Heart Shaped Bruise WITH vocal

[rayc]

I've been waiting for years for a female singer to have a crack at this song. Mid last year Trudy Newell, a singer songwriter from Western Sydney, offered to have a crack at it. Today she sent me 3 vocal tracks.
The above is a fairly quick mix - no de esser etc just levels as per the vocal files with some Reaper comp & verb added.
Ido did the double line solos, Trudy the vocals, band In A Box did the drums.
It was my 1st attempt at drums in BIAB and I made them a little too busy BUT I didn't save the track so can't tweak it - I'd have to replace it (I've tried but can't find the same tempo/pattern etc).
Oh well. I've lived with it for a couple of years & should survive.
Thoughts on vocals levels, type of reverb etc?

[Greg_L]

I like the solo. It has a KISS "King of the Nighttime World" thing to it. minernuggs

I think before we even start talking about the mix, you've got timing issues all over the place. The guitars aren't in time with each other in spots. It makes the mix sound messy without even getting into mix issues.

[JD01]

Ray,

I've had a listen through and I agree with Greg - I think you need to practice this one a bit more to get the timing on the guitars and bass a bit tighter!

The drums are kinda loose feeling with a fair bit of swing to them - which is cool and will sound good when the song is done but in those fills they're probably also fucking up your timing a bit.

When you re-track it, but the mix pretty low and have the metronome at proper annoying volume, you'll tighten everything up quickly. Make sure you check your tuning between takes too.

In the first instance I think you should compress the vocals harder to get them to sit better. How many tracks have you got?

My beginner tip for mixing vocals is to stick a compressor with a decent ratio (about 5:1) on the individual tracks and then turning up the threshold until I started shaving a bit of each track. Then sticking all those tracks in a folder and putting another compressor on the whole folder of (already compressed) vocal tracks but this time with a higher ratio. I've only mixed vocals a few times though - mainly mine, and that Swedish bloke who did vox for one of my tracks (I'll post it here on the weekend), so other guys might have better ideas on how to do it but that seemed to work for me.

[rayc]

Thanks fellows.
I haven't touched this in years - I can't even remember how to play it. I'll have to relearn it and hope I can get the tones again.
How're the vocals? They are the new element.

[ido1957]

Trudy has a lovely voice Ray and she does a good job on the song. Any chance of getting her on a regular basis?
I hate redoing songs but I did a lot of redos before sending stuff to Jan - a lot. I had discovered how fizzy my tone was about halfway through all my writings back then. So I redid a bunch and they're better (not great just better - I should borrow Mike's new acoustic and redo all the ballads now).
Your current setup has a better sound to it, and would only compliment the song. Yeah I've forgotten a bunch of mine too

[ido1957]

Oh and just a thought if you do retrack... Try click + vocal to see if her inflections influence the pattern ever so slightly.

[rayc]

Thanks Greg JD & Gerry. I'll see if I can close this thread & relaunch after some work.

[WhiskeyJack]

Thread locked at request of OP.