Float On

  • Artist: Modest Mouse
  • Album: Good News for People Who Love Bad News
  • Label: Epic
  • Year: 2003
  • Producer: Dennis Herring
  • Engineer: Jacquire King
  • Studio: Sweet Tea Studio, Oxford, Mississippi
    Easley Recording, Memphis, Tennessee

Notes:

Echo and Chorus
Slap Echo on the rhythm guitar gives it the optimistic bounce the tune calls for. The added chorus effect softens the texture.
A similar echo and chorus decorates the full frequency, hooky, single note electric guitar lines played front and center before and after each verse (and during the last choruses). Simple, quirky guitar parts respond well to a bit of FX-based enhancement.
More pronounced echo on those separate guitar flourishes entering in the second verse, panned opposite the direct sound, make for a bigger image, and add a bit of motion.

All of these delay-based effects are effective at giving the mix a bigger sound, but another factor in their success is the use of spectrum. That rhythm guitar is very mid-frequency-oriented. The echo and associated reverb are also lacking in lows. As this guitar part plays throughout, the decision to reign in its tone leaves room for the lead vocal, and this other guitar: The single note guitar melodies contrast nicely with the rhythm guitar, and soar unmistakably above the mix, in part, by having a fuller tone. Yet the echo effect on this wider bandwidth guitar tone is also constrained to a narrower spectral footprint. Equalization and careful level-setting allows these effects to be more understated, making the mix more interesting, but never cluttering things.


Sources

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