Andy was very kind after my extreme criticism to allow me to have the Stems!
I have done the following:
1. Reworked the drums to loose the samples and programmed them from scratch.
2. I could not save the biscuit bass (although I was almost there) so I re-recorded it.
3. Played a bit with the arrangement to bring in some stabs and accentuations and lost the fade out.
4. Remixed the vocals and the "Girls" - added some formant shifting on the girls to make them more girlish - tried to move them away from the main vocal.
5. The stems for the vocals seem to have been recorded with a really heavy reverb on input. Ouch. This really makes it hard to sit them into the track. I have tried to settle the vocals down, cut as much of the high frequencies as I can but just seem to loose the tone without correcting the issue. I have compressed them, gated the reverb trails off and even tried to remix the song to the vocal reverb. In this version I have almost reverted back to the originals as I have got lost.
This is completely messing with my head and I have got a bit lost in the mix. So I'm asking for help. This is not compressed, not mastered, nothing, just a scratch mix that I have been working on for 2 days and in the process lost faith in myself.
Without a complete re-record of the vocals where have I gone wrong? Is there anything I can do to rescue it?
I think maybe I need to zero everything and start again, but any advice would be nice at this stage. Or maybe even leave it alone for a week and come back to it fresh.
What a great song though I have had a whale of a time messing with it, but as I say seem to have got a bit lost.
Thanks for the chance Andy!
Here it is - turn it up and have a listen
http://soundcloud.com/redredding/blackguyplaysthebass-2If anyone's interested I used Open Source Drum Kit for the drum programming on this one - Its not bad at all
http://realmusicmedia.net/osdrumkit/