Link To Engagement Photo sessionLink To Engagement Photo session
April 29th, 2008
Ok so it's been awhile....nothing new to report. Still waiting for Gerry to come in and lay down parts he needed to go over to finish this thing once and for all. I don't know if we'll ever record again, but it was nice getting a little more experience to do so, especially with my own band. Until then, keep cool and stay 'iLL' haha
Recording Update as of February 22, 2008
Hello! Ok , well here's a few I have so far, that is, for the most part, complete. Virgil recorded 4 out of 6 but I haven't had much time to spend on "First of the Gang" since these took a little longer than I expected. Some changes:
1. Upped the bit rate but kept the sampling frequency the same to get better digital quality.
2. Added drum samples to the acoustic drum sounds using a 20/80 mix with a Maple Gretsch kick and a Pearl Sensitone snare kit, boosting as much of the lower frequencies as I can.
3. Modified compression and tweaked EQ settings, mostly for the cymbal action since we really didn't have any cymbal microphones. I had to change the slope of the EQ in order to isolate and boost the higher frequencies. I'm still playing with this because it sounds kind of 'tinny' to me, so hopefully I'll get closer to dialing in the right frequency range.
4. I removed the chorus I added on the guitars since I noticed they already had some for some tracks. Added compression and Parametric EQ's to instruments and then converted the mono drum and guitar tracks to two channel stereo prior to mixdown.
5. Pulled back on effects overall based on how things sounded through computer speakers, boombox, etc.
** Some Suggestions - burn these MP3's to CD, listen to them in your car or stereo, computer speakers do not do the recordings any justice. It's hard to judge the actual quality without having to listen through some headphones or stereo **
And here they are.....
Recording Update as of February 13th, 2008
Ok, so last night after class I got home to do more vocal processing to experiment with pitch correction. By 1 am I was able to finish 5 songs but I'll only be posting 3 since after hearing them all these were the ones that improved the most. BasicallyI did the following:
1. Extracted the vocal track for pitch editing.
2. Ran through each 'chunk' of sound wave to narrow in between notes based on the chord structure of the song.
3. Time stretched the new vocal track to fit back into the mix.
4. Re-mixed each instrument track to get a more even level across the stereo track on mixdown so no one instrument stuck out.
Now that I have an idea on how to manipulate the vocal tracks, I found that rather than spending extra time re-taking tracks, we only need to get within 95-99% of actual pitch when we record Virge's vocals in order to get a good raw track to edit. I tried experimenting using perfect pitch and also found that it completely changed the vocals making it sound quantized and robotic. I noticed Moz's voice isn't perfect since he likes to slide in between notes a lot. If I can capture the essence of the style with good intonation I think the final vocal mixdown will sound great.
So I'll be putting the vocal stuff aside for now so I can concentrate on the individual instrument tracks with some mastering tools I'm upgrading my DAW with. For now I will post my mixes for you all to hear what I'm talking about.. Please let me know what you guys think. I've been having kids and teachers come in the past couple of days to listen to our music, even to the point of tricking them by inserting the actual Smith's\Morrissey tunes in between ours and to be honest, they couldn't tell the difference.
Sing Your Life Version 2 - The processing starts after the first vocal intro of "Sing your life, any fool can think of words that rhyme..." You could notice the difference when Voz hits the highs later on in the song as well, especially when he goes into falsetto. I modulated his voice to make it higher while preserving the natural nuance of his voice so it didn't sound too processed.
There is a Light that never goes out Version 2 - Did a blanket edit and started from the first vocal bar to the end.
*** Still Ill Version 2 *** - I toyed with this one quite a bit last night. This is the one I micro-edited the most because it was the most difficult to work with due to the natural variations of the song. Most discernably towards the end of the song.
On the Horizon ** Time Permitting **
I'll be also experimenting with the drum tracks mixing it with actual drum samples from a program called Drumagog. It's another industry tool that a lot of engineers are using to enhance and\or replace drum tracks.
Enjoy!!
Post January 2008 Recordings- Raw Cuts
October 2007 -Raw Cuts
There is a light that never goes out