Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Well I spent a day doing a more polished version of Jimmy Webb's "Highwayman" as a test cut for the TC Helicon "Voicetone Harmony G" vocal-harmony-generating stomp box. Unlike most of the scratch tracks that I record in my office, I actually took the time to go back in and fix small goofs and other things that bugged me and I'm pretty happy with this version. I lowered it a step to take advantage of my dazzling seven-note vocal range, toned down the volume on the harmony a bit and even added a little bit of a guitar in places. The instrumentation for this version is pretty much the same:

370/12 stereo, for the soft finger-style background - half through a JangleBox, half straight into the board - Ricken-frailed (thumb tapping and up-stroke fingerpicking) - if you listen closely during the first verse you can hear the thumb taps (sounds kind of like horse's hooves). No other EQ adjustments.

Hofner V63 Beatle Bass for the thump, thump, thump - straight into the board.

Yamaha Silent Guitar for the little lead bits - set to a twangy "Good Bad and Ugly" sort of tone with its onboard controls and run straight in.

370/12 with the Janglebox (mono with neck & bridge pickups) flatpicked for the late guitar stuff. Straight in, no EQ.

Vocals - First verse solo using the "tone" enhancement button on the Harmony G (which is pretty neat).
- Second verse: I added one high harmony and doubled the lead vocal with the Harmony G
- Third and fourth verses: added another voice above mine for 3-part harmony and doubled the lead vocal. There is a knob that lets you adjust the mix between the lead and the harmony voices. I rolled them back a bit. At the very end I wanted to see what kind of fullness I could generate, so I double-tracked the vocals in stereo.

Shure SM57 mic with a Rickenbacker polishing cloth draped over it to keep me from breathing on it and cut the brightness a bit.
Korg D1200 digital recorder. Everything recorded flat (no effects or EQ). A little bit of Hall reverb and a little compression added to the overall mix during mix-down.

I also found that you can record just a harmony (or two) and dial-out the melody in both mono and stereo modes if desired. This would, for example, allow you to record the harmony parts individually if you were worried about the various parts and phrasing being too closely synchronized and sounding fake. I did find that singing one part without hearing it in the monitors while listening to and correcting a different part in harmony with what you are singing is pretty tricky. I didn't try it on this recording. In general. this is a pretty impressive little stomp box and everything worked great.

The recording is here:
http://webpages.charter.net/tbradshaw/M ... wayman.mp3

Shew, Todd, you really did some fine justice to that tune! Nicely done. Well played.

Chap.

Ooooh, goosebumps! The last verse gets me.
Interesting device, that. You should hear your song through my old Bose 901s aboard my "washtub bass". Stereo everywhere!
In the old days we had reverb, often as the one and only exotic option (in two flavors, plate and spring), and the funny thing is it worked to fire our imaginations and make us feel far away. Now they took out everything that was bad about it and give it to us in 31 flavors. It sounds awesome but I don't get that far away feeling as often anymore. Maybe it's the songs, or maybe just me getting old.
I was listening to All Things Must Pass earlier. Talk about a wall 'o' mud, but dang it, there go those goosebumps every time I hear it. The real test of a mix is to run it through some real cheap car speakers, you know, in 8-track format.
I don't know if any of this is useful, but you got me to reminiscing; isn't that what these old songs do so well? Thanks for that

Wow.... Fantastic recording, Todd! The mix sounds really, really nice.

I hope that someday I can become as proficient with recording on my D1200 unit....