Lost In The Moonlight - Song a week 2010 - 33

[T.C. Elliott]

Barbara, over at the 50 Songs in 90 Days site, posted a song yesterday that just hit me in the right way. Which inspired this song from me today.

Lost In The Moonlight

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I say I love you every day
You just can't hear what I say
Your eyes look up to the sky
As I stand here wondering why

I try to hold you at night
You say I hold you too tight
Your eyes look up to the sky
I reach for your love but it's too high

Lost in the moonlight
Too blind to see
Lost in the moonlight
Lost to me

The more I love you the more you run
Your Daedalus wings melt in the sun
Your eyes look up to the sky
My heavy love won't let you fly

Lost in the moonlight
Too blind to see
Lost in the moonlight
Lost to me

It's been a year
Since he passed on
It's been a year since he's gone

Lost in the moonlight
Too blind to see
Lost in the moonlight
Lost to me
Lost in the moonlight
Too blind to see
Lost in the moonlight
Lost to me

[SE]

Excellent tune, really liked the melody, sang along, from start to finish, really enjoyed the listen ,great work, again.

[Redler]

A real singer/songwriter tune T.C! Melodic song with beautiful lyrics. You sang this very well! Loved also the perfect sound of the acoustic guitar. You are able to keep really good quality in this demanding song challenge. Fantastic!!

Kari

[Gritter]

A sweet, full sound out of that guitar of yours. The vocals are excellent and the lyrics are good.

* you should check the spelling of the title.

[T.C. Elliott]

Thanks, I had that misspelling in three places... silly pig.

[Krasi]

Great sound!!! Really well played and sung!!!
I never understood how to record acoustic and a clear nice sounding voice like in this track.
If you take the time to explain here I will be much obliged. Thanks.

[Kenneth]

Sad lyrics and a beautiful song. It really sounds nice and full and your vocals are amazing and very professional.
I really enjoyed it.

[T.C. Elliott]

Great sound!!! Really well played and sung!!!
I never understood how to record acoustic and a clear nice sounding voice like in this track.
If you take the time to explain here I will be much obliged. Thanks.

The acoustic is a Yamaha acoustic/electric. I recorded it line in (built in mic) on one track of the BR900 and then through a at2020 condenser on another track at the same time. I then recorded the vocals over in one pass... normally I'd record each verse and chorus separately, usually coming back to the first verse. But this time I thought they were better than they actually are.

I then recorded the solo section. I played it four times through keeping all four recordings. I did this by using the same technique as above. Line in one one track and condenser on another. I then used the BR WAV converter and made wav files of all the tracks. I then put them into Reaper.

In reaper I panned each of the acoustic rhythm takes hard to one side, one left one right. I added a touch of reverb to both tracks and increased the condenser track a bit to level out levels (this should have been done during the recording stage as much as possible.) If you listen you can tell that one side is more percussive (you can hear the plectrum hitting the strings.) I also basically did a high pass on the guitars at about 50hz with the reaEQ. I don't always hear a change, but sometimes it clears up the sound a bit. Sometimes, if it is mostly line in I'll low pass as well, or eq the highs down just a hair and some times raise the mids a hair, but not today.

For the lead/solo section I played with a bit of reverb and eq but basically left them alone. I think I panned 15percent left and right for each guitar, but might have removed it thinking it sounded off. I forget. The idea being that the vocals and the lead should be front and center and the rhythm guitar should be a bit more spread out.

Hope that helps a bit.. if you have further questions let me know.

I think the vocal track is so clear because I use the condenser, which is a fairly cheap one (under 100 bucks U.S.) But it suits my voice well. A SM58 makes it way too muddy.

[Krasi]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to write down your method. I'm printing this and will read and study carefully before I try to put some acoustic on a record. I see I will have to buy a condenser and look out for this "reaper" you talking about. I noticed also your record is "hot" yet there is no distortion. Would that have to do with using the reaper or you had it already so loud before. It seems I have to learn a lot!!!

[T.C. Elliott]

There are other ways of making an acoustic guitar sound better. The best advice is to get the best recording possible. The biggest question would be what do you record with? Is it DAW or BR or what?

There are tools on the BR that work well but I have a hard time hitting all the buttons getting to them, so I've begun to use Reaper and free plugins to do most of my mixing and what every little mastering I do.