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New Recording Project - "Southern Lady"

RocketMusic

RocketMusic

Gold Supporting Member
Commercial User
Oct 31, 2007
10,754
8,929
Blacksburg, VA
www.rocketmusic.net
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Owner, Rocket Music
#1
Danny flipped me a CD this morning with some rough tracks for an original tune that he's been working on for 10+ years. This project has been through 3-4 different studio setups, all kinds of software upgrades, etc. The project was pretty much a mess from an organizational standpoint. But the basic idea seems pretty good, and we should be able to turn this into a rocking little number! :bassist:

I spent the afternoon trimming it back to the barest essentials (various guitar and vocal parts). Some of the guitar tones and vocal harmonies are not the best, so we'll probably retrack most or all of this. But this is enough for me to start building a solid rhythm foundation that Danny can then dress up with all the new guitars, amps, mics and preamps he's acquired since he first did these rough tracks. :rollno: :D

I'll document the progress of the tune here in this thread. I figure you guys might enjoy seeing it come together from these humble beginnings.

"Southern Lady" (Rough Tracks)
 
#4
Darkstrike said:
Ooh!

This is gonna be goood! :hyper:
Click to expand...

I sure hope so! The drums are coming together pretty well tonight. Then I just need to convince Danny to showcase a guitar that we have for sale (as opposed to one from his personal collection). And then I need to choose a suitable bass... Gadow? Roscoe? Suhr? G&L? Warwick? Decision, decisions. Any suggestions? :help: :D
 
#9
Great ears think alike, Joe! I loved that guitar/vocal part enough to let it stand alone for a full verse before the drums come stomping in. Check it out!

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The drums really cover a multitude of sins. The various areas of vocal pitchiness ("yo, it was pitchy, dawg!") seem to have disappeared. They're still there, they just don't slap you in the face now with all the drum bombast coming at ya.
 
#11
Here's the tune with my scratch bass line added. I recorded it using the latest Gadow bass arrival through my recently modified signal chain (Alembic F1X -> M-Audio FastTrack Ultra 8R USB interface -> PC/Sonar)

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"Southern Lady" (Rough Tracks w/ Bass & Drums)

The bass is a little hot in the mix... I trust you guys don't mind? :D
 
#15
One of these days, I'll learn that compression and EQ are crutches and do nothing but rob good bass tone in a recording environment... :rollno:

I pulled all that stuff off the bass track, and I tried a different setting on the multi-band compressor that is running on the stereo master bus. The new MBC setting adds some crunch/bite to the guitars, and the Gadow really delivers a knock out punch now all by itself (no crutches required). You can get a really good feel for the bass tone in the version with no vocals. The thing sounds pretty fricking awesome if I do say so myself, especially when I start working the B string on the outro. Wow! :bassist:

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#18
Man! You just proved that a song without bass is like a car without gas. It just won't go nowhere!
You got a huge thick tone on that track. You've really got me curious now. Is it the Gadow or your massive engineering skills? :hmm:

I'd sure like to hear your Roscoe on that track! ;)
 
#19
JOME77 said:
Man! You just proved that a song without bass is like a car without gas. It just won't go nowhere!
You got a huge thick tone on that track. You've really got me curious now. Is it the Gadow or your massive engineering skills? :hmm:
Click to expand...

I think it's mainly that a bass player had his fingers on the sliders. The bass is definitely mixed on the hot side, it's louder than you would normally hear it on a commercial tune. There's very little in the way of production trickery going on. Nothing on the bass track itself, and then just a multiband compressor and the WAVS L2 on the master bus.

I spent some time levelling the various drum instruments last night (brought the snare up & some of the cymbals down). I'll try to push out a mix today that will feature those changes and a more typical bass level.
 

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