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Hi, Since Luvs3rds got me playing around with TC Helicon, I thought that I'd revise my recent post of "Liking Loving You" and incorporate some of this amazing harmonizer. If you'd like to hear the new and (hopefully) improved version, it's at... Liking Loving You Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Journeyman
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Noel;
This came out good. You mixed the vocals well. I like how you shifted the timing of the background harmonies for more realism. You play a hot fiddle as well.
Gene
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*Try inserting an instance of a plugin compressor, preferably one fast enough to emulate an Optical Compressor, on the lead vocal track.
Adjust it to put the voice out in front of the backing tracks without pumping, or blasting effect.
May need to do the same for the backing vocals, only less.
Then remix, with an ear towards putting the backing tracks to the back of the lead vox and harmony vox. Looking for total intelligibility of the lyrics without being distracted by the backing particularly the punch of the banjo. Picture -> Frame. Backing band is the frame, vox is the picture.
Should take a good one over the top.
--Mac
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Hi Gene, Thanks for the listen. I'm glad the slightly off-set harmonies / lead vocal worked for you. What I did was to record the lead vocal in BIAB and then harmonize it with TC Helicon. I saved everything on separate tracks. I then imported those tracks into Sonar Home Studio and re-recorded the lead vocal against the harmony. I was hoping that this might give a semi-live feel to the harmonies by not having them consistently timed in relation to the lead vocal; a bit of humanizing I guess BIAB would call it. ALso, I'm real glad you liked the fiddle playing. I worked on that for minutes  I'm looking forward to hearing your next song. Till then, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Howdy Mac, Thanks for the advice. I added a small amount of compression too LLY using BIAB's compressor. To be honest, though, I still don't know how to get the best out of compression. It's pretty much "hit 'n' miss" for me at this stage I'm presently in the throes of experimenting and trying to overcome my lack of understanding. I appreciate your input and the clues you've given me as to where to look. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Hi Noel, Looks like you're getting a pretty good handle on the harmonizer. Pretty good fiddle too. I listened to your Fly, Angel, Fly and really liked it also. BTW: I tried to post in your guestbook and it wouldn't let me in. It asked me to post the sum of Six plus Five. I typed in Eleven and it told me that the values didn't match. I'm still scratching my head. Don S.
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Hi Don,
Thanks for taking the time to have a listen. I'm really enjoying playing around with TC Helicon. It's incredibly clever software. Re "6 + 5", I guess it's the global crisis! I suspect it's due to SongU's having changed servers just 2 days ago. Thanks for the thought, though.
Regards,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Great song!
You did a fantastic job using the TC Helicon. Great vox also!
I really like the arrangement you have here. Super fiddle.
Life is short so make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Bravo! Nice job. What settings did you use on the harmonies?
Sundance
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Noel,
So when you "re-recorded' the lead vocals against the harmonies, YOU made the timing changes live? By singing just slightly ahead or behind the harmony? Did you use the same settings as your last song? I think I printed those out for reference.
Gene
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Hi Gene,
Yep, that sounds about right. What I did was to record the lead vocals in BIAB and then use that track to create the harmonies. As mentioned before, I saved the harmonies as separate tracks. Then I loaded the harmony tracks into Sonar (where the instrumental tracks were and where I had balanced the mix) and I recorded another lead vocal. The variation in timing is a result of the fact that I didn't sing exactly in time with the harmonies when I recorded the new lead vocal. I didn't consciously try to vary the timing it just happened as a natural event.
Regards,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Move over Keith Urban! Great song. Lyrics and melody are fluid. Bass is a bit muddy for my aging ears. But most of all, I can't lose sight of your Ausie accent doing a Blue grass tune! It's just a bit incongruous to my southeastern US regionally raised ears. It's an original combination, and makes me smile, Noel. I wonder what Keith would sound like if he "let his hair down" and sang with his native, conversational accent.... Don't take this the wrong way, please. Your songwriting rivals Willis, with good lyrics and song structure. And I enjoyed listening.
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Hi Noel. Mac hit it right on the nail head. One other thing you might do is drop the bass EQ a tad on the whole song. In other words, from the output of the entire song, open its editing page and insert a 10 band EQ then drop the 1st low freq to 0. Then drop the next one down to ½ of that. Then give the song a listen to make sure you haven't over EQ'd the entired song. This is a balancing act but can be done easily. Once you drop the over all bass frequency you get rid of a ton of muddiness. And it don't take a lot to make it sound like there's too much bass. Just play with it.
Other than that it's a great song. Could easily be a hit. Good on ya Mate.
Russ Anyday above ground is a good day Computer is Hp Pavillion Vision 6 Ghz quad core AMD processor 8 Gig memory 1 TB hard drive 6 GB hard drive Windows 7 Premium Loose nut behind the keyboard 
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Thanks for taking the time to have a listen DrDUBose: You made me smile when I read your post. I appreciate your comments. Russell: Thanks for the tip. I'll have a play around with some effects and see where it takes me. Mixing is still very much trial-and-error for me. My approach is probably best described as haphazard. I definitely need to get a handle on the finer nuances of production. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Added to Russ and Mac's advice I would say that the lead vocals sound a bit dry. Perhaps a tad reverb could help you there.
Other than that I think it's a nice song and a good performance. Well worth the listen.
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Hey Mike,
Thanks for taking a listen to my song. I appreciate your comments. I purposely set out to be minimalistic with the reverb but I might have overdone it (hmm... maybe that should be "underdone it"). When I get a chance, I'll go back and have a bit more of a play around with reverb.
All the best,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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