The Lonely Karmic Cop
February 22, 2013 12:00 AM
Cover of Radiohead's "Karma Police" for the major/minor challenge.
First, a word. The original song sort of defies simple switching of the chords. There's a lot going on with the progressions and the vocal line and the bass line and I actually had like a whole page of analysis written up and then my computer did a barrel roll and I forgot to save it so I decided to just go for it instead.
So it may not fully follow the letter of the challenge --not all the chords are changed in a way that necessarily makes sense, I screwed with the melody a bit, etc-- but I like to think it keeps the spirit (also it's kind of a continuation of the OK Computer Challenge we did last summer, which was my favorite challenge EVAR).
Oh yeah and CRITICISM/FEEDBACK WELCOME = TRUE
feedback/criticism: I think the piano could come up just a bit relative to the vox. Your voice is sort of in the same range as the chords, so I would probably EQ a slight dip in the piano at 1kHz. Not a sharp notch, just a little dip, down about a dB or two. Then I'd boost its midrange, with a slightly larger bell. Try around 500Hz and move it up and down. I would also boost around 3kHz in the strings - they're your "background vocals" and you want there to be a little bite, but not so much that it competes with the voice.
if you highpass the send to the reverb, you can reduce the amount of mouth noise/room noise that is going to your "echo chamber". Also, generally speaking, mouth noise - little clicks and pops of saliva in the mouth - is the same volume regardless of how loud you're talking. So singing louder = increasing the signal to noise ratio. It's something that plagues my stuff because I tend to sing quietly and then compress a lot. Your singing sounds a lot better + more proficient to me, so don't be afraid to sing a bit louder.
I usually roll off a little bass and treble on all my reverbs. Recording to tape naturally reduces some of the highs - i fake this in the computer by creating a little shelving eq that rolls off starting around 9k, just bringing it down a couple dB.
The bass end of the strings sounds good but get a little boomy toward the end, on the "i lost myself" bits. I would try a highpass around 80-100 Hz, and move it up till you feel like things sound a little thin, then back it down.
Hopefully this is helpful. If anything here is confusing, or I used unfamiliar terminology, I'm happy to explain further. If you're interested, I would also be willing to take the files, make changes, and send screenshots of what I did.
Overall, great job. I really like your playing and singing, so post more.
posted by dubold at 1:32 AM on February 22 [1 favorite]