Sooner or Later - AndyR Original

[AndyR]

At long last... finished... phew...

I posted an early work in progress of this song a while back (over a month ago!).

It's not really evolved much as a song since then, but the arrangement went absolutely bonkers!

I think it's the most complex thing I've attempted on the MBR, I very nearly took the tracks off to my DAW for mixing and processing, but in the end I've done the whole lot on the MBR again - it never ceases to amaze me what you can do with this thing. It was a lot of work, and it's stopped me doing anything else in my life for the last few weeks. Luckily, I'm quite pleased with the outcome

Hope you like it

Sooner or Later

Words & Music AndyR
Recorded on an MBR
Guitars, Bass, Vocals, Keyboards - AndyR
Copyright (c) 2009 A A J Russe

Time:

0:00

Volume:

50

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[Bluesberry]

Really frigging WOW.  I love everything about this.  It sounds really good, well done with the mixing and mastering.  You could go on one of those gear/techie recording sites, where all the dudes have $10, 000 worth of equiptmemt for their home recording studios, and they would not be able to do any better than this.  This is perfect sounding really.  All microBR, very inspiring.  You are one hell of a songwriter thats for sure.

[Wiley]

Wow that was really cool!!  Excellent job of using the br tools.

[Glenn Mitchell]

Great song writing, singing, playing, chord scheme, production. A target for us all. Good stuff Andy.

[Geir]

WOW Andy, I just can't describe how good this is! First of all your playing and production is so perfect, and I LOVE your voice. And on top of that you make such a wonderful, complex yet lovely song. I am in awe.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful music!!

[Facemask93]

I have to say i agree with Bluesberry's comment's 100% , you are very talented at songwriting , i caught up with some of your other stuff on soundclick and loved it , production on this song it just excellent ,tried to figure out who you sounded like vocally ,  but came to the conclusion you are quite unique , well done andy



Facemask93

[launched]

What can I say Andy? A fantastic number, premium production and love thos vox!!

I would also like to thank you for the technical info that you have posted earlier, and that it has helped my sound get much better(It would help if I could play, though!!) - you are the man when it comes to recording, no doubt and know what you are talking about!! A great asset to this forum.

Thanks,

Mark

[OsCKilO]

i wish i could hear this.


Laptop is dead!

Your stuff is always great!

Will find a way to listen!

[AndyR]

Thanks folks - much appreciated

I've been fighting with this one for weeks, I've been dying to finish it so I could post it and find out if I was barking up the right tree or not... (I was almost sure I was, but you never know do you?)

Launched, I've got three more tips I've learnt this time (actually I learnt far more than that, but these ones stick out):

1. Bottom end
I had a lot of trouble making the track flow, and I solved it just before I did the vocals.
I was quite pleased with the bass part, it's on the kick drums where it needs to be, it's thumping and melodic, etc, etc - but it's quite sparse and leaves a lot of spaces.
Early bounce/mixes (with the majority of guitars) just weren't doing it - everything was "spikey" and thin sounding.
I discovered two tricks (and I'm now sure these must be standard practice on professional recordings, they worked so well):
1) This was an accident and counter-intuitive - take a LOAD more bottom end off the guitar submix... this made everything warmer, fitted better with the bass, and sounded as if everyone was playing the same song.
2) We still had gaps in the bottom end that I didn't want to "lose" but I didn't want them so obvious. So I recorded a single note low organ part, just following the root notes. No rhythm to it (except under the "sooner or later" chords). It meant that I could let that part handle the "bass" and then the bass guitar could be treated so it was loud enough to hear the performance without making everything too jumpy. It's possible that most people, including me, wouldn't even realise that organ is there now.
I wouldn't use this trick everytime - only if the bass part needs help. If it's not jumpy, or if the track wants jumpy... then it doesn't need smoothing out!

2. Lead Vocal
I learnt this trick last time, but it really came into it's own on this track because of the mix the vocals have to cut through. It's an old motown trick apparently, and has been used in pop/rock ever since. You do it to the lead vocal.
i) Get a decent finished lead on a single track (edited, bounced from parts, wotever)
ii) Copy the track
iii) Track 1 - NO eq or compression at all. Put the reverb on this vocal. Dial this one into the mix at the volume the vocal needs to be.
iv) Track 2 - compress it to death (INF on all bands in the 3 band compressor), take the bottom/mid right out and boost the top end. No reverb on this one. Turn it up in the mix "to taste" - until the vocal jumps out but it doesn't start to sound weird...
v) Balance the two until you're happy (I think it was about 90:45 on levels track one to track two), and then bounce with the band...
This gives you a nice warm, natural vocal, that sounds uncompressed, but cuts through the mix without having to drown the band. It really works!!

3. "rhythm"
When it came to final overdub time (the high guitar in the 3rd verse), I was still having trouble with the track "flowing" and sounding homogenous all the way through. Part of this was down to the drum patterns I was having to use - verse two has a faster hi-hat pattern. The other problem is the rhythmic change between verses and choruses.

After a lot of head-scratching, I realised that this is were "percussion" gets used on recordings. Tambourine, shaker, cowbell, claps, whatever it takes, playing a recognisable pattern through all the changes...

I haven't got any such instruments at the moment (expect trip to the shops soon!), and my experience of trying to use them in studios in the past is not good! I considered slapping coins in pockets, experimenting with household objects, but my rhythm when hitting things is not too good - I need to practice this a lot before I use it in anger...

So I decided to use another guitar. You can hardly hear it. In fact, I'm not sure you can really spot it at all, but it makes a hell of difference if it's not there. It plays all the way from the start of verse one to the end of chorus two where the mood changes. Then it's silent until the final choruses and out.

All it is is a fairly clean telecaster (middle position, bridge was too bright) playing what I call a "Ritchie Blackmore" rhythm part - "dung-dukka-dung-dukka-dung" kind of thing. And it's got a carefully timed stereo echo on it as well so that you've got all these cross-rhythms going on.

It's low enough in the mix so that it doesn't "feature" (get in the way of the jangly tremolo'd guitars that have the same delay on them) or remove too much of the contrast between verses and choruses. But it's loud enough to tie it all together. And boy did it make a difference. AB'ing between the two versions, the missus picked the one with "dung-dukka" but didn't know why... "it's just better..."

NEway, better get on with some work now!!

Hope you get some relief for your broken laptop situation osckilo! (I thought the screen on mine had died last week, but giving it a slap seemed to fix it! )

[AverGo]

Wow!! Your vocals are like from a ledgendary metal singer with a pop/rock band, and it works very nicely together.
 My only negative is.. I can't friggin download it.. Sob...Sob...

Oh thanks for your production details and tips. Bit advanced for me at the moment, but worth hanging on to.