Me and Bobby McGee

FatBoy · 2008-07-31T13:14:32+00:00

Ok here goes... I love this song, it's sort of the reason I picked up a guitar in the first place. I am fairly new to guitar and even more of a noob at rec...

Me and Bobby McGee

Gray

Wait are you saying you did all of that, the guitar, harmonica and vocals? ?

AlanRatcliffe

Hi Fritz

Not a bad recording at all. Nice resonant voice, well suited to the style - although you must learn to enunciate the words better, you have a tendency to slur them a little. Only Tom Petty can get away with that ?

The harmonica could come down a couple of dB, but I think it's more the stereo placement that's muddying things up. Try moving the harmonica and the guitar out from the middle to either side a bit. Then depending on how that works out I'd probably try EQ the guitar with a bit of a midrange scoop to leave a little more sonic space for the vocal and brighten it up with a high shelving EQ from around 4K up.

Don't mix on headphones, BTW. They're fine for tracking, but give you a false impression of the stereo image and usually make you mix your reverbs too dry.

When you sing, you hear your own voice via your jawbone, which gives you a completely false idea of what your voice sounds like.

FatBoy

Wait are you saying you did all of that, the guitar, harmonica and vocals?

Erm yes :-[ ?

Thanks for the tips Alan. Will work on the slurring thing. Will try your suggestions wrt the mixing a bit later tonight.

Headphones will have to do for now, until I can afford decent monitors, I have these crappy pc speakers at the mo and they sound horrible.

Gray

Not a bad recording at all. Nice resonant voice, well suited to the style - although you must learn to enunciate the words better, you have a tendency to slur them a little. Only Tom Petty can get away with that

The harmonica could come down a couple of dB, but I think it's more the stereo placement that's muddying things up. Try moving the harmonica and the guitar out from the middle to either side a bit. Then depending on how that works out I'd probably try EQ the guitar with a bit of a midrange scoop to leave a little more sonic space for the vocal and brighten it up with a high shelving EQ from around 4K up.

Don't mix on headphones, BTW. They're fine for tracking, but give you a false impression of the stereo image and usually make you mix your reverbs too dry.

When you sing, you hear your own voice via your jawbone, which gives you a completely false idea of what your voice sounds like.

I was just about to say this... all of this almost word for word. ?

Gray

@ Fritz: Dude that is Legend. You're really talented.

AlanRatcliffe

Headphones will have to do for now, until I can afford decent monitors

Ahh - I've been there! I worked for a long time with a pair of Hi-Fi speakers and a pair of Sennheiser HD250 headphones. Mixing with the headphones gave me a dark mix, cos they were so bright and detailed, and mixing with the speakers gave me an overly bright mix. Eventually I learned what to listen for and how to compensate for each.

Given enough experience with any setup, you can learn how to adjust for it when you mix. Just try your mixes everywhere - especially on a car CD player - until you learn how to compensate.

FatBoy

Thanks Gray! Much appreciated, means a lot to me ?

Ok cool Alan, I understand what you are saying even if I don't know all the terms yet, I will try it out everywhere!

Riaan-Combrink

Hi Fritz!

Very impressive. I've never done home recording, so I can't critique the technical stuff, but I really liked your performance. Very dark - kinda what I'd expect Rick Rubin to coax out of a guy! Very nice. Particularly liked your voice after the key change (higher register good for you). hope to hear "sunday morning coming down" soon ... ?

PS: Anybody know of something like box.net where you can host the odd soundfile but without a monthly subscription? Is there such a thing as a free lunch? :-[ Surprised Google hasn't got one (seeing they've got Picassa, Page Creator, Calender, etc).

Riaan C

FatBoy

Thanks Riaan!! Much appreciated, I'll see what I can do about that sunday morning for you.

Box.net is free if you take the Lite package, only one gig storage but that should work fine. It's what I'm using, and I'm not paying anything. Works great so far, and it has the media player thingy so its all I need for now.

Riaan

Hey Fritz, hats of to you! That's really cool, and sounds good. Well done!

sepheritoh

I loved it. A real favourite of mine and you did it good service. Really made me grab my guitar and played along.

Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work. Please let's hear more.

Attila

too cool Fritz, good one

I especially like the version done by Janice Joplin, kinda spacey and out of it

FatBoy

Thanks again guys! :-[ Yea Atilla Janice's version is awesome, a lot of power in her vocals, and yes very spacey!