The Steel Guitar Forum

Being a fan of Marty Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives I couldn't help myself...

The steel was done on my modified Carter Starter. It has 8 strings (removed the top two) and a Telecaster Bridge Pickup in place of the stock one. Sometimes I plugged directly in. When I didn't, I ran out of a stock Twin Reverb Reissue. I only use the 3 pedals on the floor.

I played the guitar on a Telecaster I put together to resemble Don Rich's. Also through the Twin Reverb.

Bass is a short scale P-bass plugged directly into the board.

Here are "Branded" and "Little Heartbreaker".

http://www.box.net/shared/ygcmf81oks
http://www.box.net/shared/3qpypsxjj4

Any criticism is more than welcome as long is it is done respectfully. I'd like to improve as much as I can.

Great job Clint, I wish I could do half as good.

I really enjoyed listening to those, Clinton! You're a very good player and you're getting a very cool sound out of that Carter.

You didn't say anything about how you recorded the vocal so I'm guessing it might not be a big deal to you. But most listeners will go there first, and to me the Tele, steel, and bass seem very well recorded while the vocal sounds like, well, like a guy singing in his bedroom. I'm no producer but you might do yourself a favor there by working some with eq, delay effects and/or compression to give that track more character. "Slap-back" echo seems pretty common for the genre.

The only other comment I'd make is that maybe the Tele and the steel are sitting in similar parts of the spectrum and one tends to block the other. If you could separate them more in the mix somehow...

But overall very fine sounding demo-level tracks and like I said I enjoyed them a lot. You should definitely keep at this.

Tim Victor wrote:I really enjoyed listening to those, Clinton! You're a very good player and you're getting a very cool sound out of that Carter.

You didn't say anything about how you recorded the vocal so I'm guessing it might not be a big deal to you. But most listeners will go there first, and to me the Tele, steel, and bass seem very well recorded while the vocal sounds like, well, like a guy singing in his bedroom. I'm no producer but you might do yourself a favor there by working some with eq, delay effects and/or compression to give that track more character. "Slap-back" echo seems pretty common for the genre.

The only other comment I'd make is that maybe the Tele and the steel are sitting in similar parts of the spectrum and one tends to block the other. If you could separate them more in the mix somehow...

But overall very fine sounding demo-level tracks and like I said I enjoyed them a lot. You should definitely keep at this.

Thank you Tim!

Considering that all of this was recorded in my bedroom, I must be doing pretty well, haha.

In all actuality, I do care about the vocals, but I really don't know how to approach them. I normally just sing into the Peavey Microphone that I used to record all of this. When I mix it I normally just throw in some reverb and let it go because I don't know what else to do with it.

I recently purchased two SM58 Microphones, which should make the raw vocal sound a little better. What after effects for vocals are recommended? Is delay preferable to reverb in this case?

Concerning the Tele and Steel clashing, maybe I could alleviate this by mixing the Tele to the right and the Steel to the left?

I'm still trying to figure this all out myself. That's the main reason why I listened to your recordings, although I do like Marty a lot myself. So I don't claim to be any more accomplished than you, if even that.

For what it's worth: I've picked up on the fact that engineers and producers are as fanatical about mics and preamps and compressors as guitarists are about strings and pickups and amps. I'd expect an SM58 to be a step up. That's pretty much the industry standard for dynamic vocal mics. Most studio vocals seem to be done with large-diameter condenser mics, and there are enough different brands and models of those to make your head spin, priced from $50 to a hundred times that. Big studios have vintage German tube mics that they guard and treasure like the family jewels. Then there are ribbon mics, which were popular in the 50s and early 60s. They have a vintage vibe and can still sound really good. Good enough for Elvis... New versions of those have been coming on the market, including one from MXL that's under $100 but I have no idea how good that one is.

A lot of it boils down to finding out what suits your voice and your style of music, maybe as much or more than what's "better" or "worse" overall. Having a friendly music store or a studio where you know someone so you can try a bunch of different ones seems like an ideal scenario.

For effects, if you aren't using a compressor you might try that. Don't go overboard or you'll end up sounding like The Steve Miller Band. (Steve made lots of money with "Keep on Rockin' Me" and "Jet Airliner" so far be it from me to judge, but that might not be the sound you're after.) I gather that just about every recorded vocal has some amount of compression on it to smooth out the delivery and bring it more up front and generally make it sound more polished.

You could try slap-back instead of reverb. ("Between a timing of 40 to 120 milliseconds" according to one web page.) Funky little studios couldn't afford reverb units until pretty late in the game, so on old rockabilly and country recordings that's what you'll find. It's cheap and easy to do and you'll know whether you like it or not.

Even working on how you address the mic and how far you are away from it could help a lot. You obviously have good ears so try it some different ways--if it sounds right then it is right. There are some pretty good tutorials on recording on YouTube these days. I just spent a couple of hours there! And you might be able to find interviews online with audio engineers where they talk about how particular songs that you know were recorded. They love to talk about that stuff and there's lots of it on the web now.

Concerning the Tele and Steel clashing, maybe I could alleviate this by mixing the Tele to the right and the Steel to the left?

Sure, sounds like a good strategy to me.

Hope some of that helps... Good luck with it!