You Rescue Me ### STICK A FORK IN IT!!! ###

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NEW MIX UP 6/08/12 @ 9:30am Central time 
(same link)
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New tune up!  This one has been in the works for a while.  I want to thank Danny Danzi for his help on this mix, and of course, I thank Rich, Steve, Yvonne and Ed for their contributions!  (the sax is smokin' IMO!)
 
All comments and crits welcome!
 
Lead Vox, Organ, Drum Programming, MIX - Beagle
Backing Vocals - Yvonne Utz
Sax - Rich Arizmendi (psalmist35)
Acoustic Guitar - Steve Rohlfing
Bass - Ed Kocol (bapu)
Electric Lead - BIAB
 
http://soundcloud.com/beaglesound/you-rescue-me
 
edit:  let me re-emphasize that Danny did not mix this, as I said above, he helped me with the mix.  just to be clear.  

Nice song Reece. Drums sound REALLY good. I would have played the Am bass if you had just asked, although BIAB did a fairly good job.

Lead vox seems a tad dry to me. Prolly just a personal taste thing.

:(  Just ate my reply again.  

OK...once again...nice song!  Good tune and great vocals.  I really like the drum programming. (I wish there was a program to move my drum sticks where I want them to go (in real life).  Maybe I'll have to keep practicing.)  Anyway, BIAB does a good job on the bass too.  And it's sure great to hear Rich again!  

And what can go wrong with Danny onboard?  :)

Really nice! 

Yeah Beag! wide and open mix. Great vocals!

its really awesome beagle..most of all i think ur voice is really soulful.. its really original imo. I think you should put little more variety in the vocal melody, wat do u think? if you did the voice would call attention to the song more. i think ur voice is the best thing about song (but the song is awesome too obviously)

Overall Reece, pretty nice. It does kind of stay on the same level all through, and I think that's because the choruses need more of a lift. In your previous songs you've had a very nice blend of harmonies with your voice, and that's lacking here, the BGV's seem indistinct.

On the plus side, it moves along nicely, the sax is really sweet, drums are well doneand I didn't hate the BIAB parts , although there must be dozens of guitar players that would have done those parts for you.

GREAT tune!  Nice flow to this piece with a very powerful vocal delivery. I'm hearing the same as James when it comes to the harmonies being muddy and distant. Other than that a real strong song/mix.  KUDOS!

Kev

Hi Mr B . Great arrangement, great playing. Very believable, hearfelt vocal My fave is the organ - when it first comes in, I would like to hear it a tad louder.
I think someone has already asked, is this an original song?



I was writing this as I listened the 2nd time through and my new fave part is the acoustic thingy right at the end :)

Good stuff Mr Beagle sir

Well, I am glad its not just me. I agree with the above. It lacks depth, and warmth. Great start but could be much more.

Cheers
Shad

Beagle - what format file did you upload to Soundcloud? I have had problems too.

Love that thumping beat , different for sure !

The bass is a lot better.

This mix sounds a lot better than the first one. I'd still like to hear it a little brighter, but that's personal taste.

Thanks,

Bub

Jan (Old55) - thank you very much for listening and for your great comments!  I'm very glad you enjoyed!

Daryl - thanks so much my friend!  based on your feedback I did bump the organ a tad in the intro.  I like the organ, too!  It's becoming my main instrument behind vocals.  I think the bridge in this was pretty killer, if I say so myself...

and yes, this is an original song, I wrote it along with 3 others when I was out of work for 2 weeks after surgery last fall.  most of the tune has been recorded for quite some time but I was waiting on a friend to do some guitar work and he ended up having to bow out because of personal obligations. 

ha - the acoustic slide at the end!  I think he did that as a joke because he's always doing that during band practice (he's also the leader), but I thought it was kinda cool and left it in there!

to answer your question from your 2nd post:  I uploaded a 320kbps mp3 to soundcloud.  I've been running some tests on soundcloud and my results are in the coffee house thread about it.  basically I've come to the conclusion that all streaming mp3's are different than what you upload or even what you download from the same source as the streaming play.  that would leave some mixes with different feels than others depending on what you do with it.  so this will be one more consideration I'll make in the future for my mixes since this is one of the main media outlets I use.

thanks again, glad you liked!

RobertB - good to hear from you and thanks for the listen and crits!  I will answer both your original and your 2nd post here.

thanks I'm glad you like everything but the guitar and I think the latest changes I've made open up some of the mix as well.  I think part of the problem is actually soundcloud and not necessarily the mix itself, but I've also made some adjustments to help with that, I hope.

I'll look at the reverb on the main vox, thanks for the suggestion.

I'm still looking at changes on the electric, but I'm not really interested in killing it.  I'll likely tweak it some more on my next mix.  it's funny that some of you guitarists hate this and some of you like it.  so to that end there's no pleasing everyone!  with that in mind, I'll tweak the guitar sound some more and get it where I like it and then that's the best I can do!

thanks again!  I do appreciate your comments!

Shad - thanks for listening and I appreciate your comments!

Bub - thanks for the 2nd listen and confirmation that I've cleaned some of it up.  I will change the bass part again, at least in that bad area, but maybe the whole thing, I don't know yet, and I'll post a revision when I do.  thanks again!

Danny - thank you again for all your help on this mix.  I still strive to make it the best I can without compromising my vision for the song (which is why I might be tweaking that guitar, but I like it, so it is staying! ).

I've already responded directly to you in email, but I'll lay out a response here for others to see.

1) thanks, I'll look at that kick some more
2) I'll be working on the guitar again - I might even be removing some of what I added to it.  thanks
3) you are absolutely right!  this song was the first recorded out of the 4 that I wrote last fall and I only had Yvonne sing on it and she only provided 1 harmony part for this one.  since that time I've recruited Beverly (my wife) to add another harmony part on my songs, but since this one was already recorded I didn't go back and add her in.  I do plan to do that now.  Beverly has a much lower and fuller voice than Yvonne, but still not as "big" as mine, so that compliments mine and Yvonne's vocals very much to have that middle sound harmony in there.  in fact, she sings tenor parts, actually instead of alto, so that really fills the soundspace up with the vocals. 
I'll be adding Beverly's harmony to this in the near future and I'll repost it then.  thanks for the suggestion!
4) that's currently included in this version!  thanks for the suggestion!
5) yes, I understand.  and I'm not really interested in filling it up with more instrumentation.  I do understand some more elements might make it more dynamic, but I don't think this song doesn't need to be something like Philip's songs where the entire soundspace is filled up (love Philip and his work - it just wouldn't work here). 
I did remove part of the guitar during the verses to help with some of the sound of the mix as I hear it.  that's not to say you're wrong at all, I just thought I'd try it and when I did, I liked it that way because it seemed to open up the sound during the verses much more and built the choruses better.
So I think I like the dynamics of the song as it was also, but I kind of liked it better without as much electric in it, so I think this is a compromise that I like for my vision of the song. 

thanks so much for this advice and all the other advice you've given me!  I think you have helped me to grow as a mixing engineer and I appreciate that very much!

James (Night Fox, Night Rider, Radio and 2 or 3 others... ) - just kiddin with ya James - thanks for the listen!  glad you liked the drums!

Thanks again everyone!  I still appreciate all inputs!!!  I'll be tweaking this a little more this evening and will also be doing a remix later with more harmony and maybe a better bass.  thanks!!!

PS - don't take this to mean it's over!  please continue to listen and comment!!!!

Hi Reece this mix sounds better, especially where you muted the electric ; ) What I can hear , the acoustic sounds very thin too. Confident vocals and good sound overal, but 2:45 sounds weird on my system, not really bad, just weird.

 Rik

I didn't hear the previous version but I liked this one.

Man, Reece I really like the vox on this you sound like you've really loosened up and much more relaxed singing this than I've heard you before, the tone has always been there but now it sounds like you are trucking along like a good 'un.

I didn't like the sound of that 'vintage' sounding kit in the intro but when the song gets rollin' it sounds really cool.

Good job!