Modern Blues Melodica Recording

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #9997
    Lowboy
    Participant

    Hi,

    So here is the latest blues melodica recording I made for educational purposes. Bluesman Preston “Red” Foster wrote the song. My very talented friend plays all the guitar parts, bass, and sings lead and backup vocals. He also recorded and mixed the song without melodica. Then I recorded a melodica track over the mix.

    The melodica was a Hohner HM-26. I ran it through an SM57 mic through a Presonus RC-500 (preamp, compression, 3-band semi-parametric EQ) through a LWBC delay pedal into a Vox AC4 4-watt tube amp cranked up pretty good to get some warmth and grit. Rolled off lots of highs above 5k.

    There are three melodica solos and lots of call and response. Starting to get there after three years of work.

    Melodica nuances heard best with high-quality playback equipment such as headphones or studio monitors.

    For a number of reasons, you will have to use the following link to download and play this MP3.

    https://1drv.ms/u/s!AgoU91jcaBnsi903OPPIBngMkbbFfA

    Regards,

    Lowboy Bootay

    #9998
    Melodica-Me
    Participant

    Sounds great lowboy, your melodica sound is definately unique, keep them coming.

    Melodica-Me

    #9999
    Joanna Funk
    Participant

    Great blues sound Lowboy. I can’t believe that sound is a melodica. Very cool. Thank you.
    Joanna

    #10005
    Alan Brinton
    Participant

    Super! You are now where a few years ago you set out to get to, and all right before our very own ears.

    #10016
    Lowboy
    Participant

    Thanks for the warm fuzzies.

    I mixed this version using headphones and was so excited about getting it posted I did not listen to it on speakers.

    Since then, I have listened to the mix on several systems with speakers and it sounds not so good on some systems. So I would recommend that those coming to it now listen on headphones.

    In fact, for some reason, it translates completely weird on some computers including Mac and PCs when speakers are used. Not sure what happened there. This is not the first time this has happened with my Tascam DP-24SD. I have to figure out what is going on.

    If you plug headphones into a computer, it sounds great with lots of bass and the melodica out front.

    Lowboy

    #10019
    Lowboy
    Participant

    Hi,

    I have figured out what is going on–why the mix does not sound good on some playback devices.

    I took my friend’s stereo and mastered mix of his recording and imported it as two stereo tracks on my Tascam hard disk recorder. After recording my melodica part, I panned the original song tracks left and right during the mixdown and mastering (as you would expect). If I centered the pan of the two stereo tracks, they would cancel each other out and all I would hear is the reverb from the tracks.

    After mixing and mastering the recording with my mono melodica track added, the result sounded good on discrete stereo equipment and headphones. If however, I played the track back on any audio equipment where any part of the stereo tracks were combined: mono systems, systems using surround sound decoding, Bose equipment where a single channel is often created for some frequencies, etc., the left and right tracks of the original recording would fully or partially cancel themselves out, resulting a mix with very little bass and/or unbalanced frequency response.

    So for posterity, I am going to try again to mix the recording using a different technique. I think I am also going to create mix where the backing music is panned hard left and the melodica is panned hard right. This would enable you to listen to just the melodica track and hear the modulations.

    Lowboy

    #10021
    Alan Brinton
    Participant

    Makes sense. I always listen to my computer sound in Stereo, so it sounded fine to me. I like the idea of having a mix in which the melodica sound can be isolated.

    #10037
    Lowboy
    Participant

    Hi,

    For posterity here is a much better mix of Mojo.

    https://1drv.ms/u/s!AgoU91jcaBnsi-VtCUYwnADEsbEOVw

    My mix that kicked off this thread was so bad and so filled with technical problems, I had to redo it. (I am still in the process of learning to mix and master with my Tascam 24SD card recorder.)

    This mix will translate better into mono systems, Bose systems, and computer systems.

    I think you will find it much more enjoyable to listen to no matter playback system you have.

    Regards,

    Lowboy

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Back to top button