Alternative rock song

I convinced myself that I had to do everything from writting to mastering and there I suffered the time and spirit consuming consequences x )

But well here it is, in a state I consider tolerable to share:

The recording stage had me tracking DI guitars then reamping them through a little Peavey Rage 158 and some Orange for the final solo. For the bass just the DI set through Guitarrix. Drums were played by a good friend of mine and recorded in a rehearsal room with 4 microphones in what I intended to set as an ORTF + snare and kick mics (which came out as lets say 65% of what I expected it to be). I had my vocals recorded in different rooms I have been living in the last year, with just a dynamic mic, an antipop and mic placement as my weapons against the outrageous noise we live surrounded by in our daily lives.

Writting and recording took me something around 4 months, then I spent about a year working out the editing and mixing. It wasn’t an everyday thing, I picked it up from time to time trying to give my ears some rest. Somewhere in the middle of the process I asked here about drum replacement as I felt my original sounds were kind of weak, at that time I couldn’t get lsp plugins to work but some months passed and despite having commited to the original snare sound I finally could use lsp trigger in my system and blended some samples in, both for snare and kick.

Then mastering was the least enjoyable part of the process, I will definitively be delegating that part on someone else for the next song xD. The thing is all that limiting brought up little noises and glitches I had in my tracks due to the poor isolation that some of the material was recorded in. So going back and forth to the mix session took another good chunk of time and life from me.

Plugins I recall using:

A lot of Calf Suite, after the first money I ever get with this goes to Ardour the next bag should be going to those guys, but they take none so I will just drink it xD
So Calf: compressor thrown at pretty much everything, multiband compresor for bass and mastering, multiband gate for cleaning drum hits, limiter for mastering, bass enhancer for kick, transient designer for some guitar, saturator and vintage delay for vocals.

The most used eqs have to be the ones from Pere RĂ fols Soler, highly recommended, I also used a couple of times the x42eq due to its nicely band listening feature, which by the way is something Calf multiband plugins have as well and that is just perfect.

Guitarrix tremolo and vibrato pedals for intro and ending, MOD’s C* Scape Stereo delay for that little solo in the middle of the song. The already mentioned lsp trigger plugin (awesome), and finally the (I have to admit it) AT1 autotune, mostly in vocal harmonies as I needed them to be as clean and clear as possible. Although that plugin doesn’t pull a vocal track off on its own so I have to think that I have some singing by my side xD but all the props to the devs (Robin Gareus?) because it is indeed a really helpful tool, even more in those times when you just can’t find the strength to set your room up again to sing against the horns, helicopters and ~€#$$*% crickets.

That’s it, I have still a long way ahead but with a feeling that this is a good start, I like the song but I have to admit I got sick more than once from listening to it so, many, many, freaking, times… so having it done now is definitively liberating for planning new things. I nonetheless don’t rule out the idea of remastering it in the future, I just had to do everything this time : )

Mental notes for the next trip:

  • track drums with at least 6 mics next time, or 8 even better.
  • vocals have to be recorded in an isolated space
  • buy a battery for my laptop

If you happen to have any question about the process I’d be glad to share ; )

Thanks for reading and listening.

3 Likes

Very nice! The production on this track is really great - the drums sound very clean. This is an awesome song, too - your voice reminds me of Gavin Rossdale with some Lemmy sprinkled in :wink:. Keep it up; I’ll patiently await your next full-length release :grinning::grinning:!

Sorry I did have a quick question for you - what was the make and model of mic that you used for your vocals? I’m curious…thanks for sharing!

Thank you for listening nickture! I’m glad you liked it, never been told before the comparisson to Gavin Rossdale jaja, I listen to Razorblade from time to time : )

My “full-length” release is nowhere near, I just plan on keep working on individual songs and release them one by one. If at any point it becomes something auto sustainable I may consider working on an LP, but no rushes, I’ll be very glad if I can make say 3 songs this year, we will see : )

Regarding your question I used this one, based on a very well known microphone xD

I’ve had the oportunity of working with the original too and of course Shure has made a name of their own, but this other mic, for that price… I mean it’s silly not to try it at least, and what I’m sure you can’t call it is a “bad” microphone, it just works, and it was there when I needed it so it’s definitively going to be a micbro for life x )

Sweet, thanks for the info on the mic! I’ll need to start looking for one - I used an older Tascam TM-78 (I believe) for this project. I think I’m due for an upgrade though :grinning:.

For the type of music you are working on I think you should stick to condenser microphones, this dynamic one I used just fitted in the situation of harsh vocals and poor isolation but I may have missed some useful high range detail with it.

Good song. Reminds me of the 90s Seattle sound which I really like. FYI, some other great inexpensive mics are from a company in Ohio, USA called CAD. Check them out. I have many. I think they are all fathom powered.

Thank you for listening Lacojim : )
If that’s the feeling you get from the song I’m nothing but glad about it, although I honestly didn’t go after a specific style on purpose, it just flowed that way, but of course it has to be a mix of whatever I’ve been feeding my ears and definitively there is a good chunk of 90’s in there (rock, grunge, pop, ballad…).

I tried a CAD condenser a couple of times and it was a good workhorse, definitively worth a try. It’s really a pity that thomann stuff isn’t as easily available outside Europe.

Not at all familiar with Thomann gear, but I will look them up for sure. I was re-reading your OP, and noticed the ending part regarding your drum miking. I personally prefer one mic per drum, but overhead miking can work well too at times, however, if you get too many overheads, the phasing problems will bite you eventually. I have had great success with two overheads and one on the kick, but that is often not achievable. Your sessions and luck may vary. My former drummer used a nice roto-tom array. That was a BITCH to mic! No way to keep out bleeding. It was aweful and still to this day cannot figure out how to successfully mic them. lol

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I could actually have used an 8 channel interface for drums, but the idea was to work with what you could “easily” would have laying around, so I borrowed a 4 channel interface and went to battle in the rehearsal room, AC beep bleeding and all :sweat_smile: