The opening harmonies were so wonderfully tight and great. Very reminiscent of the original. The lead vocal coming in was a little less pleasing and reminded me of Axel.
But then the main part of the tune comes in and it all sounds good!
There were some incorrect chords around 1:42 - meant to be minor, not major.
The guitar that came in just before the "mama" bit sounded cool. The solo also sounded really good. Very convincing tone!
The opera bit was at times great and others a little under-whelming. Probably cause I was expecting the voices to burst out a little more, but that's probably a vocal delivery thing. Otherwise, it was all very rousing apart from the scream at the end of "me"...hmm..!
The harmony guitars at the end were very nice. But I have to ask Aric, why is it that nothing seems even the slightest bit out of tune or wav-ey. It can't be THAT tight. Not even the original is like that.
Also, how to your filter your amp noise out?
Another high standard cover. It's always great to hear such things here. Hopefully, I'll put something up in October. Promise.
Adam.
I liked the Ab major better in that spot. I was trying to do something where it shifted from major to minor but I couldn't get it to sound right. I probably should have left it minor. Oh, well.
As far as the tuning, I don't know why it seems that tight to you. I don't own any kind of tuning software/hardware or even a harmonizer. I just play it carefully until it is right. I spent a lot of time doing that on this version. There was no pitch shifting of any kind... except as an effect I added an octave pitch to a couple guitar parts to make it sound more violin-like.
The sound of the opera is just the best it can be for me. It's partly delivery and partly gear. All the mics I have add a 'smoothness' which doesn't help when you stack a couple dozen voices. It gets a little 'smeared'.
Amp buzz... you actually can hear some right at the end with the last guitar line. I couldn't eliminate it completely. I just kept fiddling with the amp/mic position until it was that way.
The solo was recorded direct so buzz wasn't an issue there. The rest of the guitars were all amped/mic'ed.
Cheapo chinese condensers. For vocals I use ADK Hamburg or MXL V69ME. Sometimes a Rode NT1-a but not often.
They do a very cool job on most harmonies (by adding a thick sheen) but this opera section would really benefit from a very natural sounding mic. But buying new gear is out of the question for this self-indulgent hobby.