WHAT exactly to DO in the EQ tools that I have (the ones that come with Sonar).  I do not have any of the Ozone pkgs, no, but I know that I need to grab a good EQ tutorial and get a handle on this.  I do understand the theory part - that it's all about freqs and that the male voice collides with freqs in midrange and bass from other instruments, making things muddy, and that when you "roll off" or  "cut a notch" in somewhere, it allows them all to co-exist nicely.... I grasp the terminology fairly OK, but when I try to implement, I don't understand exactly where to place the freq cutoff lines at,  to do the job properly.   I don't want to ramble on here as this probably is better for the "Techniques" forum.  I will carry this off to you in PMs, but I wanted to thank you very much for this help and in pointing me in the direction I need to learn next.  All good!          -John