Case study 2 - Incubus, Certain Shade of Green Acoustic

The original song Certain Shade of Green is an alternative metal/jazz fusion song from 1997 by the band Incubus from their S.C.I.E.N.C.E album, infact most of that album was a very unique jazz/metal fusion genre but the acoustic version strips it all back to it's jazzy roots and just makes the whole song sound like it should.

While the original song was released in 97, the acoustic version was released on their 2009 album Monuments and Melodies and is labelled as previously unreleased but is actually taken from a live show recorded from the AT&T Wireless acoustic session from the year 2000

Bpm: 123 -ish Key: B Major

Length: 3:37

Cornelius - Lead Vocals

Jawa - Guitar and Backing Vox

Dirk Lance - Bass

Dj Lyfe - Turntable

Badmammajamma - Drums

This is not the live video version, and it is definitely a low quality mp3 version but it's one of the only ones on youtube. I have a copy of the album however and will be doing my case study on that version.

The song starts out with a quick intro, some funky fills from the bass and the main guitar and some hi hat riding from the drums. You can also hear a classic scratch from a old school dj, which to me sounds more like a preset sample than a live scratch but knowing the band, and the skill of the Dj it was probably done live.

Once the first verse rolls in the dj disappears, and everyone plays lightly and the vocals become the clear centre of attention of this mix. This is a much more relaxed and calm version of this song than the original metal fusion song. The song goes into 2 verses, then into the chorus, followed by a guitar and whistle solo and a "Jazz" breakdown. From then the next verse has a much softer tone to it, then back into the more powerful verse and finally a chorus and a simple but beautiful outro.

Instruments:

The guitar has a nice twangy tone about it, a tone probably made by the EQ to separate the bass and the guitar, as the bass sometimes gets into a higher octave that could clash with it. The guitar was probably recorded through a DI because of it's clarity.

The bass has a nice warm and clean but almost fuzzy tone, and is played in a very professional jazzy finger plucked style. The bass also plays many harmonics throughout the song that I originally thought was the acoustic guitar but it can't be, so this is probably an acoustic bass. The bass was also probably recorded through DI also because of it's clarity.

The turntables are an interesting choice of instrument. Reminiscent of the 90's hip hop and rap tracks but usually nothing else. This is a classic Incubus theme throughout all their older songs. I don't have much to say about this apart from that I believe it's all done live in this recording, and the skill involved is far greater than that of current day djs.

The drums have a very light and bright tone to them, and are the only thing that's really in stereo, though not massively wide. The snare is also very tight and is never hit really hard, and is also not very loud in the mix. I would think the drums would have been recorded closely to avoid spill with a mic for the kick, snare, hi hat and overheads, there doesn't appear to be any toms in this song.

After reviewing the video I can see 3 microphones clearly on the drums, 2 overheads that are really close to the drum kit's cymbals and what looks like a shotgun on the snare. This is probably to cancel noise from the room or the foldback. There doesn't appear to be any mic on the hi hat, but the right overhead appears to be right next to it, though there isn't a real good camera angle on the drum kit.

Live shows are often recorded directly through the desk, because this is the cleanest way of doing it according to soundonsound, and appears to be the case here because there are no more additional microphones on the stage than the ones needed to play. Using FOH to monitor can have its own troubles though like the obvious difficulty of recording in the same room while the band is playing full blast through the speakers.

Soundstage:

As always I ran this through a mid side setup to check what's actually in the side information, it appears to be just the reverb they've put on everything. It seems the information I found on this song was correct, the song released in Monuments and Melodies is in fact from the live recording in 2000 because this would be very common for a live show to have only (mostly) verb in the sides and a very (almost totally) mono mix. The guitar is panned slightly to the left, and the bass, the vocals, backing vocals, kick, and snare are all mono, with the overheads bringing the cymbals out to the sides.

Below is the intro and guitar shown panned slightly left. The mono panning setup works well for a live show, because you want as much of the song to be heard by everyone no matter where they are sitting. This venue is a very small venue however, looks to be maybe a max of 50 people, so some panning of the guitar adds some extra balance between the hi hat and also is where the guitarist is playing.

Spectral Analysis:

Interestingly, there appears to be lots of un-needed frequencies in this song. I would understand the live version having these frequencies, but the fact they did not roll off much high or low end in the album version means they probably didn't change it much from the original live version. really just proving how good these guys are live.

The low end does appear to have some roll off, but whether that is natural, or a pad on the kick drum microphone I am unsure. There are 2 arches in the bass frequencies, and while both of them are caused by the kick drum, there is a notch taken out of the kick between 60hz - 100hz to make room for the bass guitar. While not exactly noticeable on this picture, it's clear once I set the return rate to 50db/s but it's too hard to take a picture of that.

I noticed the cymbals have a very bright tone, and this is reflected by how much high end there is shown here, the roll off appears to be very slight, and starts around 16khz. Pretty much anything over 8khz here is the drums, and you can see just how powerful those cymbals are. I'm not sure if this was a mastering choice or if this was how it was recorded. But as I said before I do believe this is the live version complete with very slight unedited mistakes and everything.

Dynamics:

While this song clearly has some hard limiting, nothing is clipping, which is the most important part of recording live music, or really any music. The drums' transients clearly stand out above the rest on the song. and the thickness of the waveform is usually indicative of how much bass is in the song. The songs structure cannot be seen as clearly as I'd hoped, but you can clearly see when the vocals comes in after the intro the transients thin out, because the drums have stepped back a little.

Below is a closer up view of the "jazz" breakdown, further showing how the bass really creates that thick waveform. while small transients from the acoustic guitar can be seen and larger transients from the drums and

Final Thoughts:

This song is such a great example of a simply mixed, live, (mostly) mono recording that still sounds awesome and exciting. While some of that has to do with the artist themselves, I think the cleanliness of the recording plays a huge part in it, giving the tones of the instruments their own place in the mix and not overcrowding the mix is something that I'll be trying to work into my future songs.