James and the Canadian go Blue

[Oren]

What....haven't you noticed that inordinately large cranium that sits on Oren's shoulders?He's got us all beat in the vocabulary department,as I am constantly fumbling for the Merriam-Webster dictionary after reading one of his posts!

Inordinately? Cranium?

[elwoodblues1969]

After having added all of the tracks in unison,it generated a very boomy result,so I muted all of the tracks and focused on each one(guitar,bass & vocals) and trimmed them down by shaving off the lower frequencies in the 125Hz to 600Hz range.
I then accentuated these tracks by slightly boosting the higher end in the 1kHz to 4kHz range.

After my trials & tribulations with the boot tap track,I decided to lose it altogether.I tried sampling the boot sound and sequencing it,but to no avail.I then made an attempt to play it live,but was not happy with it.
I rather like this song without the boot tap anyhow.

For the finishing touch,I added a preset compression effect to the master track(don't like messing with the parameters of a compression effect,as it's to easy for me to muck it up & go too far with it).

-Thom

[kara]

Since this is supposed to be a mixing exercise of a live performance, I had a slightly different approach to it.
It's true that those boot drums lack a bit in the higher freq ranges. To stimulate this I doubled the drum track and pitched it up by 4 semitones, creating an effect of having a bass drum and some kind of snare drum.
I also split the bas track of James bass in mono tracks and used only one of them, this puts the bass right in the middle and makes it less prominent in the lower freq range.
A litle of audacitys gverb gives the mix the live effect.

This is my temporary version, doesn't include James vox yet, I want to concentrate on the instruments first  
I have the audacity project on my external USB harddrive... so what's comming next  

[Edit]
Added a snippet as tmp2 with the vox of James, to give an idea where this is going 

k

[Wyatt]

@Thom..interesting strategy..it listens nice..had me reaching for my guitar.

@kara..you really have this live thing down, don't you??  Wow!!

[elwoodblues1969]

Kara,

In my opinion,rhythmically,the boot tap did not work at all,which is why I left it out....I understand that this is only a mixing exercise,but I think that leaving elements out that I feel do not work,is also part of the mixing process.
As for the whole reverb thing,it was my personal belief,that James's guitar & bass had an ample amount of natural room resonance,so for me to add any more reverb,would just add to the boominess.

The only artificial reverb I added,was that I applied a touch of reverb to James's voice......I was going for the whole cozy little coffee house effect.

-Thom

[elwoodblues1969]

Thanks for the comments Wyatt.

-Thom

[kara]

Kara,

In my opinion,rhythmically,the boot tap did not work at all,which is why I left it out....I understand that this is only a mixing exercise,but I think that leaving elements out that I feel do not work,is also part of the mixing process.

-Thom

Well... let me disagree with you.
When I mix a song for somebody else, my priority is respect for the artist(s).
So if the artist makes a track I always ask myself 2 questions
1. What was he expressing with his track?
2. How can I fit this in a mix ?

In my opinion, from what I heard of the posted tracks, at this stage, is that we are going for a live performance.
Now, I don't know how much you played live Thom, but I did (and still do) a fair bit of this. With experience I know that doing live gigs isn't always perfect, sometimes there are great surprises (you know those errors that just work) and sometimes it sounds average.
But even it is average, when you mix it, you have to make the best of it. I honestly don't think that a mixing engineer can decide that he doesn't want to use a track without asking the performers. Other opinions can differ of course.

And, yes, mixing a studio performance with perfect track, sequenced or played over and over again until they are perfect, is another domain.

Having said this, I think that in my final mix, I will clean up a bit the boot track (I agree Oren isn't a drummer  ) but I'm sure I will use it.

k

 

[Oren]

Yo! Two radically different productions... just what I'd hoped for...
I like both approaches - wonderful ambience in two stylistic directions.

Upon listening to the mixed bootbeat action, I think we should shoot the hoser who is tapping his feet. Kara's mix really gaves the bootbeat a cool "live in the local town hall" flavor, but the the guy simply sucks . I'll try another bit of toe-tap action with hits on beats 1 and 3... If that doesn't sound any better, maybe we should just rely on James' bass to carry the bottom end .

[kara]

t If that doesn't sound any better, maybe we should just rely on James' bass to carry the bottom end .

We'll see (or hear ) what you come up with, but it will need some drums or percussion action, even if it performed with boots 

k

[folderol]

Some very high quality work being done here. Way above my standard, so I think I'll just sand back and listen!

[Oren]

...so I think I'll just sand back...

Hold on Will... I think I have a "t" for you here, somewhere .

[folderol]

...so I think I'll just sand back...

Hold on Will... I think I have a "t" for you here, somewhere .

Oh har-de-har har

Hmmm. An Englisman missing his T. Must be the German half 

[Wyatt]

Once again, feel free to edit and re-arrange these tracks to get them the way you think they should
sound. We are hoping for some radically different productions of this song.

Thanks for the invite.   

PS..no shooting the hoser, eh??

[offthewall]

Hey ... 

some serious remixing going down here !!!

First off ....
sorry, I started to get involved in this project and then ....  whatd'ya know ..... a whole slice of real life kicks in 
I got so many domestic problems at the moment, ... but I will try to get to grips with this.

Thom ..... I like your approach, the clarity is first rate but the timing is a bit off.  This could be due to the slightly mis-timed click intro's.

Kara .... I love the 'live' feel that you can put in to a project like this.   I fully agree that there is a world of difference between a 'studio' recording and a 'live' one.  You seem to be able to capture that club atmosphere.  That is what I like, personally.

I'm sorry if my contributions are going to be slower than I anticipated.
I have been working on a couple of additional tracks, to build this up.
One is an acoustic slide guitar .... and the other is  (don't tell Wyatt)  a harmonica.   

If I can get these done, over the next couple of days, I intend to play maybe three or four measures/verses of each, so that we can cut/dodge/copy/paste the various segments into the whole song as 'additions'.
At the moment I'm trying to expand the 'song story'.   I'm currently waiting to see if the Canadian is going to embellish this segment. 

If I can find the time I can tell a little anecdote to show how I feel about this project ...... I'll see what I can do later. 
 
James

[Wyatt]

I have been working on a couple of additional tracks, to build this up.
One is an acoustic slide guitar .... and the other is  (don't tell Wyatt)  a harmonica.   

Yay!!..be my guest!!  Looking forward to it.   

Meantime I am following this thread with interest, and if I can dig my way out from under a mountain of stuff I would love to do a wee bit of "radically different".

Meantime brother, take care of yourself.