Bad Dog - Original Song:

Cool song, Robert! On my end at least, the vocals are overpowering everything. When I do the whole "drop the volume all the way and see what the last thing you hear is" the music is long gone before the vocals become inaudible (and the guitars are still there when the drums disappear, FWIW).

But, that's just mixing tweaks - easy fixes - writing a cool piece is the hard part: mission accomplished. It's a fun song - could totally see people rocking out to this at a club or big outdoor venue. Makes me imagine a big Memorial Day outdoor bash with y'all on stage jamming this while the crowd plugs right into the rhythm.
 
Behind The Scenes:

We are recording this on Cubase and we are using peavey PVM-328 Tom (drum) microphones for vocals. We discovered these by sheer accident when we were working with our new singer. He's not a stage-experienced vocalist and he wasn't versed in pulling-back away from the mike. With a Shure SM-58, its very easy to drive the microphone into clipping if the singer doesn't pull back during the more powerful vocal phrases.

We hooked up a pair of Peavey PVM-328 Tom Mics and ran each one into its own independent channel left and right, then pointed the mic's into each other in a 'V' configuration. Basically, I am singing in the 'V' across the diaphragms of the two microphones. With the PVM-328, you don't have to pull back, you can stay right on the pop filter through the entire song.

For some reason, in this version of Cubase (9.0) the Steinberg Audio Interface is giving us a kind of "natural latency" between the two microphones. If you listen closely, you will hear me taking a breath in the right channel and the spoken word can be heard in the left channel. We both felt this gave a very organic and airy effect to the vocals. The vocals were laid down in one take with no post-recording editing other than sweeping my 'foot-stomp' off the quiet parts between the vocal phrases.

My cell phone chimes at 1:49/1:50 and we just decided to leave it in the mix. We see this kind of like the door knocking just before the EVH solo in "Beat It."

The 'new' guitar tracks were recorded (in my home studio and later imported was WAV's into the drummer's DAW) on my 2021 Gibson Les Paul through my 1993 Marshall Bi-Chorus 200, Direct-Out into my Focusrite 2i2 Interface then into Audacity. On the first version of this song, One track is totally 'clean' and panned right at 55%, one track is mildly overdriven and panned left at 71% and one track is heavily overdriven and panned center.

The center panned track only kicks in during the chorus. It isn't in play at any other part in the song. No reverb, delay or other FX were used on the guitar parts.

The bass tracks were composed and recorded in 4 takes at the drummer's office at his winery in Murrieta. I used my Ibanez GSR-190 (Import) bass (a $60 Craigslist find from 2015 when I was earning a living playing bass 6 nights a week in a blues band) strung with my preference of Ernie Ball .105's into my Fender Rumble 40 Bass Amplifier. We ran an XLR cable direct into the Steinberg Audio Interface.

There's one part in the song where I speak the phrase, "Times are tough... Maybe the bad dogs should stick together?" Interestingly enough, my voice seems to be cracking during this phrase, but not when I was singing. Of course, this was recorded in one take (without a warmup) with me sipping Belgian White between the vocal phrases, but I suggested to the drummer that we maybe re-record that part.

Also, I kind of feel like the solo is too structured. What do you think? I feel like maybe the solo should be more 'wild" and less 'constrained." I really can't adequately describe how I feel, but my ear is telling me the solo doesn't fit.

What are your thoughts/impressions???

Sorry to ramble on so, but we have high expectations for this song and we are not 100% satisfied with it yet. We raised the bar on ourselves with our December 2021 debut recording of 'War Pigs' and we don't want our subsequent efforts to be lackluster in comparison.

For those who may not have heard our very first song that we recorded together as 'DeadPedal,' here's our cover of 'War Pigs.'

https://soundcloud.com/id%3Duser-170123786%252Fdeadpedal-cover-of-black-sabbath-war-pigs%3Btrack_id%3D1182052024

Hope you guys have a great day!!!!
 
Iron1 said:
Cool song, Robert! On my end at least, the vocals are overpowering everything. When I do the whole "drop the volume all the way and see what the last thing you hear is" the music is long gone before the vocals become inaudible (and the guitars are still there when the drums disappear, FWIW).

But, that's just mixing tweaks - easy fixes - writing a cool piece is the hard part: mission accomplished. It's a fun song - could totally see people rocking out to this at a club or big outdoor venue. Makes me imagine a big Memorial Day outdoor bash with y'all on stage jamming this while the crowd plugs right into the rhythm.
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What are you listening on??? I know the producer will want to know what device you were using. Ill pass this along to him.
 
Now, keep this in mind when you listen...

This was a rushed project that we did in between producing a backing track for a Polaris Snowmobile commercial and a soundtrack for a Reno/Tahoe Board of Tourism video. I am sure this would have turned out better if we had more time to devote to it, as opposed to working on it in between paying jobs.

As far as the vocals go, we never, ever imagined we would use these vocals that we laid down Sunday night (02/13/2022) and the purpose of recording them was literally to just finish the song. When I stepped up to the mic, all I had was the opening lines and the chorus. Everything else was ad-libbed.
 
I'm very interested to hear what you guys are hearing and on which devices you are listening. This will provide valuable feedback to the producer.

I'm listening on Shure headphones on my DAW and it sounds great, with everything very well balanced in the mix.

Your input would be highly valued!!!!
 
Robert Herndon said:
I'm very interested to hear what you guys are hearing and on which devices you are listening. This will provide valuable feedback to the producer.

I'm listening on Shure headphones on my DAW and it sounds great, with everything very well balanced in the mix.

Your input would be highly valued!!!!
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I usually just use may crap laptop speakers. If I'm really going in for a listen my DT 770 Pro's are next to me.
 
Robert Herndon said:
We are working on it...

Thanks.

Could you have a listen to 'War Pigs' (posted above) and give me your input on that mix????
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Overall good job. Nice separation to each instrument. Great bass tone - Geezer would be proud. Everyone's performance is on point too.

If it was me mixing, I would push the 80-90hz range in the kick drum and maybe cut the 100-110hz so it doesn't tread on the bass guitar (variable range since each kick drum and bass guitar might have a different sweet spot in that range) this might give the punchy parts more oomph. The guitar power chord parts would really slam home then, with that heavier kick underneath em.

I'd drop the vocal fader just the tiniest bit and compress them a little more so they sit into the mix a hair further - seem to be sitting on top of it right now. Pan the lead up the gut, not left/right so it has it's own space instead of competing with the rhythm guitars. Might also try either slightly more, or somewhat different compression on the guitars to rein in some of those stray higher frequencies from being overamplified.

In the end, for a demo or a non-major label release mix, it's all good, though.
 
Iron1 said:
Overall good job. Nice separation to each instrument. Great bass tone - Geezer would be proud. Everyone's performance is on point too.

If it was me mixing, I would push the 80-90hz range in the kick drum and maybe cut the 100-110hz so it doesn't tread on the bass guitar (variable range since each kick drum and bass guitar might have a different sweet spot in that range) this might give the punchy parts more oomph. The guitar power chord parts would really slam home then, with that heavier kick underneath em.

I'd drop the vocal fader just the tiniest bit and compress them a little more so they sit into the mix a hair further - seem to be sitting on top of it right now. Pan the lead up the gut, not left/right so it has it's own space instead of competing with the rhythm guitars. Might also try either slightly more, or somewhat different compression on the guitars to rein in some of those stray higher frequencies from being overamplified.

In the end, for a demo or a non-major label release mix, it's all good, though.
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I really appreciate this reply...

I just shared it with my bandmate...
 
Robert Herndon said:
Exactly!!!!

I've made a living doing voice acting, so I can sing in character.

I thought it would be fun to have a "spoofy" kind of intro to the song.
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Which I think may be why my grey matter was hearing Time Warp…. As the song progressed….. it became more A Bon Scott vibe.

Side note: I like Rocky Horror. My wife thinks I’m nuts. Assessment accepted. We can’t all be normal. What fun would that be? :shock:
 
iblive said:
Which I think may be why my grey matter was hearing Time Warp…. As the song progressed….. it became more A Bon Scott vibe.

Side note: I like Rocky Horror. My wife thinks I’m nuts. Assessment accepted. We can’t all be normal. What fun would that be? :shock:
Click to expand...

You know. I was standing at the mic and I thought why not throw something in there they wouldn't expect.

I almost did Peter Lorre!!!!
 
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