First scratch recording for second CD - please comment

[buzzardwhiskey]

My makeshift recording studio is ready and I spent a bunch of time today creating a scratch recording upon which I'll assemble the layers when my band comes in.

I feel that I've made good strides. The room seems to sound ok, it's pleasant to work in, and I think that I can do it. Please feel free to comment.

[polarred21]

Put my headphones on to listen since it seemed you were looking for recording quality critique from which I am no expert.

Sound was crisp and clear, sounded like a simple 4 chord progression with some nice picking adding in, what are those neat tricks?

Nice mellow, enjoyable tune although the F word just killed it for me.

Good luck

[gfsark]

I think you should be pleased. Enjoyed your song a lot, except as pollard21 says, the f--word is out-of-place with the style of the music. (This isn't hip-hop genre.) Intro reminds me a bit of Knocking on Heaven's Door.

Curious about your use of compression on the vocals.

As for recording, I'm curious what your 'makeshift' studio consists of?

[buzzardwhiskey]

Originally Posted by gfsark

I think you should be pleased. Enjoyed your song a lot, except as pollard21 says, the f--word is out-of-place with the style of the music. (This isn't hip-hop genre.) Intro reminds me a bit of Knocking on Heaven's Door.

Curious about your use of compression on the vocals.

As for recording, I'm curious what your 'makeshift' studio consists of?

Thanks! I apologize for the swear word. There is no compression per-se on either of the two tracks. Here's the whole chain...

Martin CEO7 (About 5-6" from 12th fret and about 45degrees pointing toward upper bout)
Miktek PM5
Audient iD14
Mac
Reaper Daw
Scheps Parallel Particles Plugin (20% Air, 10% Bite, 25% Sub, 25% Thick)
ReaVerb (Bright Plate, Wet=-46.4)

My Vocals
Shure SM7B
Cloudlifter
Audient iD14
Mac
Reaper Daw
Scheps Parallel Particles Plugin (30% Air, 25% Bite, 0% Sub, 20% Thick)
ReaVerb (Bright Plate, Wet=-51.1)

The carpeted and cheap wood paneled 12'x14' room is in a basement of a split level. It has a 8.5 ft window that I've covered with two overlapping moving blankets. In the corner opposite the window I've put up another blanket and that's where the mic is.

Tracking uses a pair of Audio Technica M50x headphones. Mixing is done using Beyerdynamic DT70 Pro headphones and checked on a pair of Mackie CR3's.

[KevWind]

Ok Over all the recording and mix is fine. And BTW both "Bite" and "Thick" (if I remember correctly) are a type of frequency range specific compression.

From a pretend I was your producer standpoint.
Although I was in construction most of my working career and have the vocabulary to match. I actually agree that in this song in particular the F***** is actually a distraction from the feel and message of the song .. With some thought no doubt you can find an alternative that will better serve the song

And unfortunately the other thing that immediately struck me, is that the chords phrasing the cadence and even down to the coral ohh ohh ...ohh in the intro from 15 seconds on until the vocal (no doubt unintentional ) sounds to me so similar to the version of "Knocking on Heavens Door" by Bob Dylan from the Movie Pat Garret and Billy the Kid that it could be possibly be potential copyright infringement issue, maybe ??

[buzzardwhiskey]

Thanks for your comments. I think that I'm willing to chance the infringement issue, but I'll have to cogitate some more on it. I'd love to give Dylan a piece of the tens of dollars this release will make, but our system only allows for the use of the entire song as we did on our first album when we covered Sweet Ohio.

...edit...

I just found this: http://www.taxi.com/transmitter/1303...ng-safety.html

So the tune probably requires two permissions... I'll let it go. No biggie.

[muscmp]

i think it is a pretty cool song. the above mentioned off-color terminology doesn't offend me. if you feel it provides your feelings, then so be it. it is your song and no one else's. as far as bob dylan coming after you, i doubt he will. but, since everyone placed that in my mind, it resembles his song only with those utterances. just do them a little different and you are ok.

i'll like to hear what the band does with it.

play music!