Freshly Recorded Today " Still Standing After The Storm "

[Riggs77]

This was recorded today let me know what you think. Worked alot more on using Compression. Still Standing After The Storm

[DT Chris]

The lead vocals are leaning to the left in the mix and causing imbalance.

The opening acoustic seems harsh or like it's being played as hard as someone's fingers can do so. It seems to soften up in the mix when the vocals begin, but it just sounds odd at the start of the song.

Overall, I'm getting a 'church' performance from this mix. I'm not talking about the lyrics of the song, but the strumming of the left-panned acoustic. You'll hear that strumming pattern at every church in North America. The picking-style of the R-panned guitar seems to be more pleasant, but not as clear in the mix.

The background vocals are panned Right, at 60%? I don't know if you were trying to 'fill out' the vocals by panning them, but it's just causing oddity in the mix. If you wanted backup vocal tracks to harmonize the main, pan at near the same as the main vocals, or double the back ups and pan them L & R. Currently they are not at the same dB level as the main either. Vocals have to be confident and strong in a mix.

My 2 cents, and nowhere near expert advice.

[brandondrury]

Hmm. The intro sounds modern and pro. The first acoustic and bass seem to work well together. The second acoustic and vocal sound are not modern.

I have no problem with new or old sounds, but it is usually distracting to have both in a song.

I'd crank up the predelay on the vocals and move them WAY closer to the front or just turn the current reverb down a few dB.

The second acoustic guitar has a weird sound to it. I'm not sure if it's reverb or what. It may be out of tune. Okay, it's definitely out of tune @ 1:44 and after.

I probably wouldn't pan the background vocals. I'd keep them dead center and I wouldn't be shy about smacking them with compression.

Brandon

[Riggs77]

I hate to say it but I don't know what predelay would be. As far as compression I have my settings as 200ms 80ms -3db and 3.5:1 Ratio on both vocals. don't really know what all that means just been tinkering with some things.

[brandondrury]

Predelay
It goes like this. When you hear reverb, you don't hear it immediately. The sound has to bounce of a wall 1-50 times before you hear it. With reverb that occurs too quickly, it has a tendency to "wash out" the vocal a little bit. By cranking up the amount of time it takes for the reverb to kick in, you bring the vocals closer sounding but still leave the big reverb tail.

You'll have to tweak it to get it right. A super loud vocal reverb with lots of predelay won't sound good, so be ready for an adjustment.

Some reverbs won't have a predelay setting. In that case....nevermind.

I have my settings as 200ms 80ms -3db and 3.5:1 Ratio on both vocals. don't really know what all that means just been tinkering with some things.

I'm writing a big chapter on this in my book, so I won't go too crazy here.

I'm guessing that 200ms is the attack, 80ms is the release, -3db is the threshold, and 3.5:1 is the ratio.

The threshold doesn't tell anything other than aren't compressing much. The important thing is the "gain reduction" which is what the meters should be telling you. Your current settings are very slow for vocals. I usually set mine to be super fast for starters. Something in the 5ms ball park is about right on most vocals. I also use a fast release most of the time, too. Something like 50ms. For the threshold, I really tweak. I like a good amount of compression on vocals. So on a typical song, I'm reducing anywhere from 6db to 12db.

Brandon