Down

Stratomaster

Stratomaster

Active member
After a long wait of two years i finally got my singer/collaborator friend to come over and record. The music track was recorded a few months ago, housemate did a nice job on drums which were recorded simultaneously with the bass to try and get a live groove. This is rough mix number 2, there's very little processing, i think the drums were captured pretty well and i haven't had to go in and try and polish a bad recording which has made it more a pleasure to mix than usual. Vocals were recorded in about two hours, so they're not perfect but again i was so glad to be able to mix vocals i didn't mind listening to that it was a pleasure. So while it's in it's early stages i thought i'd post it up and see if anyone had ideas for improvement. There's usual translation differences between my listening setup, i thought the mix would be louder and more powerful and there's some backup vocal spots that need to be balanced but overall i think it's fairly listenable. Any ideas or comments would be welcome, thanks for your time!

Song is called "Down" it's a long song no hard feelings if you can't make it all the way to the end :yawn:

Strat

Down by NovaBasa | Nova Basa | Free Listening on SoundCloud

New mix

Down (7) by NovaBasa | Nova Basa | Free Listening on SoundCloud
 
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Cool that you got this together finally! I'll get the ball rolling. It's a vocal mix. Harmonies are prominent. Pitch could be better in some places. A sparing application of Melodyne would go a long way to sweeting the vocal mix.

Second, your vocals need to sit better in the mix. The harmonies could come down. Check the ambiance you are using on your vocals, make sure it compliments the ambiance on your backing tracks. You might need to compress the vocals more to get them sitting.

All in all, very positive. Sounds like fun to record in two live sessions like you did. Wish I could do sessions like that.
 
The guitars and bass sound pretty good. A little too much reverb on the guitars I think. The vocal is much dryer. Kind of sound like they're in two different places. There are a couple of the loud screamo words in the lead vocal that you might want to turn down a couple of dbs.

Backing vocals I think could come up just a bit. Hearing the pitch problems that Robus mentioned. Just a couple of spots.

Drums sound pretty good. I like the snare especially.
 
Didn't read other comments, FYI.

See if it opens up a bit by panning the background vocals - there's spots where it sounds like they're right under the lead. Any compression on the drums? I'd be inclined to see what a few db's of GR could do to it, to tighten it all up and make them a little more cohesive.

Really good for a rough mix, though. Sounds fun to play.
 
You're lucky to have a singer/collaborator/friend to do vocals. Let me know if he comes available :D
I'm on headphones so first impressions rather than a mix critique. I agree the mix could be more powerful. But saying that, you have a good balance already so you just need to beef up those elements you want to emphasise. There's quite a lot of tom activity so you could gate/compress those and check your polarity is not robbing you of power. Bass level is good, vocals at the right level, I can hear the snare clearly. From here a lot is down to personal preference. OK so it is a mix critique:D
Good tune btw I'm liking it more after a few listens
 
Cool tune, Strat. Yea try panning those backgrounds more, it should open up nice.

Guitars sound great, strat or teles?

Nice job on the drums too, seems the hats could be panned just tad more, they seem a bit too centered. Crashes sound killer.

Got a Chili Peppers vibe towards the end.
 
It's really good IMO. I love the drum tones and agree the crash sou d fantastic. I don't think it needs much processing...mostly little things like, as has been mentioned, experimenting with the panning.
Great work strat
 
The song is great. I don't mind the vocals. I like the level of the backing vocals.

You have gone to some considerable lengths to get all the instruments working together.

The drums have a style that makes me think of an early Carl Palmer, and how it follows closely the melodic phrasing.

But that's my only gripe with the song. When the song gets busy, I'd really like to hear, perversely, the kit being less busy, and instead maintaining a very steady beat underneath all the activity.
 
I am mixed on the lead vocal being too forward. It might work lower, but it seems they are fine. Unless there were some changes, I didn't hear a reverby guitar. Snare pops nice, kick sounds good.

My only negative would be less cymbal action. Around 3:16 there is a little pitch issue, but really wasn't "out there" and it kind of fits the change. Maybe some room verb on the vocals but that is just pure opinion.

Overall, I thought it sounded good.
 
Heya
Thanks everyone for your time and input. I've put many of your ideas into the latest mix, notably the panning of the background vocals and trying to sit the lead vocal properly. I also tried to create a cohesive space for the mix in general, sending numerous elements to the same reverb. The singer has also been very specific in mix suggestions including some copy and pasting of elements to places they weren't before, you can hear some of that in the quieter section of the song. I tried gating the toms and sending them to a verb seperately. The guitars were done on a strat. These were supposed to be guide guitars recorded with my vox tonelab pedal, but as so often happens i just kept them. I'm living with any pitch issues on the vocals, they were done quickly and we knew there was some inaccuracies but decided to live with it the name of realism.

So i've got my latest mix up, mix number seven-i'm still not entirely satisfied, the dynamics of the vocals are still off in a few places but overall i think the mix is sounding better. Apologies for the lack of personal response-i didn't want to respond to the thread till i had a better mix and now i have more replies than i expected. I appreciate the time and responses greatly and put them to use as best i can.

Thanks all!
 
The first mix was good, this is better.

Nice and full, good lows, crisp on top, middle not too dense, sounds really good. Guitars stand out nice. I could hear that roll off nice and clear.

Your tweaks were worth the effort from my perspective. Nice.
 
Ha! Cool! Vocals sound like RAMI. I really like the harmonies on this one. Melodically, it's very interesting. Had me smiling throughout. Bass might be a bit loud, or you could try cutting it by 3-5dB around 200-300Hz.

Toms on the drums might be too low, too. In comparison with the snare, they're much lower.

I really enjoyed listening to this. Thanks for sharing, man!

PS - I listened only to the new mix.
 
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