Those of you familiar with Sound on Sound may notice that this was featured in July’s Sound on Sound for Mix Rescue. I’ve done some alterations which takes on board Mikes mix, but also adds in some other changes I wanted to do (although havent had time until now). Essentially I’ve always wished to replace my own vocal take (female effect) with a proper singer in order to attain a smoother/musical feel – I realise its at the expense of character, but its weighing up commercialism with experimentalism.
Mike’s mix on the original track for the SOS article has been invaluable both in terms of opening my own eyes and showing what can creatively be done with the right tools. Its amazing what can be learnt with a bit of encouragement.
Please note the following things:
1. hissing – yup, aware of it, I’ll gate the instrument track thats causing this and re-upload at some point.
2. levels – I’ve held back on limiting too much in the master chain, but I don’t think it detracts from the feel.
3. energy – controversial, but I ended up changing the drums entierly, and bloomed one of the guitars (actually a SQ Pro-1 through an amp) to create a softer sound. Dynamics should still be there. I’ll explain more on this below.
4. kick/bass levels – think the kick might be too loud or EQ’ed a bit too extremely, although I need to listen with subs to check this.
So whats changed?
This version is based on multitracks that Mike sent me after the article, so I created a few additions and changed a few elements.
Drums:
Drum wise, I opted for a more jazz/soft rock style kit mainly to get a snappier sound, which I think may cause some contention depending on whether you like/dislike heavier stuff, but I don’t think it detracts from the song itself. Using Mike’s input I ended up placing the overheads through a UAD LA2A to give a wide open effect… works really nicely on the ride and crash cymbals.
Bass:
In the original the bass was based on an Commodore Amiga PCM which I then resequenced in Ableton Live, but it ended up causing too much digital rubish to seep through, so I decided to use the SQ Pro-1 with LFO controlled pulse-width modulation – its something you don’t really hear much today, but it sound nice to my ears.
More Bass:
At the very end you might notice a 1/8 bass hit… this is a Clavinet D6 going through a Marshal Bass amp. Just wanted things to bounce along more.
Vocal:
Obviously this is the most controversial element. The original track was praised for having a characterful style with my voice processed to sound like a fake female singer. I thought about this for a long time, but the sad truth is that I’m not a good singer (hence disguising my voice), so ultimately from a performance level I would prefer to team with other people if it means making something I feel to be a better sound. The new vocal is going through some pretty hefty equipment – Neumann M149 and x2 U87 (for grabbing room footprint) which then heads in to a UAD 1176. Also did a separate send which goes in to an EMT 250 with an LA2A on a slow attack/release which makes it sit nicely (learnt this by listening to a Radiohead track which used a similar effect).
Guitar:
The original has more energy, but because of the new vocal take, and drum change I felt that this needed to change as well. Before it was a sequence from the Pro-1, however I’ve opted to do it on a guitar and the bloomed it to give a nice wash.
Vocoder:
Roland SVC-350… yummy!
Enjoy! Loved all of the feedback from creating this track. Next step, this is hopefully going off to get mastered as I don’t trust my studio for that side of things. Want this on radio if its good enough so will probably pigeon hole it.
TheArchit Said on:
August 22nd, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Good going Lawrence,
The best SOS Mix Rescue submission I’ve heard so far seems to have taken a step further in terms of production. You’ve really taken in Mike’s teachings and incorporated them in the re-creation of the track the way it was meant to sound from the beginning! The new vocal take “sings” better tuning and performance-wise. It is also more upfront, presumably as a result of the good feedback you’ve received towards your original processing.
“Also did a separate send which goes in to an EMT 250 with an LA2A on a slow attack/release which makes it sit nicely”
Is this the original hardware you’re referring to or are they UAD plugin emulations?
Congratulations,
Nishal
Alex Said on:
September 6th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Hey!
Congrats with your song in the Mix Rescue.
Have to say I just fell in love with it!
I listened to your new version with new vocals as well, but I have to say I preferred the old vocals with the non-human feeling better. Haven’t had a chance to listen to the new mix on decent monitors yet, though..Keep up the good work.
Greetings from Norway
Lawrence Said on:
September 10th, 2010 at 9:57 am
Hey guys! Sorry for the delay – wrote a long reply the other day but lost it in a moment of madness (courtesy of my damn computer). Thank you both so much for the replies! Means a lot to me in terms of motivation, so I’ll hopefully work to get this project finished and move on!
@Nishal: Hey hey! Really glad you like the changes.. managed to spend some time to increase the levels a little so it should be a little bit more powerful. The only remaining thing left is to sort out the drums and get it a bit more modern… decided to go a bit “Phil Colins” just to get something quickly laid down.
Ahh, to answer you question on the EMT 250… yup its the UAD version thankfully (well worth it by the way!)… no way can I afford to get the hardware as I think it usually goes for between £7k to £10k?… its funny on that side of things, as I never really see why anyone would spend so much on a box that does reverberation… albeit very well. Mind you, saying that, I’m tend to be fairly bad spending wise with old synths.
@Alex: No worries! Its funny, I really didn’t expect it to be so popular, but as long as people enjoy it then that’s all that matters! I’m going to try a few things with the new vocal to see if I can get them closer to the older style… I guess the only reason I didn’t like my old version was that it felt a bit too inhuman, which tends to divide people down the middle, so what I’m going to try (hopefully this weekend) is this:
1. Record one with the normal vocal track – tidy some bits here and there.
2. Do a new version where the vocal is put in time with the old one, which was rigid, but seemed to create an interesting swing.
3. Final version with the old non-human vocal.
So 3 versions of the same track to keep everyone happy!
On top of all that, theres one final experiment I want to try out which I’ve used before. I’ve got a TC Electronics Intonator, which although terrible for pitch correction today, its pretty cool for converting vocal (or any audio) in to midi… this will then be sent to the Ensoniq ESQ-1 to trigger the keyboard, where the audio is forwarded to a Roland vocoder (with the dry vocal being fed in)… so (hopefully) it’ll be a voice-controlled/pitched robot effect. Done it before with nice results, but it might add to the whole mystique!
It all pins on this weekend!
Jorn Lavoll Said on:
February 28th, 2011 at 9:27 am
Awesome song! Love it.