4 songs recorded and mixed with DP

[wurliuchi]

Here are four of my songs recorded with my band. These were all recorded with DP. We tried to do mostly live sessions in the studio, especially the rhythm tracks, but there is overdubbing, of course. Three songs were mixed completely with DP, the other was mixed with a d8b and DP combo.

These haven't been professionally mastered yet. I just boosted the levels with Ozone. The levels are different from song to song. Sorry about that. I suck at mastering.

Anyway, if you're interested, here ya go:

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks!!!

Big Black Car http://www.earthenaudio.com/big_black_car.mp3

More than You'll Ever Know http://www.earthenaudio.com/more_than_y ... r_know.mp3

Cold River http://www.earthenaudio.com/cold_river.mp3

Chance Or Two On Love http://www.earthenaudio.com/co2ol.mp3

Much joy...

[Jim]

I think you've done a superb job with your recording and mix. What instrument did you play? Your vocalist has a good voice, and sings in tune. The band is tight and professional sounding. I would imagine this would appeal to Young Country fans. Impressive. You should be proud of this.

[jrdmcdnld]

Great sounds!

Please tell us more about the gear you used to record with.

Thanks for sharing.

[wurliuchi]

I think you've done a superb job with your recording and mix. What instrument did you play? Your vocalist has a good voice, and sings in tune. The band is tight and professional sounding. I would imagine this would appeal to Young Country fans. Impressive. You should be proud of this.

Thank you very much, Jim. It's always nice to hear positive feedback.

I'm the songwriter and lead singer. On these songs I play acoustic guitar.

We will be releasing our album in January. It has a total of seventeen songs (78 minutes). It's been a lot of work, but also very enjoyable and fulfilling.

Thanks for listening and taking the time to reply. Much appreciated.

[leigh]

Thanks for putting these up. Really nice job. It's very obvious that you've spent a lot of time on them.

I think the arrangements work well with each instrument in it's own range, which makes mixing much easier.

"Big Black Car"--I like the overall shape of the arrangement, meaning that you take the time to build it up and bring it back down.

"Cold River"--again, I like the shape of the arrangement. And the accel. at the end is really effective. To my ear, it sounds compressed a little bit too much which makes it a bit harsh, as opposed to edgy with a bite which I think you might be going for. You might see what dropping the final compression 2 or 3 dB does.

"Chance or Two on Love"--I like this, too. I also wonder what slightly less compression would do.

Glad you will be getting a professional mastering job. These sound good already and fresh ears will add some good stuff, too.

Good luck with the project!

[wurliuchi]

Great sounds!

Please tell us more about the gear you used to record with.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks! I appreciate it.

Believe me, there's nothing fancy equipment-wise. I try to keep it real simple and my credit card in my wallet. If you want to know something specific, I'll be happy to tell you. I will say this, most of my time is spent improving the acoustics of the studio and on mic placement, and on what should be background dirty (as in not clear and focused) and foreground clean, and hopefully we end up with some depth-of-field. It could always be better and I kick myself that it isn't.

Thanks again.

[wurliuchi]

Thanks for putting these up. Really nice job. It's very obvious that you've spent a lot of time on them.

I think the arrangements work well with each instrument in it's own range, which makes mixing much easier.

"Big Black Car"--I like the overall shape of the arrangement, meaning that you take the time to build it up and bring it back down.

"Cold River"--again, I like the shape of the arrangement. And the accel. at the end is really effective. To my ear, it sounds compressed a little bit too much which makes it a bit harsh, as opposed to edgy with a bite which I think you might be going for. You might see what dropping the final compression 2 or 3 dB does.

"Chance or Two on Love"--I like this, too. I also wonder what slightly less compression would do.

Glad you will be getting a professional mastering job. These sound good already and fresh ears will add some good stuff, too.

Good luck with the project!

Thank you, Leigh. Very nice of you to take the time to listen and reply.

I totally agree with you about the compression. I pushed them too hard with Ozone's Loudness Maximizer. I hate it when I do that. Thank goodness I won't be doing the mastering. Adam Ayan at Gateway Mastering will be doing the mastering. I'm very excited about that.

I appreciate your positive and helpful comments.

[leigh]

wurliuchi wrote:

Thank goodness I won't be doing the mastering. Adam Ayan at Gateway Mastering will be doing the mastering. I'm very excited about that.

Maybe you already know this but I would strongly encourage you to attend the mastering session if at all possible.

A friend of mine recently played on a jazz big band session that was mastered by Sterling Sound in New York using their budget internet upload/download service and it was so compressed it hurt my ears to listen to much of it. My friend thought it was too compressed also.

If you are using Gateway, they probably have already told you about what, if any, compression they like to have on mixes they receive.

The engineers make their best effort but only you know how you want each track (and each instrument on each track) to sound. Being able to say stuff like, "Can you make the trumpet sound more like Don Cherry?" is a very powerful and efficient thing. And you can learn a lot by watching how they work, too.

**Leigh

[wurliuchi]

wurliuchi wrote:

Thank goodness I won't be doing the mastering. Adam Ayan at Gateway Mastering will be doing the mastering. I'm very excited about that.

Maybe you already know this but I would strongly encourage you to attend the mastering session if at all possible.

A friend of mine recently played on a jazz big band session that was mastered by Sterling Sound in New York using their budget internet upload/download service and it was so compressed it hurt my ears to listen to much of it. My friend thought it was too compressed also.

If you are using Gateway, they probably have already told you about what, if any, compression they like to have on mixes they receive.

The engineers make their best effort but only you know how you want each track (and each instrument on each track) to sound. Being able to say stuff like, "Can you make the trumpet sound more like Don Cherry?" is a very powerful and efficient thing. And you can learn a lot by watching how they work, too.

**Leigh

Thanks. No, unfortunately I won't be attending the mastering session. I'm on the other side of the country and I don't travel well. I've already made my wishes known about keeping as much dynamic range as possible, and what I would like for the overall tonal/spectral balance. And I will be talking to Adam the day before or on the day of the session and will be here in case he has any questions. I trust what they can do at Gateway. Both Bob and Adam are great mastering engineers who can only improve on what we already have. I'd pretty much be in the way asking all kinds of stupid questions, like, "Wow, so those speakers cost more than my house?" and "Where's the compressor that was used on Led Zeppelin II? Let's use that!"

Really, I would love to be there but my presence isn't really needed. Plus, it would cost me more money because I would be taking up a lot of his time. Shut-up and let 'em work, that's what I say.

Oh, they ask that you don't use any compression on the mix buss when printing the mix, and I never do anyway. I only ran these through Ozone for the making of these MP3s. I mix to low levels. My stuff usually peaks around -3 to -4 dBfs and overall accumulative RMS runs around -20dB to -24dB, depending on the song of course.

Thanks again. Appreciated.