final touches & thoughts

As mentioned from my previous post, I had trouble with the vocals making them stand out without popping out too much while at the same time maintaining a consistent dynamic throughout the performance. The mystery kinda resolved when I started turning off my DeEsser, which I eventually realized that was what made it lacks clear enunciation and making the overall sound toned down. I also fixed the setting on the compressors for my vocals to a higher threshold (to the right) for less sensitivity of compression, also increasing the ratio to avoid over-compressing. Other than that, from the many layers (chorus effects, pitch shifters, stereo harmonies) that I used to have from the previous work progress/week, I lessened them down by remaining only the dry lead vocal, lead w/ reverb + delay and occasional harmonies. I noticed that this way, it is better for the true characteristics of the voice to stand out than to over layering them in hope to get a wider sound (which eventually made my lead unable to pop out). I also had to do extra work on my automation as the overall volume of the tracks together were quite inconsistent. I also had to automate some very specific parts out of the way as it was adding autotuned-ness into it even though some pitches were hardly corrected to the perfect pitch. My final touches would be listening to the whole song over and over to double check on the consistency of volume in my vocals as well as the instruments.

Final mix:

Final words for this project, I would say I need to be more meticulous about every details even before the recording stages start. That includes choosing the artist that I really would like to record and work with, making sure we don't create more work for ourselves due to miscommunication, bad scheduling and average performance among the band and my members. During the process of this project, I was mainly dealing with what I have and what was given to me due to circumstances. On the bright side, I would say I achieved what I did not last sem which was to communicate well among who I worked with. I am glad to have group members who are hardworking to do researches and recording sessions all together with me throughout the entire semester, to work with people who are willing to listen when they have inquiries about several situations and with people who actually know what they are doing and what they are supposed to do which eventually benefits all of us as a group in terms of group-working well and learning more.

Logic file zipped link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iZIOeUzZFamupgb4FgIg_EDjT4prQxHT

Reference tracks:

Original song:

For producing male vocalist: