Cobwebs - AndyR Original

[AndyR]

Many thanks everyone

I was really worried about this recording. Not the lyrics, I'd already checked it out with the ladies I really didn't want to offend before I posted it. They were a mixture of "not quite my favourite of your stuff, but clever, don't change it" and "Oh YEAH!! Frisky as hell".

By the way, Regs - it was your and Speed Demon's cover of Black Dog that triggered the vocal/lyrics , check out my comments on BD on alonetone. When I said "Off to the broom-cupboard now to exorcise my inner Percy" ("Percy" = "Percy (Robert) Plant" to anyone who doesn't get this!), that's exactly what I did in the next half hour or so - put the backing on (it was just two guitars, a guide bass and a click then) as loud as it would go and shouted this stuff at it.

No, I was worried that with all the acoustic stuff I'd been doing that I'd painted myself into a corner and wouldn't be able to do this sort of thing effectively anymore (or that people would be surprised by it or not like it coming from me...)

I was worrying needlessly, wasn't I?

Thanks for the affirmation, folks

Oh yeah, there are two direct and deliberate quotes of favourite guitarists on this recording - I was half expecting to be pulled up over this, but no-one seems to have noticed. One of them could be slightly obscure (it's in the instrumental break after the "come on then"), and it is played on slide where as the original wasn't. The other I was SURE guitarists would spot, but it's disguised by the falling bass-line in the outro.

As always, there were a bunch of new tricks I learnt while doing this one (vocals and drums) - give a shout if you wants to know about them... but I gotta go off and do something else right now.

[Geir]

I was worrying needlessly, wasn't I?

yes

Oh yeah, there are two direct and deliberate quotes of favourite guitarists on this recording - I was half expecting to be pulled up over this, but no-one seems to have noticed. One of them could be slightly obscure (it's in the instrumental break after the "come on then"), and it is played on slide where as the original wasn't. The other I was SURE guitarists would spot, but it's disguised by the falling bass-line in the outro.

Now that's gonna bug me all day !! Good thing it's on my piPod so I can have it on repeat when doing other stuff, otherwise I wouldn't get much done today

As always, there were a bunch of new tricks I learnt while doing this one (vocals and drums) - give a shout if you wants to know about them... but I gotta go off and do something else right now.

SHOUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[64Guitars]

[AndyR]

As always, there were a bunch of new tricks I learnt while doing this one (vocals and drums) - give a shout if you wants to know about them... but I gotta go off and do something else right now.

SHOUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"New York Compression"

I heard about this the other week. It's related to the "Exciting Compressor Technique" I use on vocals, but slightly different.

Apparently New York studios started doing this to drums in the late 70s early 80s. It's about putting EQ on a compressed copy of the drums rather than on the natural drum track. When I heard about it, this was the thing on the machine. I didn't expect it to work, especially not doing it to the whole kit... but wow!

This track has the BR1600 drums on it, the "Heavy" kit with step-wise edited patterns (I can't program drums in realtime - one day I'll get some pads and see if it's any easier with sticks). So it's not exactly a "natural" sounding drum part

I followed the instructions.

Copied the stereo drum track, so now I've got two.

The "natural" track I left with no EQ and a tiny bit of reverb to put it near the band, and set that at the appropriate level for the mix.

The other track I compressed to buggery. Probably -20db or so, at least 8:1, attack as fast as possible, release can't remember, hard knee.

Then for EQ:

LOW: Lots of 80Hz at a Q of 1.4. Must have been at least +10db. This was for the kick drum.
MID: Lots of 200Hz, Q 1.4, same amount. This was for the snare.

Then just bring this up to taste...

WOW! Drums go ballistic!! Big big big, but you can turn them down and stay big. And so much simpler to achieve than some other things I've tried in the past. Try it, you'll see

You can do it to other instruments, apparently. Oh well... in for a penny...

So I also did it to the bass stereo submix (stereo because by then it had all of its processing on it - spot of reverb with all the bottom gone, some chorus to make it growly, and its original compression/limiting to make it go, and EQ to get it sitting nice).

And I did it to the Guitar/Organs stereo sub-mix.

Then I mixed these three, plus a percussion sub-mix, together to make the band mix.

What the NY Compression technique seems to amount to is "if you need to boost EQ, don't do it to the natural track - take a copy, compress it, and boost that... then add it in until it sounds good". So just use the relevant EQ frequencies and Q settings for whatever you're trying to achieve on that track.

"New Andrew Russe Vox"

Two main things here. First of all, I noticed ages ago that Steven Tyler of Aerosmith puts a higher close harmony on complete lead lines. Not sure, but it looks like it's evolved from Joe Perry's live backing vox. Anyway, Mr Tyler uses it to produce a multi-dimensional lead vocal.

This thing was quite high and might have been in need of something. So I thought I'd try this technique. The harmony was actually too high to do just one. So I did two - one a strong falsetto, the other a rather panicky full rock voice that falls to pieces when it can't reach. These weren't panned, or maybe a tiny spot either way, and I mean tiny. And I added another an octave lower to thicken it all up. The harmonies were treated like chaotic backing vox - ripped off all the bottom, compressed/limited them and used the compressor to raise their volume. They possibly had a slightly different reverb that the main lead.

The lead had the exciting compressor applied (same technique as above but on the "compressed" copy, big shelf cut below 250Hz, big shelf boost above 5KHz), and all four were mixed to a stereo submix. Reverbs, delay and the odd overdub ("Take it off, etc", "Come on", "pop", and "blow the f's out") were mixed into this main vocal sub-mix. Then when I was putting this and the breathing, La La, and Aah backing vox sub-mixes into the final mix, I used more NY Comp on the main vocal.

What we end up with is not quite like I was expecting, but it seriously enhanced the already raw vocal. I'd be very wary of doing it to an acoustic mix, but it honks like hell when there's big drums and a wall of guitars. Notice how you can get the vox quite low in the mix and still hear them clearly by doing all of this.

In hindsight, I think I could have taken the lead vox and drums lower and still rocked - track would have been a fair bit louder/bigger after mastering then.


Lastly, how did we get the vocal in the first place? As The Who would say... "Brandeee"

I could do vocals like this live - might lose power quite quickly though. But you push too hard in a recording situation. You can do the first line of a verse, cross your legs to get to the higher second line, all going well... but you've shot your bolt and can't handle the third line...

So I resorted to a big glass of water and a glass of brandy. Before each take, swill mouth and throat with water. Then a tiny sip of brandy, making sure it hits the rasp in the throat. Then do the take, hold back from full-throttle, don't push it, let it break up of its own accord.

Later, I found that the brandy was non-essential (thankfully!), all it had helped me do was relax my throat and enabled me to find the other bit - hold back in a relaxed way and let your voice do it all. Don't have the band too loud in the cans - you need loud vocal monitoring. It's actually changed me - if I were to go out live now, I'd want vocal monitors as loud as everyone else does (I used to go "f*ck it, I don't need them, I can hear myself anyway, I need to be able to hear my guitar more so that I can play it on auto-pilot")

I've since been watching live footage of all the raspy boys - Noddy, Rod, Joe Cocker (later on certainly). That's how they all do it - none of them are going full tilt, it's an "effect" like putting on an accent (possibly not Rod Stewart, apparently it's always come out like that ).

So I'm practicing a bit at the moment

[Geir]

Thanx for your detailed insightful explanations Andy !! Much appreciated.

I've since been watching live footage of all the raspy boys - Noddy, Rod, Joe Cocker (later on certainly). That's how they all do it - none of them are going full tilt, it's an "effect" like putting on an accent (possibly not Rod Stewart, apparently it's always come out like that ).

I think I heard someone once described that as "natural compression" in the voice. The ability to sing so it sounds like you're screaming your lungs out, but it's actually not that loud. .... I'm practicing that too

[SwanSong]

HI Andy  great sound and solid rock peice. u ve got going.
really loved it s power especially toward the middle and end
over all a great song enjoyed very much cheers NEIL.!

[Nelson]

I followed half of what you did but my head started to hurt and I curled up under the covers like a frightened little child.   

But man are sounds you managed produce, outstanding. The vocals, drums and just the over all mix is powerful and full and just jumps out at you.

Well done

Maybe I'll try reading it again some other time.

[AndyR]

Maybe I'll try reading it again some other time.

Try this first (a fine post from Ratty )... it's where I got the NY Compression from:

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=15795.0

I can't check because I'm at work and can't stream etc, but I believe his first link takes you to page where there's a load of tutorials. I believe one is called New York Compression, or something. I watched it for a laugh... but it's really clear and mind blowingly simple in the video.

[launched]

Really enjoyed this one, Andy - And it sounds quite modern, too. I'll be picking this one apart for a while, it's awesome!!

[Gritter]

Rocks. Full on!