When You Go Away

[finotti]

Here is a remix of an original song from 1996: When You Go Away (2023 Remix). It is a (cheesy) ballad, which we hoped could helps us "make it". (I deeply regret having chosen this one for the recording, as we had much better songs. But we thought this one was more "accessible"...) I will soon remix the second (and last) second of this demo, which is a much better song! But I must admit that I do like this song as well. (Well, probably because I wrote it...)

The band was called Parsec, and I was really lucky to be a part of it! The bass player (Piera Bergamo) and drummer (Caio Carlucci) were phenomenal! The singer (Bruno Sant'Anna) was also excellent! The keyboard player (Alexandre Torres) was also quite good, coming up with some great sounds and parts (although It does not show as much in this particular recording.) Too bad it was me on the guitar...

The lyrics are in "English" (wrote by a friend from another band, Al Pedralli), but with some serious problems... But at the time, we were more concerned about the performance. (Please, don't mind the lyrics too much.)

The piano and clean guitar clash a bit (and are too "busy"), but overall I like the result. I intend to rerecord the guitar parts (soon-ish), and maybe add something else here or there. But I thought I should have a version with the original performances.

It was recorded in a studio in São Paulo (Brazil), although I forget its name. I remember we did not have much time (since we did not have much money) for these recordings, so it was quite stressful recording it!

I've got the stems from old ADATs (24 channels in total) we've found recently. The audio from the stems were not that great, but hopefully the result is OK.

The remix was made in Ardour, using LSP, x42, OverToneDSP, u-he, IK Multimedia plugins, mostly.

Honestly, I am not sure this new mix is any better than the original, but I had fun working on it, and that's all that matters.

Some more details (but not much) in my blog post about it.

[glowrak guy]

Hi, I thought your guitar parts were fine, and being in the same range as the vocal, the mix was well done, without competing parts,
and there was a variety of tones, which also fit. The intro is very nice, maybe you could precede it with the part at roughly 3:40-3:48
but a little quieter, and then boost the intro guitar for smooth transition? This possibly ties the end back to the beginning.
Mi dos centavos

This song seems a nice fit for the nineties sound, and I think an acoustic ballad version would also be nice.
The vocal might be more dramatic than the song? It's a common theme, but the singer, as you noted,
is not in the common sector.

I didn't remember the drums, which could mean they were basically perfect? I've heard some big-name drummers
go wildly distracting on a simple nice song, when there was no need to. Just because we can, doesn't always mean we should

Hope your bandmates are still musical. Brazil has a huge and influential music community.
Cheers

[finotti]

Thanks @glowrak guy for taking the time to listen and comment! And thanks for the positive reinforment!

I didn't remember the drums, which could mean they were basically perfect? I've heard some big-name drummers
go wildly distracting on a simple nice song, when there was no need to. Just because we can, doesn't always mean we should

Indeed! The drummer is really excellent, but there was not too much for him to show off in this song, so he nicely held back (as a good drummer should).

The second song of this demo (which I will remix next) shows off his (and everyone else's) abilities a lot more. (Really great stuff!)

Hope your bandmates are still musical. Brazil has a huge and influential music community.

I believe that the singer is still pretty active. The bass player, one of the most talented musicians I know, still plays, but not as much. (She truly should be a professional musician...) The keyboard player plays very little, from what I understand.

I completely lost contact with the drummer, but truly hope he still plays... It would be great waste of talent if not.

When I visit Brazil, often I meet the bass player and the keyboard player to jam, though, which is great.

Again, thanks for listening!

[psyocean]

In good rock traditions! Excellent work!

[folderol]

Seems fine to me.

[Basslint]

The mix is very nice but it could use some mastering. Liked the proggy parts at the end, like the best AOR You people played very well, the bassist was truly a tasteful player which must have been fun to mix. If she quit music, maybe she had a good reason, not everyone who is good at one thing ends up doing it for a living!

[finotti]

Thanks @Basslint for listening and for the feedback!

The mix is very nice but it could use some mastering.

Thanks for pointing it out. I did try mastering it... Could you be more specific on what I could try to do to improve it?

Liked the proggy parts at the end, like the best AOR You people played very well, the bassist was truly a tasteful player which must have been fun to mix.

Indeed! All her bass lines are really great. I am mixing now the second song of demo and the bass is just outstanding! (And so are the drums! I was really lucky!)

If she quit music, maybe she had a good reason, not everyone who is good at one thing ends up doing it for a living!

Indeed. I guess she wanted to actually make living wages.

[jeanette_c]

Heyhey @finotti , you certainly got a lot more gain out of the remix. the vocals appear more muffled in the remix. Thanks for removing the doubling on the piano in the new mix, that does sound cheesy and it was done a lot. It's a nice song. As you said: it's very accessible. Not knowing exactly wht you had in your stems, it's difficult to judge what else might have been done or not and how many miracles you have performed. Having heard both of them, many thanks for also sharing the origiinal(!), I can see that your remix did make a difference!
Best wishes, Jeanetted

[Basslint]

Thanks for pointing it out. I did try mastering it... Could you be more specific on what I could try to do to improve it?

I can't give you a very good technical advice because mastering is something I never do, I can only tell you as a listener that vocals could be emphasized a bit more.

[jeanette_c]

...
I can only tell you as a listener that vocals could be emphasized a bit more.

If you have the vocals in a separate stem, there are a few things you can do: send the vocals to a delay bus, VERY quietly, so you can't really hear it any more and make the delay long'ish. Based on the tempo, find it with tap tempo if you don't have it, around 1/4 to 1/2 note length perhaps. Send as dry a signal as possible from your vocal stem.
EQ'ing: the bands of presence are usually around 1000Hz and 10000Hz, you can slightly boost those with an EQ. Or you lower these bands in other instruments.
Furhtermore: you could add shorter quiet delays to the other stems. The shorter the delay, the more the sound appears to be in the background.
You can use more compression/limiting on the vocals.
You could even add some kind of subtle saturation (tape saturation or an exciter plugin).
If you have mid/side EQs you can even be more precise with other stems, by lowering certain vocal secific presence frequencies in the mid channel of other instruments. There are a few mid/side EQ LV2 plugins and possibly even more VST ones.
In the mastering stage you can again experiment with EQ'ing, trying to softly boost a very wide band around the Nyqist frequency (20000-25000Hz).
Most of this is mixing related, but seeing that you do have stems, it's more precise and less aggressive to the whole song than trying to do everything in the mastering stage.
HTH.
Best wishes, Jeanette

[finotti]

I can't give you a very good technical advice because mastering is something I never do, I can only tell you as a listener that vocals could be emphasized a bit more.

Thanks! I will try to revisit it soon.

And thanks @jeanette_c for the detailed suggestions! I've already tried a few of those, but will give it another try soon. (I've read a lot about mixing and mastering, so I know the theory. But my bad ears don't help the cause...)

I really appreciate the feedback!