Land Of Confusion - prog rock cover

[napoleonboot]

A cover version of the the song Land Of Confusion, originally by Genesis from their 1986 album Invisible Touch.

Created from the ground up, instruments by my friend Justin Elliott, vocals by me!

Constructive criticism is welcome. :)

[napoleonboot]

Thanks for listening and commenting Bzean123 I relistened a few times trying to hear the end-of-line let-ups you mentioned, but I'm not really hearing it except in maybe maybe just a couple of places?

For the interest of those of you into mixing:

It took me while to get the right sound in the mix for the vocals, as I wanted it reminiscent of the original. After much messing around and experimentation, I ended with this chain on the vocal: EQ -> dynamic compression -> saturation/exciter -> light echo (on strange fractions of beat) -> chorus -> delay (on whole beats) -> reverb

For saturation/exciter I used "Ferric TDS" free VST plug-in. Final mastering was done using the marvellous free "MHorse P3" mastering toolkit, another free VST plug-in (I am a cheapskate).

[napoleonboot]

Phil gets a very think sound, I was trying to imitate it in my mix, but backed off a bit. I dont think he double tracked it, rather think his engineer uses a mix of chorus (always good for thickening a voice) and delay and reverb, but I don't know for sure.

Harmonic exciters are a bit like fancy EQ'as which add musically meaningful harmonics (overtone) to a track, and do some other adjustments to make it sound better. such as shifting some frequencies in time slightly and compressing it a bit (often compressing different frequencies ranges differently). They can make tracks come to life and sound better.

The most famous exciter is the Aphex Aural Exciter, which was originally expensive piece of studio hardware, and was an industry standard in top studios.

Old fashioned recording to tape used to make tracks sound "warmer", again adding harmonics and also compressing things slightly, but not as cleverly as exciters do (you hear the phrase "tape saturation"). Tube pre-amps also did something similar (you sometimes hear the phrase "tube warmth")

Nowadays there are plug-ins for recording software which do these things, and most mastering tools have something along these lines built in as part of what they do.

Here are some of my favourite free VST plug-ins for this stuff, google for them to find out more:

to add to single tracks:

* Ferric TDS

* Tessla SE Pro

* Tessla SE

* ThrillseekerVBL

* ThrillseekerXTC

* Baxxspander

for mastering whole mixes:

* MHORSE P3

* Limiter No. 6

* T-Sledge

* endorphin

LOL! - I do know a lot of the chords, as I am a guitarist as well a singer. Sadly, I'm not the guy mentioned in the Dire Straits song though. :D

[thethomas]

Nice job man, I think you got most of the song down pretty decently, and this isn't exactly an easy song to sing properly. It's also a very good song for your voice.

Constructive critisism:

Phil Collins is also a drummer, and I think that fact becomes very clear when you listen to how he times/places phrases perfectly along with the ryhtmsection throughout a song. This song is a great example where the vocals play a huge role in the rythmical expression of the song, meaning: if you miss out on some of the vocalist "beats" the song will lose some energy. I'm also a drummer so I guess those things are very important/noticeable for me.

Either way, good job, keep on rocking!

[ronws]

I think you sang it with the same phrasing as Phil. And a number of times, he has sang this song with his back-up drummer playing.

In fact, since he left Genesis, he plays several other instruments, not just drums.

Anyway, good stuff, George. I was remembering my first marriage. This song was huge around that time.

[Jugulator]

Wow! Such a juicy voice reminding me good old Paul Stanley of Kiss :)

[napoleonboot]

Many thanks all.

I'm working on a mumford and sons/travelling wilburys style original number next. :)

[Adoney]

This is just fantastic. 5/5!

[napoleonboot]

thanks!