(Rap) Scelus Teach - A Missive

[OldGoat]

Our latest work, we hope that you will like it...




We've created everything except the vocals, they are from Scelus Teach:

[ZombieFightsShark]

I'm not familiar with the original so I'm not sure what is remix vs not, but it's all good. Some of the rhythm section felt a bit out of place with the vocals in regards to production but it was still very listenable.
Good work.


ZombieFightsShark.net

[OldGoat]

I'm not familiar with the original so I'm not sure what is remix vs not, but it's all good. Some of the rhythm section felt a bit out of place with the vocals in regards to production but it was still very listenable.
Good work.


ZombieFightsShark.net

Thank you very much, it is kind of a remix (changed my previous post accordingly), the vocals are from this group:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/rap-hip-ho ... cks?page=2 , but I haven't seen any other remix.

I really appreciate your feedback, if possible, could you get more into detail regarding "felt a bit out of place with the vocals in regards to production"? I'm not asking, because I want to defend our work, I just want to learn...

[ZombieFightsShark]

Thanks for the link. It explains perfectly what i was hearing.

So the following is just MY OPINION and is in no way intended to be critical of your work (which I quite like).

The vocals sound like they are recorded and produced by a different person than the rest of the track and I guess that's because they were. Sometimes it's an unfortunate side effect you get in a remix and you just have to work around/with it. I think the reason it stuck out in particular here was the production for the rest of the track suffered from "The Reason Sound" (Which I define as using stock sounds in Reason with too little production/additional instrumentation involved).

A lot of folks will deny this is a thing (including myself for years), but I have to admit now that it exists. I don't have a problem with it (and love the Reason sound-wouldn't be here otherwise!) so it's not a critique, it just is. In other DAWs I equate it to using stock sounds with no production, or plain midi sounds straight from the sound card- It's just something you hear among beginners.

I hope you're cool with what I'm saying. I just want to help you improve, just like others have helped me.

I will check out some more of your music and give you more feedback if you like.


ZombieFightsShark.net

[OldGoat]

Thanks for the link. It explains perfectly what i was hearing.

So the following is just MY OPINION and is in no way intended to be critical of your work (which I quite like).

The vocals sound like they are recorded and produced by a different person than the rest of the track and I guess that's because they were. Sometimes it's an unfortunate side effect you get in a remix and you just have to work around/with it.

Yes, to me the vocals sound like they were not produced at all, we had hard time with this "Stem", it was even required to cut out some glitches using Wavelab. Apart from this we had to automate the volumne-fader for this track, because sometimes the voice was too loud or too quiet.

I think the reason it stuck out in particular here was the production for the rest of the track suffered from "The Reason Sound" (Which I define as using stock sounds in Reason with too little production/additional instrumentation involved).

You really mean the overall sound or a certain instrument?
I'm asking, because we haven't used many stock-sounds at all (I guess you mean the FSB?).
We used:

Instruments: Miroslav and Euphonic for Strings, Miroslav for the Offbeat-Choir, Reason Electric Bass and Thor for the Bass, another Thor for this "Rubber-Effect" and two Kongs in one combinator from the PH Trap-Tutorial ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HhTTdhtbO8 ).
Effects: RV-7000, RE-2A Leveling Amplifier, G8 Dynamic Gate, Softtube Saturation Knob, GQ-7 Equalizer (not on all tracks).
We even created parallel busses for the drums (2, one with a Saturation Knob, one with high gain in the SSL and Compressor set to "On" and "Peak" for additing some distortion), almost the same was also applied to the vocals.

A lot of folks will deny this is a thing (including myself for years), but I have to admit now that it exists. I don't have a problem with it (and love the Reason sound-wouldn't be here otherwise!) so it's not a critique, it just is. In other DAWs I equate it to using stock sounds with no production, or plain midi sounds straight from the sound card- It's just something you hear among beginners.

I hope you're cool with what I'm saying. I just want to help you improve, just like others have helped me.

I will check out some more of your music and give you more feedback if you like.

Thank you very much again, I'm more than cool with that, I really appreciate your efforts, listening and writing this is work, and I want to thank you very much for this work. My colleague and I (OldGoat is a two man project) will always consider ourselves as beginners. Never assume that you know it and have done it all...

I will send you a PM once we have new stuff ready, if this is ok for you!

[ZombieFightsShark]

I just re-listened to it and will revise a couple of things.

Before I say anything I really want to commend you for sincerely wanting to improve your skills. I can tell you're serious and want to say that maybe I'm just splitting some hairs here.

My first listen was in my car and, while it has crap speakers, is good to use as a yardstick for everything because I've been listening to music on the same speakers in it for over 10 years. If I'm listening in there I know what great production sounds like- and know for sure it's great- whereas when I listen on my studio monitors my ears can be fooled. My second listen, just now, was on my studio monitors and helped me clarify some stuff in my head.

I think it's the strings that actually tainted my opinion. I have Miroslav strings, so I know that's a solid ReFill, but the "synth-i-ness" of the patches really comes out here. I don't know which patches are Euphonic or Miroslav in your mix, but the pizzicato is the thing that did it. They're a little TOO "plinky" (or something). Sorry, I don't know how to pin it down better. Last year I invested in Kontakt for a related reason and even the factory patches are better. Something to think about.

The second part that affected my opinion is definitely the vocal sound. From your description it sounds like you were trying to get blood from a stone with a bad vocal take. I've been there and, damn, does it suck. On a couple of occasions I asked people to re-record stuff long-distance cause the first takes weren't too noisy/poorly recorded. I realize this isn't one of those situations for you. That's one of those deals that just is what it is and you have to do your best. Certainly sounds like you did that. Since this was an accapella track that got dropped into your tune another question/thought I had was "fixing" some of the vocal rhythm to make it fit the track a little better. I'm talking tiny moves here and there to make it swing/shuffle/groove the tiniest bit better. On a hip hop track I did last year the guy who recorded was about a 16th off on a few sections and it sounded like a choice he made, but after I went in and adjusted them to be dead on it made those sections SUPER tight. You may have already done that, overall it already sounds pretty tight.

To my ears I think these two things (vocal sound/fit and string sound) created a disconnect to the overall track. Not major, just something subconscious that bothered me, but I couldn't really pin down until thinking hard. Honestly, that's not bad at all. If I had to think and listen this hard about what is TRULY wrong (to me) you are doing a LOT of things right.

Please share more with me as you have it. I've really enjoyed our conversation.

[OldGoat]

Thank you very much, ZombieFightsShark!
The Pizzicato-Strings are from both libraries Miroslav and Euphonic, but I think it is the "plinkyness" of Euphonic that bothers you, we will create mixes that only contain Miroslav- or Euphonic-Pizzicatos and compare them internally to get the complete picture.

Regarding the vocals: We would be very happy to get the opportunity to work with this guy, we do not even know him in person, he has not replied on our remix yet, perhaps he does not like it...
We did everything we could with the vocal-track, any further actions would have only worsened it.
There is a part where we tried to use more distortion on the vocals, our model were the vocals from "So watcha want" from Beastie Boys, but applying that amount of distortion was simply not possible due to the quality of the original track.

Thanks a lot for you analysis!