Less Than Zero - cover by Ted

[Ted]

Less Than Zero

Music and Lyrics by Elvis Costello

Ted - Guitar, Bass, Organ (SY-1), Drum Sequencing (Micro BR), Vocals
Recorded on Micro BR
Trimmed, High-Pass Filter, and Normalized in Audacity

(Dallas Version Lyrics)

Jenny takes her clothes off in succession,
While her husband rides a bumper in the President's procession.
She sees him on the screen as she looks up from giving head.
When she's had enough of that her lover throws her on the bed
To teach her she's alive. And suddenly he's dead.

[Chorus:]
Turn up the TV. No one listening will suspect.
Even your mother won't detect it, so your father won't know.
They think that I got no respect, but everything is less than zero.

Hey, hey-ey, hey, hey-ey.

Calling Mister Oswald, calling anyone at the scene,
If you were taking home movies there's a chance you might have seen him.
There's a thousand variations, every witness in a file.
Jenny puts on some coffee and she comes back with a smile.
She says, "I hear that South America is coming into style."

[Chorus]

A pistol was still smoking, a man lay on the floor.
Mister Oswald thought he had an understanding with the law.
She's got rubies on her fingers, Jenny turns and looks away.
Her mind upon a basement out of the USA.
She says, "They about the future now let's put the past away."

[Chorus]

I wanted to do an all-MBR song for the first time in a long time. The MBR thanked me by corrupting the file while I did a bounce. So I had had to re-record everything. Fortunately I had the drum arrangement documented on paper (the most tedious process of recording on the MBR – although often very rewarding).

I took inspiration from the original release (1977 - EC solo), the "Dallas Version" (1978 - EC with the Attractions), and a live version (2012 - EC with the Imposters).

[Pete C]

Excellent cover Ted ! Great vocals and playing and the time spent on the drum arrangement has definitely paid off ! I'm always amazed at how good the results are on the MBR. I've listened to this through the speakers on my PC (just the built-in ones on the monitor) and also through decent headphones and the mix is great through both. I mix my tracks on headphones but I'm always a bit, sometimes very, disappointed when I hear it through speakers... any tips ??

Pete

[ODH]

Didn't think I knew this, turns out I do. And I really enjoyed your version. Nice played on the guitar and the organ part is cool.

[Ted]

I mix my tracks on headphones but I'm always a bit, sometimes very, disappointed when I hear it through speakers... any tips ??

The pros will tell you to never mix with headphones; always mix with good studio monitors. I always use headphones. (In the old days I would switch between several different pairs of headphones when I mixed, trying to find the best compromise mix. At least once I went into a car and plugged the MBR into the auxiliary input to see how it sounded on a mid-level car stereo. I don't do any of that anymore.) I've been using the same set of headphones for about 8 years. They aren't even studio monitor headphones. They are noise-cancelling headphones (highly rated when they were new), but I always turn off the noise canceling when mixing.

When people on this site give feedback about the mix, seems like it is usually that the vocals are too low, that the bass is too low, or that things aren't panned enough. So I usually mix the vocals just a tad louder than I would want them. Since I'm a bass player there's never a risk that I will mix the bass too low, but I usually mix them a tad lower than I would like.

I am usually pretty conservative with my panning: L/R 25 maximum - usually less. I'm a coward that way. (In this song, I ran my guitar through a stereo chorus. The guitar on the right and the organ are panned in exactly the same spot - R18, if I recall.)

When I do my mixdown, I'm pretty lazy. I just audition several of the MBR presets. I never tweak them. DANCEMIX usually wins, but this time it was LIVEMIX. I may tweak some of the individual instrument levels once I've settled on a mixdown preset.

So apparently my tips are to be lazy, cowardly, and to trust authority.

[Zoltan]

This is a thing of a beauty! And it's inspiring to hear that it was straight from the MicroBR.

I've got a lot of fun out from that gadget too, but lately i've been lazy (and haven't been as stressed with sitting in front of the computer. A thing that's soon to change ). It's my safety net of sorts.

Anyway back to the song. At first I thought about the Bret Easton Ellis book (there's also a movie) Less Than Zero. Like ODH i thought i wouldn't know the song, but turns out i do.

I've never been into Elvis Costello. G. D i've tried *cue violins*, but this is my jam. It's moody and energetic. Kinda strange combination feel wise, but i think that's one of Costellos traits and you're carrying it on with your version.

I'm listening with headphones and with these the vocals could still be 0,5-1db higher 😁 But this isn't a country mix and you'd lose some depth. So i think it's a keeper.

And the vocals were also done with the MBR on board mic? They're so clean sounding with analog sounding (!) somewhat dark ambience (*

(* I might be talking bollocks. I didn't sleep well...

I like what you did here and i really need to get back to MBR too. There are times when that's all the gear i have at hand and being able to reach even some of these heights would be cool.

As for the overall sound. It almost feels like MBR has somekind of special glue. Something that unifies the sounds as being part of the same session. Maybe it's the converters, maybe it's the way it handles the files / compression. I have this old Zoom multitrack and that isn't t CD quality so it's a lo-fi machine of sorts that certainly "unifies" the sound...

I'm going to revisit this song again (and again). Good stuff! Perhaps i'll eventually get what Costello is about. So far i'm liking this Ted guy!

[ODH]

So apparently my tips are to be lazy, cowardly, and to trust authority.

That's pretty much my approach to life on the whole...

[Farrell Jackson]

An excellent mix and song Ted. I don't know the original so it's new to ears and I like it a lot. It's sounds amazingly good, and it's all done on the MBR!

[Rene Asologuitar]

I am with ODH, I have not heard this before, and I am so glad to have heard this from you!!!
Very nice recording Ted, vocals are great and exquisite!!!
Thanks for sharing this gem.
Rene

[Ted]

And the vocals were also done with the MBR on board mic? They're so clean sounding with analog sounding

Yup. My goal here was to get back to simplicity. Every time I thought about "process" I would ask myself, "What will get this done the fastest?"

Nobody asked to see how the sausage was made, but because I'm feeling mildly flattered, I'll share my worksheets for this song.

• The Tracks - Page 1:
  
  • I bounced the guitar (T12V1), bass (T3V2), and organ (T4V2) to a stereo pair (T12V2). The only effect on this bounce was a slight chorus on the organ – otherwise EQ flat, and dry.
  • For the lead vocals (T3V3) I created a copy (T4V4) and did a rough "exciting compressor" thing. I put the "HardComp" effect on the copy and mixed them together, and bounced them to a new track (T3V4). (It's a trick I learned here from AndyR.) That might be the reason the vocals sound the way they do.
  
  
• Obsessively Auditioning Drum Patterns - Page 2:
  As I sequence the drums, I try out lots of patterns on the MBR – including trying them out at half the tempo, or even one-quarter the tempo. Then I make my final choice.
  
  This is one of things that delights me the most about working this way: Finding a busy pattern, and then trying it a half the tempo just for hell of it. Sometimes it works. The pattern during the chorus is actually a drum fill, but slowed down to half speed.
  
  
• The Drum Sequence - Page 3:
  Using this worksheet I designed a long time ago, I document the patterns, part numbers, and tempos. This saved my ass when the MBR corrupted my first attempt at the song. It also helps when I want to repeat the same sequence of patterns for subsequent parts (because I can't copy and paste like I could in a DAW). The verses are 120 BPM, the choruses are 60 BPM, and the "breakdown" before the big end is 30 BPM.
  
  For the third verse, I accidentally kept the tempo at 60 BPM (holdover from the chorus). I liked the way it sounded, but I almost didn't keep it because I had already written down the rest of the sequences. I realized that this what GarageBand has done to me – made me too lazy to erase a couple of lines with a pencil eraser and write them down again, just to move the whole arrangement over two cells to the left. I asked myself in shame, Why do I have this big eraser with me if I'm not going to use it? So I did what I needed to do.

Less_Than_Zero_-_MBR_Worksheets.pdf

That all felt a little self-indulgent. Maybe someone will be enlightened by it. Just remember: There are people here on this site more prolific than me, who do great mixes with (apparently) less effort. I might not be the best source of advice.

[Zoltan]

Thanks! I had a quick run thru, but later i'm gonna study your approach to song production. That's quite a methodical way of working. Especially when seen by the eyes of someone who just "wings it" everytime.

I do know people with very different approaches to songwriting / production. One starts the album process by building a big paper folder, treating the songs as friends, looking at them from all possible perspectives, making changes, going back and forth until they're really cooking. And only just then proceeds to the next stage.
Another one makes the whole album in 1-2 days and records it even faster.