Peter Hook’s signature style is that he plays bass as lead a lot.
4 Likes
I got no problem with that, I do it occasionally. If it is in the range of the instrument to make the sound, why not?
5 Likes
That was great @howard! I enjoyed that.
5 Likes
another very impressive cover @howard ! doing those full covers are definitly not the easy way. the production level gets higher and higher, this time it sounds really compact and balanced. that’s a nice and efficient mix, everything works well together.
I like the intro. a guitar would not sound like this and what can be interesting by playing this kind of lead line on bass is that it brings a kinda “cloudy” tone where a guitar would have been typically more direct and sharp. (all this due to the strings inertia and amp bandwith, I think)
also the drum track is very convincing, it works perfectly with this kind of song.
5 Likes
Thanks for the kind words!
5 Likes
Very well done, Howard - really top notch production and playing!
I am, however, still a bit on the fence about those vocals… but that is really only my old nagging ever-critical and oh-so-charming personality, which you should totally ignore 
After all, as said before, it takes a lot of stones to “go out on a limb” like that at all - kudos for that!!
4 Likes
Thanks! Yeah, lots of room for improvement, I have lots of growth left there.
In this case some of it is the original though… the vocals are entirely three notes.
One thing that is definitely going on with my vocals is they sound much more compressed. They aren’t, at least by software - What I think it is is that due to not having a real studio, I can’t really project like I should due to volume, and so am singing relatively softer and close to the mic. This squashes the dynamic range a bit. I have been trying to open that up but in my apartment this is gonna be challenging.
2 Likes
Yes, OK, I see… this is totally due to my ignorance of the original… I can see now how you are very close indeed!
Yes, this is certainly a big limitation for you.
What you could perhaps try is to also double the vocals (as they do) and also add a “roomier” reverb; their vocals sound much more like recorded in a big empty warehouse (and the second voice even more reverb-y)… I think that might further smoothen out any pitch challenges etc. But, that is just my guess - I am sure you have tried a number of post-processing options yourself 
2 Likes
Yeah good idea, and I actually did throw a harmonizer on it and it sounded cool. The problem there with my voice is that I’m in a solid baritone to tenor range and am sitting right at A2-A3 naturally, which means I compete a lot in the mids with the instruments. So harmonizing it made it kind of muddy, like I had thrown a phaser on it, and in the end I took it off. Light chorus worked ok.
What I did do there was high-pass away all the parts of the voice tone below about E1, which helped a lot, and then use a feature of my mixing plugins that dynamically EQs down the frequencies in the voice from all the other tracks while the voice is singing. That helped it stand out a lot without additional compression.
The harmonizer is cool with it too though and I might try playing with it a little more.
2 Likes
Man, I can only imagine how tricky it must be to tweak everything just so…
Doesn’t iZotope have dedicated products/plug-ins for vocals? Tools that could take some of the hard work off your shoulders, so to speak!?!
2 Likes
That’s the fun part 
Yep, Nectar, and I am using it. I have Neutron on each of the instrument tracks dynamically EQing, and Nectar on the voice track. Nectar and Neutron talk to each other while mixing and mastering, and adjust the EQ of each track dynamically to bring the vocals to the front.
The vocals are Melodyned before that to pitch correct (though in this case I didn’t really need it, it was not too hard to sing); otherwise Nectar would do that too. Using Melodyne, ironically.
iZotope’s plugins are pretty incredible. Pretty reasonable if you can get them on sale, too. Full price is astronomical though.
2 Likes
that’s interesting ! and could be very useful to remove the original bass line from a song, depending on the new bass track
2 Likes
It might work for that! It’s not so drastic though, it’s really subtle. A better bet for that is Master Rebalance in Ozone or RX8, which does that well. pretty sure you need Nectar Plus for the Unmasking Assistant so the price wouldn’t be that much different.
2 Likes
yeah it could be interesting at least for songs where there are parts without the bass. it’s not easy to EQ this kind of song : remove the bass AND at the same time avoid the parts without bass to sound very thin and hollow. maybe you dynamic EQing would be great to complement a light EQing on the original song track.
2 Likes
Certainly nothing wrong with using Nectar on instrument tracks. In fact they have an article about switching between Nectar and Neutron per track here:
Those are for the previous versions but it gets the idea across.
If you want these, what I would recommend doing is watch for deals on PluginBoutique. iZotope’s stuff goes on sale all the time, and the bundles are the way to go. Keep an eye on the Tonal Balance bundle and the Mix and Master bundle for sales. Even picking up the standard version that way and crossgrading later (when there’s a crossgrade sale, which are frequent) is a good way to go. That’s how I ended up with the advanced versions of Neutron, Ozone and Nectar.
It’s also worth grabbing the trail versions and playing with them, or pick up the elements versions on sale (they go on sale really cheap, sometimes free with other stuff).
1 Like
Hi Guys
Haven’t posted a cover for a while, so here’s my version of Another Brick In The Wall. The video quality isnt the best but I’m working with what I’ve got. Hope you enjoy it, I enjoyed recording it : )
Another Brick In The Wall - YouTube
Thanks
Matthew
11 Likes
Very good, @MattHinchliffe . . . 
One of my favorites!
Also left you a thumbs up on the Tube 
Cheers
Joe
4 Likes
Nice! Your bass tone is working well with the song. Great cover!
4 Likes
Nice work, @MattHinchliffe! Great tone indeed. I’ve been practicing this song for a while now as well, but you played it so much better than I can. I won’t be posting my own cover anytime soon 
I’m jealous of your effortless economy of motion while fretting… I may be hitting the right notes, but my fingers are still pretty much flying all over the place while doing so. Working on it!
4 Likes
very nice cover @MattHinchliffe ! I agree with @Mike_NL , that economy of motion is kinda impressive. also no problem at all about the video quality ! it’s very cool that you did a video cover already
4 Likes