Entourage Paul Tucci
EntourageForum Replies Created
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Bar,
This a very good piece of work as is. I’ve listened a half dozen times and think I may have a suggestion or two to offer up when i settle back into normal schedule after doing a bunch of shows and being a caregiver after my wife’s surgery today.
PT
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Joe,
That’s another gorgeous guitar piece from you. The believable sound-field created by your Blumlein mic setup is wholesome. It’s not crazy wide, yet dramatically different and far more compelling than mono. I’m a tinkerer so I tried some harmonic distortion as a brightener, and to my own surprise, a pinch of hall verb to give it even more depth. The first 30 seconds of the piece are below to spark imaginations.
As always, thanks for letting me play in the playground.
PT
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Jeremy,
So I downloaded “Birds” into my DAW before listening to your new creation. I thought we were headed back to the zoo with the other “Animals.” Little did I know we were actually going to outer space. That first vocal intro is gorgeous. It’s lush, spacious in its phrasing and a slower tempo from your previous bangers. That’s more my pace at this point in my life so it really captured my interest though the instrumental intro confused me.
I’m guessing your storytelling wanted the intro to transport us into the cosmos and then add the actual words. I had the idea to tell the story differently. I separated the vocals away from the music and remixed so as to let them shine upfront. (+1dB ) There’s enough space in your signature verb to believe we’re somewhere out there in the cosmos.. Now when the music enters, it is a gentle piano chord entrance, unlike the rocket ship ride as currently presented. One man’s opinion…
All that good tension you built into the last 30 seconds or so that peaks at the final word (?) “There” almost feels anti climactic. Metaphorically speaking, I think there’s room for an effective piece of ear candy that mimics the little sparkle-y fireworks that finish the July 4th celebration big bangs and booms each year.
PT
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Thanks Joe. I started the stem separation journey last year and find it fascinating. You can do musical revisionist history and make yourself a better mixer now than you were then. It’s good for the ego. As Dana noted, there are some audible artifacts. I think I should do an experiment. Take a song that Dana recorded and knows well, and compare it to that same song but after having it go through only the stem separation process (without mix or EQ changes) then recombine those separated parts to see if they add back together cleanly by doing a null test between the time and level matched original and the stem separated recombo version. The artifacts would be left over after combining the two version with one out of polarity. (-1.x) + (1) = x. The artifact being the x schmutz.
Better yet, I’ll do your recently posted song if you’re game.
PT
PT
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Muchos grac! It’s easy to get carried away with the EQ now to get a more modern sound. The old one had a certain lo-fi vibe that had its own charm.
PT
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Bar,
Thank you for lettin’ me in your kitchen. I’m glad the external observations offered up rang true to your vision of the song. I would offer to master this for you when you’re done if you have such a need. In fact, I’m gonna tinker with this version right now.
PT
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Bar,
Thank you and Dana for the well wishes. Honey is doing just fine already. I had the same knee replacement surgery a year ago and came home from the hospital a mess. We’ll see what happens on her day three when the pain really kicks in and at which point I was hallucinating giant spiders.
Bar, your song is beautifully haunting. You sing like a raven-haired sorceress, I trust you’re using your power for good. I love the tempo and instrumentation.( I am curious if a sparingly played acoustic bass wouldn’t add some grounding bass.) All strong choices that support the vibe. It’s so moody that it will find a good home. Once again, I can barely decipher a word but the phrasing is your signature evocative.
I agree with I do have a question about the bazoukiMix-Master D when he questioned the vocal placement. I dropped the vocal level 2dB in my DAW (I can do magic too:)) to help put it in the song rather than atop the song. I react to your vocal level more akin to a pop song than the intended (?) conjuring.
I I do have a question about the bazouki in the outro, What was the thinking to have the bazouki play the ending lick by itself instead of the resolve with the guitar? It made me think rather than just feel the completion of whatever-the-event-was-we-just-stumbled-upon.
More verb across everything might just add the right flavor to the soup you’ve got cooking in the cauldron. Wait. What? Is that me talking? I fear one of those painkillers may have slipped into the spaghetti sauce I had with dinner.
PT ish
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I’m curious to see if Joe digs it. I may have made it ever so slightly unnatural sounding if the intent was 100% au natural.
PT
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Dana,
Thanks, I just tried to make it more of what I think it is. Exercising my “taste’ choices on other folks’ art hopefully makes me smarter in this game. It’s analogous to improvisational comedy where the correct reaction is “Yes, and…”
I’m definitely smarter now than when I brought Neil Young’s version of the song “On Broadway” onto the bus and asked my employer, the guy who won a Grammy for his version thought about it. That was awkward and certainly reinforces your idea of music not being binary. There are however, choices that are better than some others. That’s timely advice here on the first Monday of November. 📡 🇺🇲
PT
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Yea man,
I feel like I benefit also. It’s good to exercise the perception of the songs and then gently articulate that into informative, entertaining, supportive suggestions (“what ifs?) and not get stuck in my own biases. I’m looking at you Wallace Clement Sabine.
PT
ps I agree, Nate is gifted with his vocal arrangements.
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Jeremy,
I did a little listening to the newest (mastered?) version and I agree it’s not as airy as it coulda/shoulda/woulda be if the top end got a little love. I listened with a boost as Dana suggested ( no PULTEC in my tool box) and subjectively compared it to using added dynamically harmonic enhancement from my recently purchased PLASMA fx from iZotope. Based on looking at its amplitude vs frequency graph, I gather it creates harmonics to add texture dynamically rather than the static nature of an EQ. ie, a static EQ would amplify noise, the dynamic EQ would only add harmonic content level if there was signal there. I favored the “how much voodoo” setting to create about 3dB more harmonic content at most. It added air but never venturing into sounding strident.
PT
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Uh oh, uh-uh, uh oh-oh-oh! Someone let the Animals out.
🦁🐯🐼 Oh my.PT
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👍
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Joe, Yea, the low end bump on v3 echoes the vocal tonality on the reference track that Dana suggested. It’s ll warm and comforting, perhaps like the little monsters perceive it when laying on Dad’s chest. I would implore Jesse to not test my hypothesis with his teen out of an abundance of caution. My suggestion to Jesse to try capture the fishies’ perspective with an underwater mic still stands though.
PT