Feedback Appreciated

100 views, no listens, and no comments...thought Soundcloud was the easiest way. Let me know if there is something else I can do to make it easier. Thanks guys
 
Hey,
The majority of views are usually guests or bots. Three members are listed as having read this and I'm one of them!
20 hours isn't a long time on a forum like this so hang tight and see what comes. :)

Also, I've moved the thread to the mp3 mixing clinic for you.
The marketing section is more for promotion of finished articles.

While I'm here....
Are you using some kind of preset master processing like Ozone or something? The whole mix is compressed/limited to the point that it all drops out for the vocals during your choruses. I'd pull that right back first off.

The performances, techniques and ideas are sound but the overall mix sounds very harsh and scooped.
The cymbals sound really squashed and washy to me, and unnaturally wide.
The guitars sound like there was a good tone happening but it's been processed to the point of being harsh.
The vocal is a great performance but it sounds like it's in a dull boxy room during the verses and too thin during the choruses, although you do have a pretty cool 'Killers' thing going on there!

Wow, that sounds like a whole lot of criticism but really, there's a lot of good in there man!

Tell us a bit about your processes and, perhaps more importantly, your mixing environment and monitoring equipment. :)

Thanks for sharing.

Edit: Listening to the outro - You'd do a great smashing pumpkins cover man!
 
Thank you much for that. here goes...

untreated bedroom. mixing with Sennheiser headphones (yikes). they give terrible low-end representation and I usually have to go back into the DAW and change things around after I listen on different systems (headphones, car, phone, etc...).

Nothing is preset in the processing. There are 2 main G's and 2 lead G's, routed through a Bus which has further EQ and tiny compression. This is an electric G plugged directly into a USB interface with the Ampire amp simulator. Every piece of equipment, besides the DAW itself, is budget-friendly.

The drums are Superior Drummer 2 with 2.2 compression and minimal EQ and reverb.

Vocals with a Sterling ST51 in the bedroom. They are very difficult to get sounding full or with body. Going to start adding 3db or so around 200-300 and see if that helps. It has a bit of verb on it, but it is apparently not coming off too well. Funny because three friends thought the vocal sounded great...of course, they don't have the experience most people here do.

What area seems "scooped"? I definitely scooped the low-mids on the guitar tracks, guitar bus, and master EQ a bit. Otherwise, not much scooping or boosting anywhere.

I want people to be able listen to the tracks and come back for more. I know the songs are catchy, but I really need to have them come off the way I'm hearing them in my head. I'm hoping that the mix isn't so terrible that the average listener wouldn't give the songs more listens.

I appreciate the help I get here, when responses actually come through ;) thanks man

-- I had this tune in the MP3 clinic a week or so ago, but it looked like certain people frequented certain sub-forums, so I was looking to reach out to new folks. No worries, thanks for trying to help. I'm not sure if I had comp on the master bus... I believe comp was placed on the guitar tracks individually, tiny comp on the guitar bus, 8:1 on the bass, three compressors (2:1 on track, 4:1 on bus, and a de-esser) on the vocals, 2.2:1 on drums, and none on bus, i think.
 
andrushkiwt said:
I appreciate the help I get here, when responses actually come through ;) thanks man
Click to expand...

Hey no problem. :)
We all work with what we've got and if amp sims and headphones is what you got then you have to run with it!


I'd do a couple of things before anything else.
1: Take of any master compression or limiting completely
2: Reduce or remove heavy compression from elsewhere in the mix.
3: Post it up here as an update for comparison.
4: Listen long and hard on your headphones to some similar commercially recorded tracks.
It's not ideal, but you can take notes on how things should sound through those particular cans.

Focus on the broad strokes - Low end, high end, mids.

Heavy limiting and compression can squash the body and leave the highs so I'd do ^ that before I'd go to the eq plugs.

The vocal - I guess you could put it down to taste. The singing is great - the reverb just jumped out at me, but maybe it would be fine in a really well balanced mix.

I just realised you have two tracks.
I listened to "waiting" and am checking the other one now, although I think all the same stuff applies.
 
andrushkiwt said:
-- I had this tune in the MP3 clinic a week or so ago, but it looked like certain people frequented certain sub-forums, so I was looking to reach out to new folks. No worries, thanks for trying to help.
Click to expand...

Ah, I see.
It has busy spells and dry spells, but it's definitely the right place for feedback.
 
So, bring down the reverb? I use the small studio preset, but then I change things around. I put the pre to about 85ms, and around 50% wet/dry and 40% mix.

About comparing tracks, I really need to do this. I prefer the 30 secs to Mars sound, where his voice is phaser-like w/ tiny distortion, and guitars sound wide and full. I would like to be able to bring a WAV into the mastering suite and compare it, but I guess I can just open an mp3 in WMP and listen that way.

Remove the limiter? My tracks are awfully quiet w/out it.

thanks for the props on the singing..I definitely don't consider myself a singer, so I appreciate that.
 
andrushkiwt said:
Remove the limiter? My tracks are awfully quiet w/out it.
Click to expand...

Bingo! Remove that, or at least pull the threshold up until it's not actually doing anything.
Limiting is a final step once everything sounds great. Mixing with it turned on and active is a losing battle, as I eventually learned! :p

I'd start with an uncompressed, unlimited version and see how that sounds. It might address more issues than you think. ;)
Hear how at 4:07 "she's waiting" the mix falls away during the vocal then rises back up?
 
This is a slow forum. You might have to wait a bit before you get any feedback.

The vocal is in a different space than the instruments. The drums seem to be hard panned left during the verses. I can't hear any snare on the right, only some cymbals during the chorus. It's seems a bit lopsided.

The ping pong panning gets a bit distracting. Have you tried using it with a slower transition between the two extremes?
 
Like the voice. Pleasant to listen to, but kind of buried in the mix at times. Most of the rest of the tune is very harsh like happens when you overcompress, recompress and compress again. I do this all the time, to my own mixes so I'm used to the sound of it. :)
Like the soundstage on the beginning of "Waiting". Well played. Keeps the attention till you hit the song. Guitar in the R speaker is off. Try less distortion to get a better tone and some definition. YMMV.
 
andrushkiwt said:
I slap it on at the very end, once in the mastering suite. I usually set it to 2db gain, and -0.10 threshold
Click to expand...

Cool.
Despite the mix obviously being much quieter, does it sound better without the limiting? Turn the headphones up and see, and post it here if you wouldn't mind.
 
Schwarzenyaeger said:
This is a slow forum. You might have to wait a bit before you get any feedback.

The vocal is in a different space than the instruments. The drums seem to be hard panned left during the verses. I can't hear any snare on the right, only some cymbals during the chorus. It's seems a bit lopsided.

The ping pong panning gets a bit distracting. Have you tried using it with a slower transition between the two extremes?
Click to expand...

thanks for the reply man. the snare should be centered, but I noticed that the "drum booth" reverb setting sometimes manipulates the "symmetry" of the sounds. the angle of the drums, and whatnot. I hope that isn't moving things around too much, because I do mean to have snare centered.

the ping pong is a wanted element, but I don't want it distracting for sure. I can try lowering the "depth" of the motion and moving it from 1/2 bar movements to 1 or 2 bars.

Now that I think about it, I'm sure that drum booth preset is moving something around...although I usually catch it and fix it.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Cool.
Despite the mix obviously being much quieter, does it sound better without the limiting? Turn the headphones up and see, and post it here if you wouldn't mind.
Click to expand...

At work atm. I'll definitely do that this evening. Having a problem with that particular song, however. The virtual instrument that plays in the beginning has almost capped my processing. Distortion and popping is now present. Difficult to mix. I spent the last week going over everything possible (i have 8gb ram on a brand new laptop) to fix it, including bringing my IT dept into the equation. I can only up the buffer size to 512 and see if that works, but I haven't been able to do so. That's a whole different conversation though. No worries, I'll get that uncompressed (or less compressed) and unlimited version up soon.

wow, I appreciate all this feedback and help. thanks a ton
 
andrushkiwt said:
I can only up the buffer size to 512 and see if that works, but I haven't been able to do so.
Click to expand...

Sometimes interfaces have their own brand software mixer or control panel which governs the upper buffer limit.
I know presonus have this.
I don't know what you have, but take a look at the bundled software to see if you can turn the buffer up there.
If you can, that might allow you to up it in your recording software.

If not, have a look through your plugs and see if there are any duplicate eqs,reverbs or delays.
If you're using the same plug for the same reason in two places, you could just use a bus and one instance of the plug instead.


andrushkiwt said:
wow, I appreciate all this feedback and help. thanks a ton.
Click to expand...

No probs. Hopefully you'll get something good of out the feedback here. :)
 
The consensus here is that guitars are a bit harsh and theres too much compression going on... that's what I''ll take from this. oh, and the vox are too verby? Can I get a yes or no on bringing down the verb of the vox? I'll add 2-3db @ 200-300 and see if that brings some "body" into it too.

yes, I have Presonus. Studio One 2 Pro. I don't, however, see the Universal Control which is where you change the upper limit. I don't think their AudioBox USB came with this. And yes, I have meticulously gone through the inserts to make sure I'm routing commonly used things to a single channel for others to pass through.
 
andrushkiwt said:
The consensus here is that guitars are a bit harsh and theres too much compression going on... that's what I''ll take from this. oh, and the vox are too verby? Can I get a yes or no on bringing down the verb of the vox? I'll add 2-3db @ 200-300 and see if that brings some "body" into it too.
Click to expand...

For me it's more the frequency range of the vocal than the actual verb.
I think the reverb is making it sound tight and boxy, but I get the feeling rolling the lows off in the eq plug (if that's an option) would help.

You might experiment with having a global reverb that you send your various tracks to by differing amounts.
That can really help your mix sound like it's all happening in the same space.

Of course there are exceptions - Long tail lead guitar reverbs and fancy effects, etc.
 
Steenamaroo said:
You might experiment with having a global reverb that you send your various tracks to by differing amounts.
That can really help your mix sound like it's all happening in the same space.
Click to expand...

The "common" verb channel is accepting the vocal tracks only. So, I guess, the vocal tracks should sound like they are in their own space. The guitar bus has its own verb channel, but it's very minimal reverb. Suggesting I should use the same verb for the vox and guitars?
 
andrushkiwt said:
The "common" verb channel is accepting the vocal tracks only. So, I guess, the vocal tracks should sound like they are in their own space. The guitar bus has its own verb channel, but it's very minimal reverb. Suggesting I should use the same verb for the vox and guitars?
Click to expand...

It's a possibility and a judgement call, but it might not work for your particular mix.

Edit: I didn't realise you were the guy I spoke to before about buffer size settings. Sorry. :p
If it's an audiobox USB you want "AudioBox control panel" rather than universal control.
 
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