share some feedback?

andrushkiwt

Well-known member
Hey, please take a listen and let me know what you think of my latest track. I spent a lot more time on this one than usual, but don't stop short of letting me know what areas need work. Btw, most of the techniques that I've picked up have come from this forum. Especially those guys who let me know about my earlier guitar sounds. Hopefully this one is nice and clear, without mud, no harshness, and well-balanced.

https://soundcloud.com/andrushkiwt/waiting

thanks!
 
It sounds better than the last few things you posted.
I'd bring in the cymbal on the left a bit. It doesn't have to be that wide.

I'm still not a fan of auto-pan effects.
 
It sounds better than the last few things you posted.
I'd bring in the cymbal on the left a bit. It doesn't have to be that wide.

I'm still not a fan of auto-pan effects.

Thanks man, I was hoping youd chime in on the guitars. Yeah I went a bit wider, about 145% I agree it's a bit too far. The panning filters are fun :) thanks!
 
Ah, can't stand the ping pong panning to be honest. Personal thing. It is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I'd rather listen to the chalkboard.

Not a fan of the wide panned toms either. Just sharing personal preference, but it is good to get that sort of subjective feedback as well.

The cymbal on the left is phasey.

The whole mix sounds sort of squished and confined. I'm not getting a lot of dynamic movement. No sense of impact when big sections are supposed to be washing over me.

The guitars sound decent for how well I can hear them, but I am straining a little to really get a sense of the tone.

You have a fantastic voice, why are you effecting it so heavily? I want to hear you sing, I don't want to hear modulation effects.

I think there is a very good song in here.
 
I feel there is much that is great with this song. The mix is lacking in that there is no 'body' to the guitars and bass guitar.

I am curious as to what you are mixing with (monitors or cans) and the room? It sounds to me like you might have a room or headphones that are giving you a false sense of fullness to the mix you think is there-but actually not.

And I agree with the hard panning of the toms, it never sounds natural, though if the low tom on the right were not the only thing with low end in it, it might not sound as 'out of place'.

This is truly a fight if your monitoring setup is not ideal.
 
The vocal is really buried behind everything and the heavy fx on it doesn't help in the quieter parts. How do you pan @ 145%??
 
Ah, can't stand the ping pong panning to be honest. Personal thing. It is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I'd rather listen to the chalkboard.

Not a fan of the wide panned toms either. Just sharing personal preference, but it is good to get that sort of subjective feedback as well.

The cymbal on the left is phasey.

The whole mix sounds sort of squished and confined. I'm not getting a lot of dynamic movement. No sense of impact when big sections are supposed to be washing over me.

The guitars sound decent for how well I can hear them, but I am straining a little to really get a sense of the tone.

You have a fantastic voice, why are you effecting it so heavily? I want to hear you sing, I don't want to hear modulation effects.

I think there is a very good song in here.

Hey, thanks for listening. You're right that there isn't as much impact as there should be. If the impression is that there is a whole band playing live instruments, that would be incorrect. It's just me on one beat-up G and a horrendous bass, using Superior Drummer 2 to my best ability. It's a USB interface and I am mixing on headphones. I am trying my absolute hardest to make it have the sound I hear in my head. A big, dark, spacey tone with large, heavy drums. There isn't any compression on the master bus, and the only thing affecting the guitars compression-wise is the G Bus compressor set to about 2:0. There's a tiny amount of MBC on the master bus, mostly under 100hz and above 10khz.

Thanks for the compliment on my voice. I never sang in the bands I was in, but since I started getting a lot of comments on my singing, I feel a bit more reassured. I am a big fan of the "phaser-ey" type of effects during a verse (something like 30STM). I'd paste a clip right here for you to hear, but I'm at work atm and YouTube is blocked on our pc's! Also, I agree that the tone is lacking in the guitars. Can I ask you, does the actual guitar you are using affect the outcome ALL THAT MUCH? I bought it used about 6 months ago, for about $75...it's a Strat that looks like it's had it's share of gigs and shows. It struggles to stay in tune and always give a muddy sound, no matter which pickups are set. I have to do HEAVY eq'ing on the guitars to remove the mud and remove harshness, usually resulting in loss of tone as well.

As far as the song, thank you...I agree with you. I am thinking perhaps I need to work in a real studio, with a real producer, to get the sound I'm after. Or, I just have a lot more to learn and I can do this myself. I know headphones are holding me back, but I doubt monitors will solve the problem.
 
I feel there is much that is great with this song. The mix is lacking in that there is no 'body' to the guitars and bass guitar.

I am curious as to what you are mixing with (monitors or cans) and the room? It sounds to me like you might have a room or headphones that are giving you a false sense of fullness to the mix you think is there-but actually not.

And I agree with the hard panning of the toms, it never sounds natural, though if the low tom on the right were not the only thing with low end in it, it might not sound as 'out of place'.

This is truly a fight if your monitoring setup is not ideal.

yup, headphones. Senn's HD-280. Went to look at monitors this weekend, but I am still fighting with myself over how much of an impact monitors will have on the final sound. This mix here...I checked out 3 different systems and it satisfied me enough. I'm just hesitant to dish out $600 and the mixes stay the same. The guitar is a terrible piece of junk, really. Maybe that should be the first thing I replace?
 
Headphones can give a very unrealistic sound perception - panning and volumes - compared to good monitors. By listening to your mixes on a lot of different systems, you can learn how to adjust the mix, but it usually takes several tries each time to get things better. Of course with monitors, you also need to do acoustic treatment in your mixing room (bass traps). Consider spending $3-400 on monitors and $2-300 on treatment.

A $75 Strat - or a strat clone? If it won't stay in tune, something's wrong with it - almost any tuner will keep the string in tune assuming the string was wrapped correctly on it and the nut is not binding. But anyway ... get a sound you like out of the guitar/amp FIRST, then record it. Don't try to fix a crappy sound after the fact.
 
Headphones can give a very unrealistic sound perception - panning and volumes - compared to good monitors. By listening to your mixes on a lot of different systems, you can learn how to adjust the mix, but it usually takes several tries each time to get things better. Of course with monitors, you also need to do acoustic treatment in your mixing room (bass traps). Consider spending $3-400 on monitors and $2-300 on treatment.

A $75 Strat - or a strat clone? If it won't stay in tune, something's wrong with it - almost any tuner will keep the string in tune assuming the string was wrapped correctly on it and the nut is not binding. But anyway ... get a sound you like out of the guitar/amp FIRST, then record it. Don't try to fix a crappy sound after the fact.

When you listen to clips of mixes on here, what are you listening on? I'd assume good headphones?

The strat is very beat up, has modification (active pu's), and tends to move up, slowly, in tune. Intonation problems as well; by the 12th fret, it's a dozen cents off (any string).
 
Can I ask you, does the actual guitar you are using affect the outcome ALL THAT MUCH? I bought it used about 6 months ago, for about $75...it's a Strat that looks like it's had it's share of gigs and shows. It struggles to stay in tune and always give a muddy sound, no matter which pickups are set. I have to do HEAVY eq'ing on the guitars to remove the mud and remove harshness, usually resulting in loss of tone as well.

Yes, it affects the outcome in an absolutely critical way, but potentially in a much simpler way than you might think. You need to be able to get it to sound right at the source, whether it be through an amp or through software. You can't generally turn it into something that it is not after the fact with any amount of processing, and as you have noticed, the more you process, the further you move away from the natural tendency of the instrument.

The actual guitar/amp/whatever is constrained in what it is able to output, but it is purely up to you to determine if that is what you want or that is what you don't want. You can't turn it into something else.

Ultimately, if you can record an instrument in such a way that you don't need to even touch an EQ, or you have to do very subtle changes to it to help it work in the mix, that will make your life easier, more fun and will give you better results.

As far as the song, thank you...I agree with you. I am thinking perhaps I need to work in a real studio, with a real producer, to get the sound I'm after. Or, I just have a lot more to learn and I can do this myself. I know headphones are holding me back, but I doubt monitors will solve the problem.

Being able to hear what is really coming back at you accurately, recognizing what it is you are hearing and understanding how to work it is basically what it is all about if you want to be able to do it yourself. I don't claim to be there myself, but I can tell you that my former monitoring environment was holding me back because it lied. I could produce a mix that sounded absolutely stunning to me when I was sitting in the sweet spot of a very bad environment with very inaccurate speakers. That mix sounds absolutely terrible everywhere else.

So monitoring does matter (including the room) because if it is wrong, you can still develop personally and create results that sound good in that bad environment, but that will not translate across other playback systems.

You want your art to be presented in a certain way. How you accomplish that, whether it be developing and investing in a recording and mixing endeavour or hiring it out, depends on what you are in it for.
 
Yes, it affects the outcome in an absolutely critical way, but potentially in a much simpler way than you might think. You need to be able to get it to sound right at the source, whether it be through an amp or through software. You can't generally turn it into something that it is not after the fact with any amount of processing, and as you have noticed, the more you process, the further you move away from the natural tendency of the instrument.

The actual guitar/amp/whatever is constrained in what it is able to output, but it is purely up to you to determine if that is what you want or that is what you don't want. You can't turn it into something else.

Ultimately, if you can record an instrument in such a way that you don't need to even touch an EQ, or you have to do very subtle changes to it to help it work in the mix, that will make your life easier, more fun and will give you better results.



Being able to hear what is really coming back at you accurately, recognizing what it is you are hearing and understanding how to work it is basically what it is all about if you want to be able to do it yourself. I don't claim to be there myself, but I can tell you that my former monitoring environment was holding me back because it lied. I could produce a mix that sounded absolutely stunning to me when I was sitting in the sweet spot of a very bad environment with very inaccurate speakers. That mix sounds absolutely terrible everywhere else.

So monitoring does matter (including the room) because if it is wrong, you can still develop personally and create results that sound good in that bad environment, but that will not translate across other playback systems.

You want your art to be presented in a certain way. How you accomplish that, whether it be developing and investing in a recording and mixing endeavour or hiring it out, depends on what you are in it for.

thank you sir. Very useful info, I appreciate it.
 
When you listen to clips of mixes on here, what are you listening on? I'd assume good headphones?

The strat is very beat up, has modification (active pu's), and tends to move up, slowly, in tune. Intonation problems as well; by the 12th fret, it's a dozen cents off (any string).

I'm using my JBL LSR305 monitors in my room with bass traps behind the monitors (front wall) as well as back wall and corners and ceiling cloud. It's hardly perfect, but I'm getting far better mixes with this set up than before with 3" speakers and no traps!


If the guitar has a standard strat bridge, it's very easy to get the intonation correct (unless the bridge is so far off you can't adjust any more). If by 'move up' you mean the notes get sharp as you continue to play, something's not right, if you are referring to the intonation, see previous advice.
 
I'm using my JBL LSR305 monitors in my room with bass traps behind the monitors (front wall) as well as back wall and corners and ceiling cloud. It's hardly perfect, but I'm getting far better mixes with this set up than before with 3" speakers and no traps!


If the guitar has a standard strat bridge, it's very easy to get the intonation correct (unless the bridge is so far off you can't adjust any more). If by 'move up' you mean the notes get sharp as you continue to play, something's not right, if you are referring to the intonation, see previous advice.


Move up, meaning the higher the fret, the more off from the open string in cents
 
Google 'guitar intonation'.

I myself have a $90 strat copy that I keep around because it was my sons. It actually would require a new nut because it is chipped and a piece of crap anyway.

I found this by simply attempting to set the intonation.


As far as the monitors and room treatment thing goes, it is all about how important this is for you and how much you wish to invest.

First step is having a sound worth recording. Then the room to record it in. Then having the ability to hear it, which involves room acoustics and monitors.

Each step leads to a better result.
 
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