Entourage Jesse Lewis
EntourageForum Replies Created
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Hi Cammy!
Nice to E-meet you!
I Iove this song! Sounds wonderful! It’s so refreshing to hear a band playing in a room, too! Nice!
I’m excited to watch Dana’s video too and see what he does!
Congrats on this great song!
Best,
Jesse
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Bro!
This song, production, and mix is absolutely bonkers great! You’re incredible. Everything about this was resonating with me, from the vulnerability of the vocal, to the masterful production, and compelling use of super processed versus raw sounds. I was listening on headphones and it took me on quite a heavy journey. I really don’t think personally anything needs to be changed about this, but I will point out two things that I experienced while listening – just in the spirit of giving some constructive feedback, both of which are highly subjective.
There were two spots where I was momentarily distracted and thus left my deep listening experience – and I just wanted to point them out. I believe they were both probably intentional -because they both represent that feeling of uncertainty in the song that you were trying to convey. The first was when the drums come in at :33. Is the drum beat turned around on purpose, meaning the snare is on beat 1? It gives it a beautiful nebulous feeling of uncertainty that finally snaps back when you hit that first chorus but I only mention it because I found myself trying to figure out what was going on with the drumbeat in my brain more than listening to the song at that point, granted, I’m a total dork, that’s normally what I do when interesting things happen in music, but there was so much other interesting stuff happening in your production that was serving the music and they didn’t make me think in that same cerebral way as when I was trying to figure out what was happening with that drum beat. Also, just to continue dorking out -were there an extra two beats before the first hits when you say “maybe someday I will find you?”
The other spot where I felt a slight sense of imbalance was the section between 5:30-5:40 when the chiming guitar is on the left side, the information coming out of the right side was much darker in tone and maybe was a little too out of balance? But I’ll leave that to the more experienced Mix Proteges to see what they felt about it.
Again, I’m only bringing up those two points in the spirit of feedback because they went through my thought process. I think what you have created is an absolute masterpiece and I’m just completely blown away. Many congrats on creating this.
Best,
Jesse
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Hey Jeremy!
Such a crushing song, man! Every one I’ve heard so far is a hit and this is no exception!
It sounds really great to my ears!
I got the sense that the choruses, especially towards the second half of the song, could be bigger. Maybe just volume-wise? if there is a way to make them explode a bit more or hit a little harder? I think the mix sounds totally great as is, but I just mention it because I found myself wanting to hear those choruses a little louder or with a little more energy somehow. Just my two cents, and perhaps this could be achieved in mastering as well? That being said, I do really enjoy the chillness and groove of this tune and dig how it’s not trying to be too over the top. Maybe it’s just something to experiment with and see if it feels better with an extra DB on the choruses?
I also just wanted to point out that at 2:44 I hear some kind of pop or click. I can’t tell if it’s a percussion instrument or if it’s some kind of digital click, but I hear it every time I listen to that spot, just fyi.
Can’t wait to hear the final master of this when it’s done. Again, congrats on creating such compelling and unique and vibe-tastic music. You’re amazing!
Best,
Jesse
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Dana!
Ahhhh yes of course! This makes total sense.
So basically, if you use only one microphone, it will always be in mono, either equally on both speakers or placed to one side if it’s panned that way.
So if I understand correctly then — a cardioid mic and an Omni mic would both record a mono recording – it’s just that the Omni mic recording would most likely result in hearing more of the surroundings then the more directional mic which would reject a lot of the elements that are behind it and on the sides of it. So basically you should just pick your polar pattern based on the type of sound you want to record or depending on the specific situation you find yourself in (ie trying to reject certain things)?
And the same would hold for stereo recording, and that you could capture a stereo recording with two cardiod mics OR two Omni mics, and they would just result in different sound capture, but they would still be in stereo? I think I’m starting to get this now.
It’s fascinating all the stuff I’ve been learning about using the different polar patterns in different types of situations, especially as cool ways of rejecting certain sounds while recording the ones you want.
I’ve been doing some research on YouTube and looking to purchase the Lewitt LCT 441 FLEX Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone. It’s got a bunch of different polar patterns and looks indestructible and seems to sound really good from what I can hear on YouTube examples. Are you familiar with that Mic?
JLew
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“Alone On The Water” video for you viewing pleasure:)
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Thanks man!!! Next time you’re in NY we must take the boat out for a spin:)
I’ll add the video to the other thread now, too.
JLew
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Hey man!
That’s so cool! Yes of course – use and abuse anything of mine that you want haha
Love,
JLew
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all good Homie! I can’t wait to see whatever you cook up as I’m sure it will be extremely educational and helpful. In the meantime, I’ve been having a lot of fun utilizing RX on my track, hopefully in a subtle way, mostly using the different types of spectral repair.
The RX plug-in is one of the most insane tools I have ever encountered. I feel like I’m just only scratching the surface of what it can do, but it’s so far beyond even just fixing issues with sound. I’m finding it to be an incredibly sophisticated, on demand dynamic EQ and even tone and note shaper.
For example, There were a couple of instances where I played kind of wimpy sounding notes and I was able to go in with RX and raise the gain on those notes — but only targeting the fundamental frequency and the first few harmonics, which really made the note i was trying to address sound a lot stronger. It’s such a deeper more fine tuned (and more time consuming haha) way of editing sound then just using clip gain, which if I understand correctly, would raise every bit of frequency content equally within the clip. Similarly, I’ve been attenuating certain frequencies that were bothering my ear, sort of using RX like a EQ, but only on certain notes, and very specific frequencies that I can see are out of balance with the rest of the harmonic frequencies of a note.
Finally, I’m realizing what a powerful teaching tool it can be to help train my ears to hear different frequencies because I can guess what frequency I think needs to be addressed but then so easily go into RX and see clearly what is actually happening with the sound.
I guess using a dynamic EQ or such is a much simpler process – but the RX can just get so granular it’s crazy! I’m totally floored!
Best,
JLew
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ur. heavy.
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Paul! This arrangement is already feeling much better to me! I felt much more “in it” and I wanted to stay there.
I hope you have the best trip ever! Enjoy.
Best wishes,
Jesse
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Thanks, Paul!
Hope you’re doing great! Happy fathers day to you!
JLew
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ohhhhhhh!!! I can’t wait to see it!!!
That DPA is just the standard clip on one, often used for guitars, basses, violins, etc. I believe it’s the 4099. It belonged to Ike but it was broken and he gave it to me. I sent it to DPA for repair and they fixed it! It was clipped on to the body of the guitar down by the end pin/bridge. Sort of looking towards the sound hole about 6 inches away. The other mic was positioned looking more at the 12th fret. I was hoping that between them, I could get a cool mixture of sounds. I know we’ve discussed that situation before and you said usually it’s best to combine them into one mono track, but I ended up panning the fretboard mic a bit to the left and the DPA a bit to the right and putting the iPhone audio in the center, figuring I could get away with more stereo because the track only had guitar? Not sure if that was the right call? I didnt sem to be getting too much phasing issues when I panned them…
Can’t wait to see how you approached all of this!
Happy fathers day, bro!
JLew
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I rx’d it a little to attenuate the squaks a bit. Nothing over the top but i think its less abrasive now. Should I go for even more?
RX is one of the coolest tools ever. pure magic.
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Sweeeeet! Just uploaded! Eagerly anticipating watching your RX magic! Thanks, Homie!
3 raw stems
JLew
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Thanks so much, man! I really appreciate this feedback from you and Jeremy and will get right on it!
One quick question about RX – I currently have my three mics going to a guitar bus, which is all getting processed together. Would you recommend dragging the bus audio into RX (pre-master) and doing the edits first and then dragging that back in to the session and applying my mastering chain? Or would it be OK to just take my current master as it currently is, and bring that into RX and export it as my new RX’d master version of the track? Just curious what you would do in this case?
Thanks again, man. I filmed this one too I can’t wait to share the video with you all so you can see the space. It’s incredible.
JLew