Feel The Fire (final mix)

[Redler]

This sounds very relaxing to me! Well written and the arranged. Sounded real good on headphones. Fine job!

 - Kari

[Speed Demon]

An outstanding song! Very well done.

Gene

[AndyR]

I like this

Personally, I'm happy with the vocal up that loud, I like the effect it has when it comes in. But I can see how it could be brought down a tad.

On the distorted guitar, it does need more "prominence", but it might not actually need a lot more volume.

I actually like it as it is, and I don't think you need to mess with it. It's a really good listen.

But!! () I've typed a load of guff below that you might like to experiment with, either on this or next time (apologies if you already know some or all of this stuff)

One of the things that makes this guitar seem less prominent is that it doesn't seem to have the lush reverb on it that the vocal does.

One good trick is to use the same reverb/echo settings on the lead vocal and the lead guitar, but use different ones on the other instruments. So when it switches from one to the other, you're tricked into imagining a spotlight moving from the singer to the guitarist and vice versa.

But i'm not sure that will help on this one.

The other thing is that this guitar is panned over to the right. Nothing wrong with that, but we've just been listening to the upfront vocal, he's left the room and suddenly the action seems to be off to the right...

Now, I've got a feeling that you don't regard this guitar as "centre-stage", and I think you're right in this case. I'd happily put this performance centre-stage, but I like how the singer leaving leaves an empty spotlight... And there's actually another, cleaner, guitar off on stage-left doing interesting and complementary stuff...

So there's another trick you could use to "fill" the stereo and the listener's interest as the singer leaves - but it's a bit tricksy if you're using the MBR. You want to get the "reverb" of the distorted guitar over to the left (and possibly the reverb of the left hand guitar over to the right).

Depends how you've got it all recorded, but one way of doing it is like this:
1. Make a copy of the lead guitar track
2. Pan the original where you've got it now
3. Pan the copy opposite, usually all the way
4. Set the original as loud as you want with little or NO reverb
5. Set the copy as quiet as you can with LOADs of reverb

Listening to these two (original and reverb) on their own should sound a bit daft. But stick them in the mix - especially if an instrument on the other side is reverbing back - really opens things up. It fills the sound without adding more parts, and lets you put more reverb on without muddying everything up.

I just listened again to see if what I'd written made sense, I think it does. But what I also noticed is that the clean lead on the left sounds louder than the distorted one on the right. Without messing with anything else, taking a little low end off of both of them and then raising the volume of the distorted one just a little bit will balance them a bit better.

If it was mine, I'd still have been tempted to fiddle with reverbs after the singer leaves, though (no, actually, that's wrong - what I'd actually have done is record a bunch more instruments trying to fill the gaps I could feel, wondering why it wasn't getting better  - don't mess with the sparseness, that's what makes this one happen)

[Gary F]

 Thanks for the comments everyone!
 Thanks Steve, PFJ and Andy for the advise!! I agree that the distorted lead should be more center!
I'm still learning about this little silver box.
  Thanks again!!
   Gary

[Ted]

Just listened to this in your jukebox.  Very nice production--especially considering this was in your days before bouncing.  It could be tweaked or not. I grant you my permission not to fiddle with this one anymore. It's very good, and you've probably got more songs to get to.

BTW: Bump!

[Pete C]

Really enjoyed listening to that Gary.  Great vocal and loved the subtle but effective guitar parts. I'll be listening to this one more than once!

[Krasi]

Soo warm and relaxing. Great feeling and amazing guitars. I have also listened closely to Andy's advise - he seem to have great ideas on how to improve a record and Im trying to follow every help and hints he gives us.

[Pamala]

this is very ethereal...i love the smorgsbord of sound bouncing between my ears!

[SE]

Atmospheric feeling, with nice guitar, can hear some Robert Plant in those vox too, great work.

[Gary F]

 Thanks everyone for the comments!!!!

Ted-Thanks for the bump!!!

       Gary