April 17, 2012

ReMix – Nesta Rae’s Stay

Hot on the heels of my remix of Rufus Wainwright’s Bitter Tears is a remix of Stay, by Nesta Rae. This is another competition piece for Indaba Music. So, take a listen, vote if you like it, or just let me know what you think. If you compare my version to the original, you’ll probably […]

Hot on the heels of my remix of Rufus Wainwright’s Bitter Tears is a remix of Stay, by Nesta Rae. This is another competition piece for Indaba Music.

So, take a listen, vote if you like it, or just let me know what you think.

If you compare my version to the original, you’ll probably notice I changed the arrangement quite a bit, cutting out some parts of chorus and chugging the order of things. I used the original vocals, but added layers and lots of reverb & effects. I recorded all the instrumentation myself, including Bass, two Rhythm Guitars, three Synths and programmed drum samples using the ToonTrack Jazz Drums kit.

I chose to keep things simple at the mixing stage. There’s UAD plugins on the guitars (1176 & Pultec), Bass (dbx160) and effects sends (4k Buss Compressor and EMT140 Plate Reverb) as well as Fab Filter Pro-C compression on the vocals. Everything else is Logic’s own effects.

There’s some light mastering, including Fab Filter’s Pro-L limiter and the UAD ATR120 tape emulator, just to polish things off.

All told it was one long night’s work, about seven hours, including arranging and recording the original parts. A lot of fun!

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Andrew 13 years ago

I like it better than the original. Nice work.

Tetine 13 years ago

I am really impressed … thanks for sharing this with us.

Nesta Rae 13 years ago

Thanks for participating. You are obviously very talented! BTW it’s Nesta Rae 🙂

Toni 13 years ago

Very interesting. I’m listening through (cheap) headphones, which may or may not be a bad thing.

The original sounds very cluttered *after* listening to your mix first, with the vocals sometimes almost drowned by the instruments. Your remix has a very open, atmospheric feel compared with the poppy, slightly dancey album version.

Nice use of reverb and delay to create the impression of backing vocals and a much larger vocal content.

However, if I were to critique it, I’d say that it never develops energy and doesn’t really seem to ‘get going’. Too jazz-cool so that pauses are just that, rather than hot space, in what could be quite a funky sounding song.

Let me say though, your backing is really excellent in terms of performance and recorded tone, and that bass is very crisp with just the right amount of growl.

Fernando Gros 13 years ago

Nesta – Thank you for stopping by to listen & comment. I really enjoyed the experience and wish I had made more time for the ReMix. Hope the album goes well!

Toni – Thanks. I like the original mix and I get the vibe they were going for. But, as soon as I heard the vocals in isolation, the mood you hear here sprung to mind. I wanted to bring expression in the vocals as much as possible.

I do get your critique though – and, I agree with it. My ReMix does’t lift, after the bridge, as much as I would like.

As for the Bass – yeah, that is the bass tone I’ve always wanted to have. Very happy with that sound.

Andrew – thanks. That’s what a ReMixer dreams of hearing! 🙂

Tetine – Thank You!

FWIW I have bass-tone envy!

😉

I’ve probably under-played my comments. What you did was really very, very good.

ReMix – Nesta Rae’s Stay

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