Transported back in time For What it’s Worth

With vocal and a different tone. Jump in with me!…Rod

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:laughing: just replied to your post about stereo recording with Spark, 2i2, Audacity, ending with the hope to hear the results. Knock me down, the very next post … here I am.

Love the back story, Rod from North Carolina, keep telling your stories before singing your songs. And if you must, feel free to keep making the unnecessary apologies, which I just automatically disregard with a smile :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

As an aside, maybe that is a great #social:just-chatting Topic … sharing the story of the first song you remember that planted the seed. For what it’s worth … as an 8 year old in Rickmansworth, England, I heard ABBA’s Waterloo, made a recording onto a cassette from the TV, and played it over and over (no air guitar, no elder siblings to provide music from such legendary bands as Buffalo Springfield).

Enjoyed your performance but need those vocals to be recorded and brought into a better balance with the guitar. Your singing is far too engaging not to be given equally prominence in the recording. I’d go as far as to say we have another bantering performing @brianlarsen in the making here (please consider that as finer compliment as I can pay)

Happy to chat more here or over in the other Topic I just read about recording and production if it will be helpful.

Keep on rocking!

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You should make this your profession Rod!
Loved it :fire:

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My Spidey-senses go all jingle-jangle when I see myself tagged in a post
I guess we’ll both have to take him at face-value, Rod :face_with_raised_eyebrow::laughing:

Another fab performance.
And that’s the key word.
We often share songs we have learned how to play and that’s great. Sometimes it’s fun to go that extra mile and add in that extra bit on the performance side. It’s often that little smile, wink or expletive that makes the connection with the listener and draws them in,
I’ll keep watching if you keep playing :smiley:

On the helpful criticism front, I do agree with David that the vocal recording is low-hanging fruit.
One possible workaround would be to record the guitar directly into audacity, whilst listening to the backing track on headphones and use the vocal recording from your mobile phone. You can upload the vocals and backing track and mix in your DAW afterwards. I’ve done this a number of times, but with my Trio+ looper instead of the backing track.

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A salute right back to you Rod. That was great, I loved the whole package, your intro, your playing and your singing. Well done.

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I join all the previous comments, it was a great performance.
Thanks for sharing this.

Mike

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Thanks for sharing Rod. I tried that song a while back but didn’t feel I could do it justice. You’ve just shown me how it is possible. Time for another crack at it…

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Nicely done, Rod. That song has been on my list to record for some time now. I first heard it in '67 like you accept I was 13. The 45 (remember those?) was the first item in my record collection. Carry on!

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Great stuff Rod, I remember that one very well!
The only observation I can make is that your guitar needs to be a bit quieter so your vocals are prominent in the mix; nevertheless I really enjoyed it!

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Sorry, this is still the same way I have posted so far using my iPhone and taking a video and letting it capture everything in my sound room. I just edit the intros and the outros to keep the button pushing video to a minimum.

Exactly why my other post about recording 3 audio sources in Audacity is happening. Although this simple method is useable to get a video out: the fiddle factor (vocal vs guitar vs backing track) and for that matter the audio quality are not optimal. Have not gotten there yet but will be trying to up my game in the posts to the community. You folk are worth it!

I just want to go in 1 take with everything balanced and sounding awesome with synced video, is that asking too much? :rofl: To be honest, that Knocking on Heaven’s Door post with just me and the guitar using the iPhone in my sound room was the easiest and best sounding in my opinion . Less is more!

Working on that, when you see a video where the mic is front of me you will know I got there. Boy I hope that sounds ok then :open_mouth:

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Entertaining in every way Rod. :bat:

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OK for @DavidP @brianlarsen @DarrellW who were commenting on volume balance between vocal and instruments here is an .mp3 of my new recording process audio only. I have not slayed the video dragon yet. Its just steroed, normalized, and bringing down the instrument a couple of db and boosting the vocal a couple db and that’s it. It works for now!..Rod

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Much better, Rod! You are rapidly progressing into that territory where the feedback on the mix will be highly subjective, based on each listeners personal taste. At some point I became (in)famous for suggesting that the vocal could be raised up a little.

My personal opinion once in this play and sing territory is that the guitar is accompaniment for the voice. And I tend to take that view, irrespective of how well the person, including myself, is singing. Others may take the view that the singing is just to relieve the monotony of strum a dum dum’ing a chord progression over and over with no melody. Each to their own.

With that in mind, I’d suggest the vocal in this mix is still a good few dB on low side. Beyond me to make a specific suggestion as to whether we are talking 1-2dB or 4-5dB. But easy enough to experiment.

Something else you could consider is listening again to the original and trying to match its balance.

Bravo on the progress and the attention to learning how to make the best possible recordings. I think it is worthwhile and lots of fun. But as you said in the other thread, there is also nothing wrong with just hitting record on the phone, allowing it to record the room. Again, each to his own.

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That’s very much better Rod, it’s showing your vocal significantly better and it really benefits from it!
Excellent :+1:

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Ah, the sweet taste of low-hanging fruit :smiley:
That sounds so much better. I agree with David that you are now in the zone of personal preference, but for my ears you hit the sweet spot here.
Because I’m a visual guy, I would much rather watch a poor sound quality video than a hifi audio file. (There’s no pleasing some!). I’m also a believer in squeezing as much goodness out of the least amount of effort as possible.
With your attitude, your gear and what you’ve shared to date, I would be surprised if you didn’t want to get the best results you can achieve whilst still having fun. So go find a video suite and learn some basic editing.
It’s dragon-slaying time, by George! :sunglasses: :dragon:

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Awesome track Rod and awesome recording! You’ve leapt on with the setup, I’m going to have to review the other thread to try and follow how you’ve got there in the end.
Really cool tone for that song too and really terrific to see your continuing enthusiasm, it’s infectious :slight_smile:

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Think it’s slayed with OBS will need to get some kind of video editing thing to trim the front and backs. But I got all that to work today with a usb webcam to replace the iPhone. Success!…Rod

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Good stuff sir! Pretty guitar, nicely played. The song seems kind of quant now when you consider politics today… [nothing more to see here, politics today, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble and such are all just fine. Everything is cool. Move along. Go on now git!].

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A cool song indeed. Well played and well sung Rod.

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I have not heard this in ages… you brought back some neat memories and I thank you for that. I guess the don’t call you “hot Rod” for nothing! :grinning:

Keep rock’n,
LB

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