Since I’m in the mood for remixing my friend Ali McLachlan’s songs, here’s another one. I Want to Know Your Voice is a kind of funk/blues song which is Ali’s new tune to some lyrics his brother wrote. Again, I’ve not departed too much from the mix I did back in 2001, but just updated it here and there to hopefully give a slightly more polished sound (though still far from professional!)

You can listen to the updated mix at Soundclick.

Remix

Arrangement – The main problem with this song is that the verses get a bit boring and drawn out. I experimented with cutting half of each verse out, but it didn’t really work, so I ended up sticking with the original five minute arrangement.
Vocals – As usual Ali is singing through my wife’s tights into a cheap mic. A bit of compression and reverb was added.
Bass – The original bassline was recorded on a very cheap bass guitar with a limp sound. I eventually gave up trying to compress and EQ it into shape, and re-recorded it, sticking fairly close to the original bassline.
Trumpet – Its rare I get my trumpet out, but I think it works really well on this song. I used the original recording, and some compression and reverb really makes it nice and bright.
Drums – I kept to the original pattern from my old Alesis SR-16 drum machine, with a few open hi-hats added in for interest. I used a SmartLoops set of drum samples again.
Piano – The piano part remained as is, fairly understated, mainly used to help add interest during the dull parts of the verses.
Organ – I kept the blues organ from my Yamaha P200 stage piano droning right through the whole song, as in the original arrangement.
Electric Piano – I added an electric piano part using the Mr Ray VST again for a bit more variation.
Electric Guitar – I re-recorded the palm mute parts (although they are still a bit lame), as well as adding some arpeggios and auto-wah parts, all using the Behringer V-Amp 2. I also replaced the acoustic guitar outro solo with a shorter electric guitar solo.
Mixdown – Most tracks as usual were compressed with Kjaerhus GUP-1, and I used a combination of Lexicon and Cakewalk reverbs. I’ve been a little bit bolder than normal with the mastering limiter on this one, as my mixes tend to be on the quiet side compared to other people’s tracks.
Conversion to MP3 – I have been noticing recently that the conversion to MP3 is introducing some distortion in some of the bass guitar and kick drum hits at loud points in the song, which are definitely not present in the WAV mixdown. If SONAR had a decent sidechaining feature I would try to duck the bass guitar with the kick drum. Maybe SONAR 6 will allow this.

Lyrics

I want to know your voice.
Want to know the moving of your Spirit in my life.
I want to shine for you.
Let the light of Jesus be seen in everything I do.

I want to be close to you; I want to walk with you.
I want to be close to you Lord Jesus.
I want to walk with you every minute, of every day
Let the thoughts of each moment be centred on you.
Let the thoughts of each moment be centred on you.
Let my life revolve around you.