3 Demo Songs Acoustic Driven Rock

searchengine

New member
Hello,

This was my first attempt at recording and mixing our band.
Looking for input on overall quality and mix of the songs.
Drums recorded at our rehearsal space, everything else in the bedroom.

http://www.frequencer.com
Red Paint
Duty Calls
Tethered SKin

192kbps MP3s, give a minute to load.

All recorded with Cubase SX.
Drums->TM-D1000, Soundscape Mixtreme
Overheads: Behringer ECM-8000
Snare: Shure SM-57
Kick: Audio Technica Pro 25

The Kick Drum on Duty and Tethered was replaced with Drumagog samples
because they were overdriven during recording.
I'm not too happy with them as I am the natural kick in Red Paint.

The following recorded through TC Electronics M200 S/PDIF into Audiophile 2496.

Vocals: MXL V67 -> M Audio DMP2 -> RNC
w/ Sony Reverb plugins

Acoustic Guitar: Seagull S6+ -> Rode NT-3 and Rode NT-1

Electric Guitars: G&L ASAT -> Zoom GM-200 Amp Modeler

Bass: G&L ASAT -> ART Levelar

Keyboard: Kurzweil SP-76 Piano and strings on Red Paint.

Thanks for your time.
 
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on first listen...at work...on computer speakers...is that enough caveats?

I liked the first and third songs, they are different than a lot of stuff I have heard lately...I like it.

right now I only have time to give my thoughts on tethered skin

The recordings seem good...I love the electric in the back ground. It seems to me you should let that build through out the song and really bring it to the front of the song by the end. during the part where you sing thethered skin, I would also put the lead back a bit (it almost seems too airy at that point) and bring up the backup vox (it almost seems like you are trying to hide them).

Good song.
 
sounds pretty good to me. the vocals sound a little 80's to me. if that's not what you're going for, you might try going a little lighter on the reverb and heavier on the compression. how far away were you from the mic on the vocal takes? might want to move a little closer... but hard to tell w/ all the reverb on there.

cool website too. i like the minimalist approach, and the 3-D look of it in general.

Cheers,
Brendan
 
Listening now

Red Paint--Vocals are buried in the mix. Snare is not quite right. Not sure what's wrong with it, but it needs to be different--at least to me.

Overall Pretty good, drop everything behind the vocals it will help a lot.

Duty Calls --nice intro. Once again the vocals are buried. Sonically this is a very rich piece. I have no idea what the words are--watch the diction and lose a little of the effects on the vocals.
Drums are much better on this piece. Bring up and clear up the vocals just a touch--nice piece.

Tethered Skin--Nice smooth opening. Vocals are better here, still a bit buried. That snare is back, try to find the mix you had on duty calls for the drums.

The playing on all of these is nice. Don't be affraid of letting us hear the vocals. Overall it is pretty good stuff.
 
Listened to Tethered Skin. Very good.

Endorse all the comments made so far - just about exactly what I thought. A couple more..(and as always they're only mine, and I ain't no expert - ignore them all if you wish)

First off is vocals. Vocal quality seems to be a problem for so many male led bands these days (i.e. their singers are crap) - you don't have that problem. Let's HEAR them. Most people listen for melody, lyrics, they listen for a singer; you are far too buried. A bit more confidence is in order here. One detail on the vox is you are straying into yodelling at a couple of points (1:10 and 2:30 ish, I think) If that's what you want, then fine; if not, then listen carefully for it.

For my taste, the strummed acoustic was too prominent; it's pretty much the same all the way through and though it's good as a pad, sound fill kind of thing I thought it made the track bit too samey - my biggest issue with this track was that it is lacking in dynamic range and a sense of going somewhere. Bringing that nice lead guitar might help with this, as I suspect would bringing up the vox.

The bass had a nice, lazy groove, sitting just behind the beat, though in a couple of cases I thought it strayed a little too far behind.

Nice work.

Garry
 
Paco said:
sounds pretty good to me. the vocals sound a little 80's to me. if that's not what you're going for, you might try going a little lighter on the reverb and heavier on the compression. how far away were you from the mic on the vocal takes? might want to move a little closer... but hard to tell w/ all the reverb on there.

cool website too. i like the minimalist approach, and the 3-D look of it in general.

Cheers,
Brendan

Thanks guys.

He comes off harsh at times and doesn't like compression on his vocals, yet hasn't really learned to 'work the mic'. Yeah, I think I went too heavy on the verb and could use some more Really Nice Compressor in there.
 
Garry Sharp said:
Listened to Tethered Skin. Very good.

One detail on the vox is you are straying into yodelling at a couple of points (1:10 and 2:30 ish, I think) If that's what you want, then fine; if not, then listen carefully for it.
Garry

Haha, yep I know what you mean about the yodelling. My older sister actually yodels, maybe it's in the blood. lol.
 
vocals remind me a little bit of michael stipe mixed with robert smith. the songs were good in my opinion. mix was good too. i'm shitty when it comes to recording, but i know when a mix sounds good (although mine never do).
 
Red Paint - mostly very gorgeous ! I'm bring up the vocal 'stem' a touch - the drums could be slightly crisper , not the hardware necessarily just the things with skins... :)

Red paint has a lot of aural depth and ambience - I like that type of soundfield you have there a lot !

I'll listen to the rest later - gotta sell my house now !
 
i love that red paint song. it has a different sound to it. not to be a jerk but do you have a place to download an mp3 of it? or are you anti-sharing. it's all good either way. do you have a disk out? good stuff man. I though the vox could be adjusted a bit, i'm not sure what i'd do though.
 
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