I heard this song yesterday on MTV2, it’s great! We must steal it!
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Motu Traveler mk2
Motu Traveler mk2
There are a lot of multichannel audio interfaces on the market, and many of them have similar specs. I haven’t tried that many, but my impression is that they ARE very similar both in design and sound quality.
I initially bought a Motu UltraLite and was very happy with it. I have never experienced any problem with Motu interfaces, and I really liked the smallness (it fit in my laptop bag) and rugged design of the UltraLite. But when a coworker said he wanted to “downgrade” his Motu Traveler for a UltraLite, I suggested a trade which he accepted. The only reason for me doing this was that the Traveler has 4 mic preamps where the UltraLite only has 2. For me this means that I can take the laptop, the Traveler, and some mics, go to our rehearsal space and record 4 channels of drums. With my TLA 5001 4-channel mic preamp I can record 8 channels.
Fire Fire Fire 10
I ran the the vocals through a TLA 2051 mic preamp using its compressor and EQ instad of the DAWs. I think the result sounds slightly better, maybe because of some slight tube overdrive. I then ran this track through the Roland Space Echo, recording the wet signals reverb and a short slap back echo.
I’m thinking we should maybe rerecord the main guitar. It was done quite fast as a guide track, but then we thought it sounded good and kept it. I think the playing is pretty OK (sloppy enough!) but the sound is too “country” and twangy. I would like a darker, more jazz-like sound. If I mute it in the verses there is much more room for the vocals, but then there is not enough drive in the music. I have a guitar with flatwound strings, so I might try that.
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Microphone test
Måns testing mics
We were not so happy with the vocal sound on some of the tracks, so we decided to do a microphone test. It has been difficult to get a sound that is both pleasant yet can cut through the mix. We chose the song Fire Fire Fire to try different mics on, partly because it has both very soft and quite loud vocals, and partly because it was a song where the vocals were hard to mix.
We connected four mics we had available to the four mic inputs on my Motu Traveler. The mics were (left to right in pic):
- T-Bone SC400 large diaphragm condenser
- Sennheiser MD 541 dynamic (no bass cut)
- Sennheiser MD 421 dynamic (no bass cut)
- Studio Electronics B1 large diaphragm condenser (no bass cut)
To make the test at least pseudo-scientific Måns connected the mics and I connected the mic inputs, so we didn’t know which mic went what input. But then I had to cheat: two mics needed phantom power, so I knew which were the condenser mics at least. All mics were set to give approximately the same level to the track.
Måns sang a verse/chorus and then we listened. Track 1 sounded pretty good, but a bit thin. Track 2 sounded crap in comparison, less treble and with some ugly resonant frequencies in the lower mid. Track 3 lacked a lot of treble. Track 4 was similar to Track 1, but less sticky.
So what was the result? Track 2 was the T-Bone mic. It sounded quite bad, so we won’t use it for vocals. Track 3 was the Sennheiser 541. I bought this second hand from an auction and have used it as a snare mic. Compared to the others it sounded almost broken since it lacked so much treble. It will stay in the drawer when we record vocals.
The mics that sounded good were the 421 (Track 1) and the B1 (Track 4). The 421 had a quite sharp quality that made the vocals cut through the mix. Unfortunately it sounded a bit unpleasant on the louder parts. The B1 sounded the most “natural” of the four mics, but it didn’t cut through the mix as well as the 421.
We re-recorded the whole song using the 421. We’ll see if we are happy with this take or if we want to do it again.
What we learned:
- Mics sound really different.
- It’s hard to say if a mic sounds good or bad if you don’t have anything to compare with. A/B testing is recommended.
- We want to try a really expesive mic!
Fire Fire Fire 09
Another recording of this song. Yeah, who knew? :)
We performed an advanced microphone test on these vocals. You can read more about that test here.
All in all, I am much happier with this mix and the sound of the vocals now. Before I felt that they were muddled but now it cuts nicely through. What do you think?
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Underachievers 08
New remix of this song. Anders did some tweaking and replaced the “wimpy” guitar with a piano in the chorus. I replaced the glockenspiel in the break with FM bells straight out of a Paul Young nightmare I had about the year 1986. What do you think?
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If You Don’t Know Why 04
We have discussed using another melody in the verses, to make the song less monotonuos. I muted Måns vocals and played another idea for a melody using a cheesy synth sound. This melody has longer phrases and is more anthem-like. It’s basically a ripoff from U2′s Where The Streets Have No Name, and in the buildup to the (instrumental) chorus I would like it to have the intensity of Band Of Horses’ Is There A Ghost.
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If You Don’t Know Why 03
Måns and I talked on MSN on how to make the song less monotonous so I fiddled around with shortening the intro and only letting Måns sing every second phrase in the verse. I only had time to edit the first verse, so the second is still the same as in 02. I also did some editing of the bass track.
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If You Don’t Know Why 02
Last night I re-recorded the vocals for If You Don’t Know Why, after changing a couple of lines in the lyrics. Also I tried a couple of different approaches in singing styles, and today Anders made a remix of the song, with a couple of new sounds, like an acoustic guitar.
In my opinion, this song is starting to become something more, and I will now go ahead and change the status from “sketch” to “song” here on moonpalace.se. I’m still not entirely pleased with the song structure, and I want to shake things up a bit to make it more interesting, especially in the second verse. I’m thinking of adding some vocal harmonies. We’ll see.
On the bright side, I think this is the best vocal sound we’ve had yet. And I don’t mean the cool tape reverb slap-back effect, but just overall “sound” of the voice on this track is better than what we’ve heard so far. I think. What do you think?
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If You Don’t Know Why 01
Last night I added a first vocal draft to the song previously known as “Airwaves“. After finishing the first lyrics I changed the name of the song to “If You Don’t Know Why”, but I’m not sure this name will stick around.
This is a very rough recording, more of a vocal sketch really. This is something I like to do to give Anders the idea of how I envision the vocal sound and feel for the song, and then he usually thinks for a while, works his magic, and it comes back sounding really great. :)
There are a LOT of words in this song. Perhaps too many. I want to figure out a way to make the verse more interesting, either by adding another vocal track, or coming up with variations on the song melody. Anders suggested taking out every other line of the text and replacing it with an instrument “response”. I’m not sure, but I think something needs to happen to keep it from being boring.
I was trying to hold a specific image in my head as I wrote the lyrics, as is my current way of writing, but I kind of ran aground when I had no more ways to describe the scene, so the lyrics will most definately change over time, whether or not we take out lines.
Also, this mix is very strange. I did something weird with the compressor and as a result it all sounds… strange. But it’s a work in progress, and everything must be put on the blog – as bad as it might be! :)
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