Re: First finished song in 2 years... Acoustic content
Sounds good to me! Did you use the Daking on the master bus or individually printed on the guitar and vox? Just wondering as I feel like its adding alot of character to the acoustic guitar. At first I almost felt like it was...not quite 'pumping' but... like I could hear it release, if that makes sense. Or maybe I'm just crazy?
May I ask your recording chain? I may be just because you mentioned getting the Daking back, but it certainly intrigued me to look into them.
Thanks and yes, great question! I tracked everything with the Daking. The vocal chain was Lawson L47MP Mk II -> Fearn VT-1 tube mic pre -> Daking FET II -> Lynx Hilo for A/D conversion. The acoustic is a Martin 000-15M -> Microtech Gefell M295 SDC mic -> Fearn -> Daking -> Hilo.
I think the brunt of the pumping of the acoustic is from the fast attack and release settings of the compression on the acoustic. It sounds a bit harsh and will need to be dialed in more. There is also a bit of pumping associated with the master comp, which is a Slate Digital mastering plugin (it raises the volume quite a bit without destroying the sound). After makeup gain with the Daking, I was only hitting my DAW at around -10-12dB so the plugin does quite a bit of the lifting of the sound.
In terms of acoustic compression settings, I didn't like the fastest attack settings because it cut the punch and sparkle too much, so I decided to scale that back, but keep with a relatively fast release so that the notes aren't lost with all the steady strumming (if that makes sense). If I were to do it again (and I probably will because this was simply a trial run...) I'll look at playing with a longer release rate. For vocal compression, I kept the attack fast and the release was set for Daking's Neve 33609 auto setting per the manual, but I like it enough to not mess with it.
I didn't spend any time EQing anything, just some basic LCR panning (copying the rhythm acoustic and then hard panning it left and right, keeping the vocals center and the majority of the lead work center). In terms of balance, there really is none. There's not really any dynamics as it stands right now and I'm hoping when I get a half a dozen tracks together I can go to a good friend of mine (who's a real professional engineer that does it for a living) to turn my "stems" into a really cohesive sounding song. This sample is proof that everything loud is not a good thing
I really dislike plugin compressors. Try as I may, they never sound as good as the outboard stuff. That's why when I decided on a few select pieces for my "songwriter" recording rig, I felt a good clean compressor was a smart investment. There's nothing more frustrating that trying to learn how to sing, recording it and trying to level things out afterwards. Compressing while tracking, while limiting sometimes, keeps the consistency to the track that I like (nothing worse than notes jumping out all over the place distorting the master bus - especially since digital is very unforgiving). Most importantly, not having to strain with vocal takes means that they come out much more natural and not near as pitchy (although I am new at this, so there's plenty of work to be done).
Sorry for the length, but I figured you'd appreciate some real detail here.
