Sharp Practise
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3/24/2009 4:58:24 PM
A steady voice
Two new mixes to tell you about today. My Revolution builds on the acoustic guitar approach of Nothing Is More and goes from quiet to loud over the space of four minutes. It’s also the only track so far that lends itself to that old favourite of the producer, the fade out. Despite my use of automix I do like to make my fade outs manually so that you don’t get the feeling that the music is slipping away and you can’t do anything about it!
And this is probably a good time to talk about vocal levels too. Obviously you need them to not only sit in the track properly but also to be fairly consistent across the whole song. However, most singers (myself included) don’t sing at the same level even if their microphone technique is well developed. Clearly the usual studio application of compression helps but too much compression eradicates the soul of the performance. After all, someone who spoke at the same level all the time would have a really boring voice. My answer to uneven vocals is to gain ride the fader for the vocal track – and with automix I can even go back over a line and raise the first syllable or the last if I need to so that this part of the problem is fixed automatically in real time for me.
Lastly today a quick word about Monsoon Rain. After recording several colour parts I find I can add them in gradually to really build the song – not least around the solos where the guitar line can be put into different contexts each time (as an orchestral arrangement might do). Add to this the gradual addition of instruments and vocal parts and the whole thing builds to a crescendo (as a tropical storm would do) so I’ve high hopes for this track.
More from the twilight world of my studio soon – and no, I’m not getting out much at the moment so feel free to comment on this blog and let me know that there are people alive and well in the real world still!
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