So the other day I had the house to myself and thought I'd take the opportunity to record some acoustic guitar + vox while the noise levels were low (my upstairs neighbors are very noisy and I'm kind of shy about my voice). I also wanted to get at least one mic'd song done before I tore my whole rig down before moving my studio. I thought long and hard about my dozens upon dozens of acoustic covers and decided on one of my favorite Johnny Cash songs, Don't Take Your Guns to Town. I think the moral of this song is as true today as when it was written if not more so. Just a great tune.

So I used my crappy mic's and my crappy guitar with crappy old strings and my crappy old out of practice voice and did a bunch of takes and laid down the tracks (I did the beds singing and playing at the same time to a click and then rerecorded both separately). Today I spent some time EQ'ing and whatever. Just playing around with some of the tools in X2 (got to use R-Mix for the first time which was GREAT because there was a ton of hiss from the room due to fans and just general house noise). I was kind of going for an old timey feel and I think I kind of got it but I'm not happy with how the guitar turned out but whatever... I need to start learning about proper EQing techniques and stuff now that I can operate Sonar reasonably well. This was more done for fun and and to get some more experience. I might send it to my mom because she likes JC and figured I'd post it here so you guys could get a glimpse at another side of me. I'm not just a metal lunatic... I'm a well rounded lunatic.

It is certainly not perfect but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Suggestions are welcome but this is kind of a one off for fun so I'm not too concerned about tightening it up. Cheers.

http://soundcloud.com/use...take-your-guns-to-town

LOVE it Beepster - sounds like we're in the same room. Loving the vocal - great performance.
From one lunatic to another - you're the shizzle mate

I am very glad you like it Mr. Daryl. You and I... we should do some stuff. Cheers!

Beepster


I am very glad you like it Mr. Daryl. You and I... we should do some stuff. Cheers!

well, as I was listening, I was thinking 'guest monkey'.
 
Our people should talk

Well I've been a guest CHCer a couple times now. I'm usually up for most things. Gonna be out of commission for at least a few weeks though as I make the transition to my new room. Very excited about that.

Cheers.

Very nice performance and recording.  Well done, Beepster.  

Thank you, kind sir. :-)

Hey Beepster
Everything from the mix/performance sounded GREAT.  Now I know why my mixes aren't up to par. I'm not using enough of the CRAPPY brand mics and strings. I didn't now they also made guitars.   Really.... the vocals sound super clear and clean.  You nail the vocal delivery and thats hard to do with the track being so dry.  Sounds like I hear a little verb/room on the guitar but not so much on the vox but it works and gives it that classic one on one vibe.  I likey!  KUDOS!


Kev

Awesome, kev. :-)

I used my old Samson C01s for this. On the guitar I had one pointed at the bridge and the other at the neck. I EQ'd out most of the bottom end on both then cloned the body track and EQd it so it was mostly bottom end but kept that track lower in the mix. All that was sent to a bus which I did some slight EQing on as well and then I added the Breverb module, set it to room, brought down the Wet fader a bit and fiddled with the other knobs. All tracks and the bus had the PC2A Limiting compressor on them which I tweaked individually. 

The vox were again my C01s, covered with socks (like actual socks I wear on my feet because I don't own a pop screen lol). One I sang directly into and the other was slightly further away. Again liberal use of the PC2A and the PC EQ as well as a healthy dose of the Softube Sat knob. Both tracks were sent to a bus... and I can't remember but I may have used a very light application of Breverb... maybe not. 

All tracks and busses had the PC Console Emu on them set to N-Type and the drive knobs set to default (12 o clock).

I exported to a stereo track then imported it to a new session where I tweaked it all with the LP64 EQ and the LP64 multiband compressor and again tossed the PC2A Leveing Comp at the end.

Purely guesswork and tweaking things until they sounded okay. I really have no idea what the heck I'm doing. lol...

Thanks for checking it out and the kind words.  

Nice job Beepster!  A very intimate mix, real close and personal like.  I enjoyed it, never heard this JC song (how have I not?)  Great job with it