The Acoustic Guitar Forum

Go Back   The Acoustic Guitar Forum > General Acoustic Guitar and Amplification Discussion > Show and Tell

Reply
 
Thread Tools
  #1  
Old 12-26-2017, 06:57 PM
PajamasMusic PajamasMusic is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Louisville, KY
Posts: 648
Default Lucky Guy (new original)

Hope you like it. Just "finished" this evening, still working out the kinks. Thanks for listening!

Mark



Lucky Guy

Thinking about the road you'll soon be traveling on
Wondering where it leads, the path you follow
Questioning for a moment where the time has gone
For a little more I'd steal if I could not borrow

Thought about the words I'd say when this day come
Now those words are ringing cold and hollow
Try to keep it real and not be overcome
Hid behind a wall of cheap bravado

Seemed a short while ago
You were just a babe in tow
Now you're grown and steady and you're shining

Hey baby it all goes 'round
No point now in backing down
Just grab your bag and hit the ground a-runnin'

Hey darling, I'm alright
Tell you now I'm a lucky guy
Just keep a little line of sight unbroken

Now the time has come we have to say goodbye
Take my hand and let there be no sorrow
Just a sunrise and an airplane ride
Imagine where you'll be this time tomorrow

In the blinking of an eye
Into the depths of a clear blue sky
And into the lights so bright that they'll be blinding

Make a wish upon a star
Take a jug from the reservoir of
Biding faith and love that I have for you

You'll always be part of me
Got your Momma's faith I believe
Now you gotta make your peace and just get started

La La la La La La
La La la La La La
La La la La La La La La
__________________
Mark

Last edited by PajamasMusic; 12-29-2017 at 05:16 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 12-29-2017, 10:03 AM
PajamasMusic PajamasMusic is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Louisville, KY
Posts: 648
Default

Changed guitars and kicked it up a half step.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 12-29-2017, 11:51 AM
Glennwillow Glennwillow is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Coastal Washington State
Posts: 44,926
Default

Well done, Mark! Very nice!

- Glenn
__________________
My You Tube Channel
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 12-29-2017, 12:01 PM
PajamasMusic PajamasMusic is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Louisville, KY
Posts: 648
Default

Thanks Glenn. If you don't mind, can you tell me what I need to work on to improve?
__________________
Mark
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 12-29-2017, 12:26 PM
Glennwillow Glennwillow is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Coastal Washington State
Posts: 44,926
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cap'nCrunch View Post
Thanks Glenn. If you don't mind, can you tell me what I need to work on to improve?
Hi Mark,

We all can improve, anything and everything can be made better with more time, more practice, more experience.

I like your song and the sentiments behind it. As a parent, I know very much where you are coming from.

The only area of improvement I might very carefully offer, is that I think the song presentation could be improved a little when you are singing by reducing the volume of your strummed guitar. You get really good tone from that guitar as you strum it, which I thought was appealing. But once you start singing, I thought that perhaps maybe your voice should be a little more up front compared to the guitar.

One way to do that is for you, as you play and once you start singing, to perhaps slightly palm mute your strumming. It would add a little percussive sound and mute the volume of your guitar to give you room to sneak your voice in there to be a little more prominent.

I struggle, as do many of us, with where to place the guitar level compared to the vocal level to get a full sound without burying the vocal part. And if the guitar volume level is too low, that's a problem, too, and the video loses energy, I think. There is a very fine line there.

I can't tell from your video how you are recording the sound of your guitar. It sounds like there is a separate mic on your guitar, but I cannot see that mic, assuming it's there. I am also assuming that you are recording the audio separately from the video and synching the two signals together later in a video editing program. So, if my assumptions are correct, you could ride the fader on your guitar level during playback to make your 2-track audio mixdown bring the vocal up and the guitar down a little while you are singing.

But it's good practice for you to learn to bring the guitar level down as you sing as part of how you perform this song.

As a good example of how to do this, check out Toby Walker's videos. He has learned over the years how to back off on the guitar as soon as he brings his voice in, and then to bring the guitar back up with his finger attack on the strings when he is not singing. I have mentioned this to him a time or two, because he is so good at it. Toby is modest about this, but he also has acknowledged how important this skill is.

And I would emphasize, particularly for strumming, that this is not an easy skill to learn. There are so many things to think about as you put a video like yours together, especially when you have just finished composing a song.

I hope my thoughts might be a little helpful. Really, I liked what you did, but as I noted in the beginning of this response, everything in this world can be improved; nothing is ever perfect.

Good job Mark!
- Glenn
__________________
My You Tube Channel
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 12-29-2017, 02:18 PM
PajamasMusic PajamasMusic is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Louisville, KY
Posts: 648
Default

Glenn, thank you so much for the excellent notes and for taking the time to make them. They are consistent with what I have been hearing from one or two others in my circle, and I am encouraged that they seem to be more technical in nature and less with regards to ability.

I am not using a board or any post-editing software. My setup consists of an AT4047 (for the vocal) and a Shure SM81, which I have moved quite away back in order to mitigate the instrumentals and in fact, often is set to minimal or even sometimes zero gain, so essentially not being used at all. If I back off too much, as you said, the guitar sound loses texture. However, even without the Shure, some of the instrument is bleeding into the vocal condenser mic, and I've tried to angle it up and away as best I can. Still get a good chunk of the guitar coming through however, and that's where I think most of it is coming from. If that is indeed the case, then a modification to my playing style may be my best solution.

Both mics are fed through a Fishman Artist and I'm recording directly into a Canon Rebel T7i with a good Rode stereo mic.

Been playing the last couple of hours with mic and amp placement relative to the camera, with minimal positive results. Will continue to work at it, because I tend to believe it's not the shortcomings of the equipment, but that of the user.

Without making the investment in the mixing board and software, I may be limited to a certain level of production quality. Hoping that's not the case.

I really do thank you for taking the time to comment. I really enjoy your vids and the quality in which they are rendered, so your notes are particularly salient.

Any other suggestions you'd be keen to offer would be gratefully received.

Best,

Mark
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 12-29-2017, 03:20 PM
Glennwillow Glennwillow is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Coastal Washington State
Posts: 44,926
Default

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your response. I'm glad you are not disheartened by my minimal suggestion.

Now that I understand how you are recording things, I think the only option is for your to learn to how to dampen the sound of the guitar somehow when you sing. You can either strum softer -- which is tough to do, I know -- or you could try palm muting the strings a little during your singing.

You are getting such good tone from your guitar while strumming that I can see why you might be reluctant to do the palm muting, but once you start singing, I think the listener is drawn to your voice and what you have to say in the song. And your song lyrics are good, so most of us are not going to want to miss what you have to say.

I don't know if you have ever tried to do strumming using palm muting. There are some YouTube instructional videos around on how to do palm muting while strumming with a flat pick. I had to use that technique on my song below because the guitar was just putting out too much volume.



Hope this might be helpful!

- Glenn

Here is one video on palm muting on an acoustic guitar using a flat pick:

__________________
My You Tube Channel
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 12-29-2017, 03:44 PM
PajamasMusic PajamasMusic is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Louisville, KY
Posts: 648
Default

What's interesting (or perhaps not) is, as an experiment, I simultaneously recorded via the Canon camera as usual, as well as a little Tascam DR-05 digital stereo recorder I have (which tends to render fairly decently) and the two results are very different. The Tascam is hardly picking up any of the residual guitar at all, which then had me looking at the Rode microphone to see what I might be able to modify on that end. Engaging the high pass filter had minimal or no effect. Might try moving the camera further away (which, given the size of the "recording space" might mean moving it out into the hallway).

Stay tuned...

Last edited by PajamasMusic; 01-04-2018 at 09:55 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 12-29-2017, 07:59 PM
Glennwillow Glennwillow is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Coastal Washington State
Posts: 44,926
Default

HI Mark,

Yes, that recording from the DR-05 is quite different and a very different blend. Hmmm...

Too bad you don't have external mic inputs on that recorder so that you could use your good mics to record directly to the DR-05. I have a TASCAM DR-44WL that does allow me to record to this small recorder directly with good mics. It works very well.

Best of luck!

- Glenn
__________________
My You Tube Channel
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 01-01-2018, 02:25 PM
KevWind's Avatar
KevWind KevWind is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Edge of Wilderness Wyoming
Posts: 19,878
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cap'nCrunch View Post
Glenn, thank you so much for the excellent notes and for taking the time to make them. They are consistent with what I have been hearing from one or two others in my circle, and I am encouraged that they seem to be more technical in nature and less with regards to ability.

I am not using a board or any post-editing software. My setup consists of an AT4047 (for the vocal) and a Shure SM81, which I have moved quite away back in order to mitigate the instrumentals and in fact, often is set to minimal or even sometimes zero gain, so essentially not being used at all. If I back off too much, as you said, the guitar sound loses texture. However, even without the Shure, some of the instrument is bleeding into the vocal condenser mic, and I've tried to angle it up and away as best I can. Still get a good chunk of the guitar coming through however, and that's where I think most of it is coming from. If that is indeed the case, then a modification to my playing style may be my best solution.

Both mics are fed through a Fishman Artist and I'm recording directly into a Canon Rebel T7i with a good Rode stereo mic.

Been playing the last couple of hours with mic and amp placement relative to the camera, with minimal positive results. Will continue to work at it, because I tend to believe it's not the shortcomings of the equipment, but that of the user.

Without making the investment in the mixing board and software, I may be limited to a certain level of production quality. Hoping that's not the case.

I really do thank you for taking the time to comment. I really enjoy your vids and the quality in which they are rendered, so your notes are particularly salient.

Any other suggestions you'd be keen to offer would be gratefully received.

Best,

Mark
Nice tune and the prosody is quite good , I love your rhythm timing and Honestly the performance is good enough that with some mixing or perhaps some changes in signal chain the sonics could be much better yet.


I agee the Youtube vid is a bit hot on the guitar . Now while there are things that could be done playing technique wise I won't get into that here .

BUT the other thing I might suggest from a technical standpoint is that You have some very good mics .However Understand that mic'ing is a difficult process and I see running those mics into the amp then running yet another mic into the camera as being double difficult . As Glenn mentioned if you can figure out how to go from the mics directly into whatever is actually doing the recording file you will be much more ahead of game

If it were me, with the money you invested into those nice mics I would seriously consider getting something like a small USB interface to plug the mics into and go straight to computer and a DAW, something like a Focusrite 2i2
__________________
Enjoy the Journey.... Kev...

KevWind at Soundcloud

KevWind at YouYube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD

System :
Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1

Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Ventura 12.2.1
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 01-01-2018, 04:44 PM
PajamasMusic PajamasMusic is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Louisville, KY
Posts: 648
Default

Thank you Kev as well for taking the time to offer me guidance on this topic, and Happy New Year to you. I had to look up "prosody" btw, because I've never encountered that particular word in the wild until today.

Looking at the spec on the 2i2, it appears to come with it's own DAW software, and I'm surmising this would cover and enable me to enhance/optimize the audio using my current mic configuration (the AT and the Shure), but I'm not clear on how/if I could sync and integrate with the video so as to render both in a single, integrated file. Obviously I have some more to learn on this topic.
__________________
Mark
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 01-01-2018, 05:29 PM
KevWind's Avatar
KevWind KevWind is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Edge of Wilderness Wyoming
Posts: 19,878
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by PajamasMusic View Post
Thank you Kev as well for taking the time to offer me guidance on this topic, and Happy New Year to you. I had to look up "prosody" btw, because I've never encountered that particular word in the wild until today.

Looking at the spec on the 2i2, it appears to come with it's own DAW software, and I'm surmising this would cover and enable me to enhance/optimize the audio using my current mic configuration (the AT and the Shure), but I'm not clear on how/if I could sync and integrate with the video so as to render both in a single, integrated file. Obviously I have some more to learn on this topic.
Ah yes video is another issue . I don't use a Focusrite ( I do know it is a very popular entry level interface) so I am not familiar if it's bundled DAW handles video or not . Perhaps some others can chime in on that . But yes using a DAW opens up a whole world of sonic possibility.
__________________
Enjoy the Journey.... Kev...

KevWind at Soundcloud

KevWind at YouYube
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD

System :
Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1

Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Ventura 12.2.1
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 01-03-2018, 11:22 PM
PajamasMusic PajamasMusic is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Louisville, KY
Posts: 648
Default

So I picked up a 2i2 and have been playing with it this evening. Using Avid's Pro Tools First and I have a lot to learn. However, I did manage to produce this sample after some trial and error...

Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old 01-04-2018, 12:20 PM
dgimcmillan dgimcmillan is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Steinbach , Manitoba
Posts: 87
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by PajamasMusic View Post
So I picked up a 2i2 and have been playing with it this evening. Using Avid's Pro Tools First and I have a lot to learn. However, I did manage to produce this sample after some trial and error...

An immediate difference in sound! Your new attempt has so much more depth to it now!

I would back off the reverb on your voice a bit more. All the guidance I've read says to be very conservative with effects, and your voice is very good now that it's being picked up better.

There's a little bit of sound breaking up in the guitar chording - are you setting your levels pretty high? The guitar still sounds great now, though!
__________________
Morgan CVQ Sapele
Gold Tone Paul Beard Signature Resonator
Salvador Ibanez GA5WCE
Washburn Mandolin
Kit-made Octave Mandolin
Martin HD-28
Reply With Quote
  #15  
Old 01-04-2018, 12:56 PM
Glennwillow Glennwillow is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Coastal Washington State
Posts: 44,926
Default

That's a very nice improvement Mark! Holy Cow! Good for you!!

Now that your voice is so much more upfront, you could actually bring your guitar level up a little. But as I noted before, obtaining just the right relative levels between voice and guitar is always a very fine line.

But the cool thing is that your guitar and voice sound so much better now! Getting them synched with video can be taken care of with a hand clap before you start recording once you have all equipment started in the recording mode. Then you can edit that hand clap out later before publishing a video. If you are using a PC, Microsoft's free Movie Maker can be used for an editing program if you are using only one video camera. That's a good program to start with. Adobe Premier Elements for about $70 will handle up to three cameras.

It's all a very big learning experience and as you learn more you will keep on getting better at this. There is always more to learn.

- Glenn
__________________
My You Tube Channel
Reply With Quote
Reply

  The Acoustic Guitar Forum > General Acoustic Guitar and Amplification Discussion > Show and Tell

Thread Tools





All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:10 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright ©2000 - 2022, The Acoustic Guitar Forum
vB Ad Management by =RedTyger=