Recording - April 2010 - 56

By submitting a Readers’ Tapes entry you automatically grant permission to Music Maker Publications to feature your submission here, on our website, and in our SPOTLIGHT e-newsletter. We might need to shorten entries for editorial reasons. By listing your name with the submitted work, MMP does not imply any assignment of rights to the submitted work. We can neither guarantee publication of a review nor engage in correspondence about individual submissions. Media can be submitted physically (as in an actual recording through the mail) or online at our website. For online submissions, please go to www.recordingmag.com and click on Readers’ Tapes, then select “Submit Your Recording” and fill in the requested information. We accept MP3 and AAC files of up to 5 MB size. File bitrate is up to you but we strongly recommend a minimum of 128 kbps; note that the higher the bitrate, the shorter the song that will fit in the 5 MB limit. You’re free to submit an excerpt of a longer song if that helps! Send physical submissions to: Readers’ Tapes c/o Recording Magazine, 5408 Idylwild Trail, Boulder, CO 80301. Please be sure to include: a) a CD, CD-R, cassette, DAT, or MiniDisc with only one song preferably no longer than 3:30 in length (or tell us which track you want reviewed); b) a credit list (who did what); c) a list of equipment used. Remember that CD-Rs with unevenly applied paper labels, smudges, or scratches won’t play back reliably. PLEASE state which part of your contact info we can publish (address, phone, and/or email)—if you don’t tell us precisely, we won’t print anything at all. British/Beatles comparison is that the mix, in its present state, more resembles the work of All Things Must Pass–era George Harrison and Phil Spector than a standard country tune. Brian’s slide guitar solo seems to re-inforce this to our way of thinking. Lest you think we’re being overly critical, rest assured that we’re not. As the man once said, “If you think this is easy you oughta try it sometime.” That said, we’d love to see Brian wait a bit longer to introduce his “support cast” in the mix, and drying up the overall ambience of his vocals would also be helpful. Summary: Don’t lose that producer’s hat. Contact: Brian Plamondon, bplamondon@telus.net, www.reverbnation.com/bplamondon Garth Engdahl Equipment: TASCAM Digital Portastudio, PC with Audacity (for mix); Shure SM58 mic, BOSS DR-770 drum machine. Brian Plamondon Equipment: Sonica Audio Labs Hush-2T Workstation with PreSonus FirePod, TC PowerCore FireWire, and Focusrite Liquid Mix, running Steinberg Cubase 4.5 and WaveLab 4.0; PreSonus Eureka, IK Multimedia ARC, Mackie HR624 monitors on Primacoustic Recoil Stabilizers; Neumann U87; Ovation acoustic guitar, Samick mandolin, Fender Telecaster, Stratocaster and Jazz bass, Zoom 234 drum machine, Boss GT-6 guitar effects, Peavey Bandit 112 amp. Music: “Turner Time” is a male vocal “country” song. Brian was the O.M.B. (one man band) on the project. Recording: Brian has submitted a rather dense track here and while he labels it as a country song we hear a lot of conscious or subconscious British/Beatles flavor as well. Starting with the rhythm section, we hear a basic drum pattern via Brian’s Zoom drum machine. Nothing fancy here, just a simple looped pattern. Joining the drums is the bass guitar which stays nicely in support of the kick drum while adding a bit more expression. Moving to the melody intruments we must congratulate Brian on the recording of his mandolin.The funny part is that with its beautifully open tone, it strikes us as very reminiscent (in a good way) of something from Rod Stewart’s early ’70s solo record “Gasoline Alley”, more so than a typical Nashville sound. In any event, it sounds great and we like it! Less successful to our ears were the lead and backing vocals. While the vocals are free of pitch and artifact issues, we find that the heavily processed, heavily layered backing vocals tend to dominate and overwhelm the mix. Suggestions: Arranging is a vital skill for all recordistists, and this is doubly true for one-man-band operations. We would suggest that Brian take a second look at the type of track that he is building here and put on the old producer’s hat while he’s looking! By introducing backing vocals so early and prominently he has left his mix with little breathing/building room. Perhaps one of the reasons that we were initially struck by the wholeRECORDING APRIL 2010 Music: “Old Mad Jack” is a male vocal rock song. Garth did it all with some help from Justin Burt who played the rhythm electric guitar. Recording: Recorded with minimal gear by today’s standards, Garth has submitted a rather uneven mix here. According to our research, the TASCAM Digital Portastudio is a digital eight-track with built-in effects and certainly capable of delivering a quality recording. What is unclear to us are some of Garth’s choices. Yeah, we know that the drum kit was panned to one side on some of the early Beatles recordings, but in those cases we heard a well-recorded kit that included a kick drum. In contrast, Garth has chosen to place the snare drum from his BOSS DR-770 drum machine to one side, minus any other audible drum. Also missing from the mix is any type of bass guitar. So is the concept more of a White Stripes guitar/drum affair? Well, it’s hard to say.We do hear an acoustic and electric guitar in the track, rather smeared behind the up-front vocals, so maybe that was the blueprint here. Suggestions: Submissions such as “Old Mad Jack” are often the most difficult to assess. On the surface we hear a mix that is unbalanced and certainly lo-fi. The tricky part is that there have been many “lo-fi” releases through the years that were actually recorded in some mighty fine facilities with excellent gear and substantial budgets. Is that the case here? Not so much. That said, a digital 8-tracker with effects is more firepower than a lot of folks had to play with in years gone by. So the conundrum is once again intent. Does the majority or even the minority of music released these days feature one-sided drums? ‘Fraid not. Soooooo that leads us to the slippery slope. Garth is either unaware of this, doesn’t care, or has intentionally made his choices based on “artistic” license. In any event, as stated many times over in this column, our mission statement is hopefully to provide some helpful insight into proper recording fundamentals for our recording musician readers. Since the reading of minds, tea leaves and Tarot cards falls outside that description, we’ll not venture to guess what motivated Garth’s decision making, but rather to take a more straight-up approach. In that spirit, then, we would suggest that Garth revisit his mix and make a few adjustments. Start with the drums: move the snare to the center of the mix and dial in an audible kick drum to go with it. If a bass guitar is available, lay one down for a solid rhythm bed for your guitars. As for the guitars, this is where some panning could be useful. Try moving them out opposite each other until they begin to “speak” a bit more clearly. Lastly, dropping the volume of the lead vocal down a bit would help the overall balance of the song. Summary: Not sayin’, just sayin’ Contact: Garth Engdahl, garthengdahl@hotmail.com.

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Recording - April 2010

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