EQ and distortion, baby!

Mr. Fox is really a wizard!

Hey! So I had a few hours today, here's the work so far on the 'final' version with lead vocals. Obviously far from finished but have a listen and let me know if anything sticks out or bugs you. My ears are pretty tired at the moment.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/edf9989sz6bv127/Singalong%20Drive%20Lead%20Mix%201.mp3?dl=0

• Some parts aren't coming through well at the moment, notably cello and 'tambourine'
• Guitar may sound a little too piercing - what do you think?
• Is the bass at the right volume for you? I only have headphones.
• Do you like the vocal takes I chose? Yes, it's quite AkioDaku and PegasuTV heavy in the middle, I could probably put a little more of Seneca's vocals in there, opinions?
• Sorry, Ceevro, some of your lead vocal takes I wanted to use had tons of roomverb from the recording that, as lead, came through really badly and I couldn't use them. You're stuck with 1 short and 2 long parts. Hope you don't mind.

I'm totally cool with being a short vocal! I've got a guitar, bass, and solo in there, so it's not like I'm lacking attention!

Couple suggestions - Perhaps we reduce the rest of the choir to zero during the verses...I'm finding the harmonies are just...not quite there. Better to have just the main solo voices and maybe a single harmony voice to back it up. The harmony works a lot better during the choruses, though! I think the harmony on the verse is just a little trickier, and we're falling a bit short!

Vocal section is a tiny bit loud overall for my taste (though my tendency is to drown out vocals with instruments, so take that with a grain of salt)

Overall loving it!

Sounding fuckin awesome man 👏

Fun fact about SuperCat's bottle:

There are all the effects to turn it from bottle to tambourine sounding. The bottle was too piercing and low pitched for the track. The 'autopitch' is just to shift the formants up to the correct pitch. De-noise to clean it up. Gate to remove some room echo so I can distort it with the saturation knob. Alloy to mix and compress it and add some frequencies back which were lost by previous processes (using a new distortion layer) and guitar rig for reverb.

Overkill?

Fresh ears this morning, here's the next version. I made a few changes, mostly volume automation for bits which were clashing, removed a couple of less appealing takes (tons of room sound coming through, too pitchy and causing clashing), cleaned up the lead vocal mix and reduced over all vocal volume.

Feedback welcome!

If you guys want some tricks - you should keep an eye out for free copies of Izotope's plugins. Nectar Elements is a great starting point for mixing your vocals, it's fully AI and I used it here to help round off the lower quality lead recordings ready for my usual processing (using Nectar 2 full version but all manual). In Seneka's recordings it helped bring out her natural tone, in Ceevro's it helped, along with RX, remove some more room verb.

For vocal effects, I used 2 delays and a reverb, all set quite low. Slapback for slight vocal doubling, long delay to fill it out and a short plate verb to warm it up a bit, only mixed in quietly. Would you like the vocals to be 'closer'? Less reverb? Would you like the harmonies to be more present and wider like in the original? Ours is more a 'group singalong' feeling so I went for the current style but it can be easily changed.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vipgwqhe7v38cdt/Singalong%20Drive%20Lead%20Mix%202.mp3?dl=0

Do you like the drums? I have other plugins I could use, or I could mix them differently.

Edit: I can reduce verse backing to 0 if everyone wants. Whatever you guys choose. The leadup needs backing though, just the main verse section would change.

I think the mix is damn-near perfect...an artistic edit you may want to try: because Seneka's "Hold the wheel and drive" seems to have her leaning into the mic, which gives a slight distortion...why not put that lyric through maybe a radio/telephone effect? I think it might sound cool!

I think the overall track comes through relatively quiet on my speakers...now the question is - do we engage in the loudness wars by compressing the shit out of it, or do we preserve the subtle mix? I personally vote the second...but it's a consideration for publishing!

Also...I will use some room verb controls in future recordings!

Hehe I haven't put it through any kind of mastering yet, it's set at -6db in the mix, ready to be mastered. :)

I'll give the idea a try later on. :)

OH! And for all y'all following this thread, a sneaky little heads-up:

I have secured a couple of LEGENDARY mixers for the next Singalong...@metalrenard actually has a life, but he shall be back. The plan is to rotate mixers to prevent burnout.

I figured that we should jump on the bandwagon while it's fresh, and go full-sea-shanty! And there's only one sea-shanty any self-respecting Canadian will sing: Barrett's Privateers! We shall wait until this one is out before starting up the thread, but if y'all know people who likes to sing, and maybe even play Piratey-type instruments, start getting their attention now!

This will be the first track for which I shall provide nothing but a single vocal, and fist bump. We shall see how well we does without my utterly magical guitfiddle skillz!

Filtered the vocal Ceevro mentioned (kind of radio sounding, let me know if you like/don't like).

Removed verse backing vocals (not deleted, just silenced, so easy to reverse).

Finished mixing the vocals - gave them more presence (less reverb, more crispyness).

Widened the backing vocals.

Added a little more of the Izotope RX magic and smoothed out some of the tracks which were clipping. Don't know why but I forgot I had that in RX7 elements (another freebie I got, love it). (Yeah, I got Nectar 3, Ozone 9 and RX 7 ('elements', all 3) for free recently)

Mastered it (not mastering engineer and only with headphones). It's at roughly -14LUFS which is the expected loudness range for streaming sites like Spotify. (iTunes wants -12 but I'm not going to export 10 different versions. It will automatically boost it if it wants.) For reference, CDs from the 2000s typically range from -9 to -3LUFS (Metallic, Death Magnetic, looking at you) which is MENTAL, too loud. We'll take the clean, dynamic route here, thanks.

I'll share a link tomorrow after another pass through. Still a few things bugging me. I think it's too harsh at the moment so I need to look into that. Tired ears now though, sorry!

Love You! WILL SEND YOU RUM!!!

If the next link is good, I'm ready to publish. Send me the finished .mp3, and I'll create the project page and make some space for you to add you mixer comments.

DUDE! This was a tough challenge, and you came through in spades! Nothing but love!

EVERYONE, take the time to shoot @MetalRenard some love! Have a look through his music as well, it's straight bangarang, and we all need constructive comments on our pieces.

I think maybe that's a commitment I should personally follow through on; I will listen to a piece of anyone who contributes and offer the best feedback I can give.

Thanks for all your work, Renard. You are a fox among goats!

Hahaha

Fox among goats. Love it.

Yep, the next link should be the 'final' one, barring any unexpected issues.

Fixed the issues which were bugging me. Finalised a few details although here is still one which is bugging me but I can't seem to fix it. u_u

I have to say, it's been a blast working on this. I love working with vocals and the challenge of making everything sit together with a bunch of instruments which all want the same frequency space. Piano and guitar/bass both want almost 100% of the spectrum. Such a puzzle. :3

Love it.

Please listen, let me know if there are any issues or if the bass is too loud (no speakers here). If it's all good, @Ceevro, go ahead and make the project!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zb92lt2he9s9j1t/Singalong%20Drive%20Final.mp3?dl=0

WOOOT! I'll get the project made a little later tonight...just officially at work at the moment! Sounds positively wonderful!

Man you totally killed it, beautiful job. 👏 You've put a massive amount of work in there, truly well-in. 🙏

THE PROJECT...IS POSTED!!!

Make sure you all accept your artist credit to be included in the sidebar!

DRIVE SINGALONG HERE

As is tradition, @MetalRenard, our mixer, has editing powers on the project, and I'm hoping he will use them to post a few words on the project.

Excellent work all! The next singalong will be posted when we get the go ahead from our next mixer! Probably in a week or so! The Sea-Shanty chosen is Barrett's Privateers, by Stan Rogers! Check out the original version, and let people know! We will require vocals in spades!

Much love, all!

Awesome! Thanks so much for organizing this, Ceevro! And @MetalRenard, you're the real MVP. There are a TON of tracks competing for action, and the mix sounds really clean, well-balanced, and clear. Kudos to all involved! I'll "sea" you all at the next one! ^^

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

Hey guys....FRONTPAGED!!!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!