You Did, Remixed

I decided to try and put some of what I have learned to good (?) use.

You Did is my oldest song, recorded in my living room with my crappy Tascam mic (MXL, really). Everything has changed in the song since then :-) except the lyrics themselves. The VSTs have changed, the FXs have changed... But is the song better?

Here's the original version:
https://soundcloud.com/divinegravity/you-did-feat-shallabal-kgb

And here's the new version:
https://soundcloud.com/divinegravity/you-did-feat-shallabal-2013-1

Which one do you like best? Why?

Am I out of budget?

I just bought a bass. The missing link. What separates the boys from the men. A good bass line can save a bad song. OK maybe not any of mines, but bass is an important part of any band because it is the link between melody and rythm. The glue.

I had been looking online for a couple of weeks when I saw this metallic blue 4-string Peavey Grind BXP (passive) bass. For the price ($130) I thought it was a nice bargain compared to the rest of what I saw around those prices. I tried it clean and throught my Line6 POD and I love the sound of it. It will need tuning and messing around since the fret harmonics are not in line with the 12th fret notes, but I'll take care of it later. Right now I'm enjoying that fat rich sound :-)

Budget wise, I'm left with $20. I'll sit on those for now even though I'm still eyeing Valhalla Room. I did somehwat learn how to use the epicVerb plugin I have now (sidenote: whenever I'd bring this guy in, the sound would just immediately disappear in the depths of the abyss; only after several tries have I noticed that the wet pot was all the way up :-) Bringing it back to more standard levels breathed life back into the verbed track. Weird default setting if you ask me), but I'm not totally convinced: when I turn it up, it makes me cringe. Not good. Maybe Valhalla Room as some demo mode I need to check out. But Valhalla Room is $50 so I'd go over budget. We'll see :-)

On another note, I have decided to enter the GearFest PureMix contest. 620 entries right now :-( What I have listened to so far makes me think I have a chance: overuse of bad reverb, lots of FX on pretty much everything... Yuck. Not on a rock song recorded on a stage by Fab Dupont. We'll see. I'll post my mix on recordingreview.com for critique (this forum).

Goal tracking

Update on the goal tracking for 2013: out of $430, I just took out $160. I'm now left with $270.

Valhalla Room? Bass guitar? Komplete Elements from Native Instruments?

Goal tracking

I said I would not buy for more than USD500 of gear/stuff for my studio in 2013.

Boy is this gonna be hard! :-)

I needed a second mic stand so that I could track acoustic guitar right off the bat without having to circle around the room for 20 minutes setting everything up (see this post for why that's important). I bought it for a bit less than USD 70 including shipping. A nice Samson BL3, like the other one I have.

So that's USD430 left.

On my buy list, there currently is:

1. Addictive Drums by XLNAudio: my drum samples suck bad. Drums and bass are the most important things to get right in modern music. AD gets the job done for a very reasonable price. I have my sight set on the a nice bundle of AD + the Reel Machine ADPak with electro sounds
2. Valhalla Room reverb plugin: the guys over at http://www.homerecordingshow.com have been raving about how good this plugin is; why buy a reverb? I can't hear a bad EQ or a bad compressor (yet?) but I can definitely hear a bad reverb. Plus the guy who makes it (Sean Costello) is really cool.
3. A bass guitar; yes, I can't play the bass, but the sound I get with my crappy sample and the keyboard is plain horrible. A real bass, even a cheap one, either direct in or through my Line6 PocketPOD will definitely sound better

The AD bundle is $149 and Valhalla is $50 so that's $200 less. I'm left for $230 for *everything else*, including the bass. Yikes!

God forbid something breaks. Do I get a break? :-)