It's a good thing - "New" VHS song

Cool song. What I notice most is that clanky snare (?) sound. It seems to dominate the mix, ahead of guitars, bass and keyboards. I guess that was your intention. I'd pull up the guitars and bass.
 
You mean the "ping" kind of sound?
There's two actual snare sounds: the one that starts right away (procedurally-placed and often layered with other sounds) and the main (EZD) snare that comes in around 0:27.
There's also the sound of me hitting a box of pins with a drum stick.
 
Fun song!
I see what Robus is saying about the snare ..it is pretty hot in the mix.
IMO The entire kit could come down in volume just a tad. The mix ain't bad as is though.
Nice work man
 
Ok. New mix is up at the same link.

The ancilliary percussion is all down about 2 dB overall and an extra 4 dB in the quiet bits. (Kind of proud of myself for figuring out how to do automation in the procedurally-generated drums. Whee!) It's a little louder during the quiet parts of the bridge because the volume of the percussion and synths are linked.

Thanks for the feedback!

Edit:
Whoops! I'd meant to update the kick sound too. New mix up that addresses that too.
 
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I like the song quite a bit. I like just about all your stuff.

Vocals are nice and clear. Guitars have a nice growl. Performances are all excellent. I love the keyboard tone. Ordinarily I don't like the Pac Mac keyboard sound. But it worked extremely well here.

The mix overall has, to my ear, too big of a low end. The kick is really heavy. To some extent, the bass does too. I'd like a little lighter mix.

The guitars are covering the vocal in the chorus a bit.

I think you pull back the snare in the chorus a little. You could also pull it back in every verse beyond the first chorus. That would probably help the vocal come thru a bit better too.

I listened to mix #2.
 
Yeah, my arrangements are big on low-end these days (3 "bass" instruments at this point plus 3 of the 5 "guitars" are primarily playing the EAD strings)

Huh. Seems a consensus on too much snare. I'm not sure how to parse that. It's never been a problem I've had before...
 
Mix 3 sounds pretty good to me. It's an unusual mix, almost like a drum and bass thing with the guitars creating a kind of rumbling ambiance on the sides, but I like it. Your center mix is very uncluttered, something I'm a huge fan of. Good vocal clarity.

What's this procedurally generated drumming you speak of? How can I teach my computer to do fills?
 
Thanks, Robus.

Procedurally-generated means randomized. I've been working on and off on a codebase for it for about a decade now. The short version is that I feed in a list of samples and some basic rules for the pattern (e.g. 2 measures of 8th notes or 123&41&2&34 or whatever), and the computer builds random loops following those rules and plugs them into the arrangement.
 
That's some super dry production. Doesn't seem like there's a lot of compression here either.

They Might Be Giants are an influence, possibly?

Might be some timing issues in the choruses... are the drums live? (Sorry, haven't really read the thread).

The growl guitars sound a bit indistinct to me--not much air on them. Trip's comment about the kick drum seems on point... it sounds a bit indistinct and thumpy... a little more click and a tighter low end on it might sound a bit better.


Consider what Chris Lord-Alge says about the two stars of the mix--one is the vocal, the other is the snare. I think the snare levels sound pretty good, actually.

Vocals in the bridge remind me of Geddy Lee's.
 
Thanks participant.

I've got a lot of different compressors and some reverb, but I do tend to keep those all as subtle as possible 'cause there's a lot going on.
Y'know, I arrived at a TMBG style of writing and recording despite having barely listened to them when younger. When I wrote this one, I was mostly listening to Smashing Pumpkins and Weird Al
The drums with the weird timing are procedurally generated. I might need to check those fills.
I'll glance at that kick. I added some click to its processing around mix 3, but it may still need more.
 
I remember this one. Weird thing is I seem to remember hearing the original quite recently, not years & years ago. It clearly made quite an impression on me! Nothing pokes out on headphones here but I like the tune
 
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