Sp2

This sounds very good. Guitar tones are really nice. I particularly like the clean tones, though the overdriven tones are good too. You are panning your guitars wider than I've heard you do before--that's a good thing. I'm a fan and advocate of hard-panning guitars. The song has a lot of energy. The playing is tight. You have good timing and play cleanly. I like that lead figure that you play a number of times. It's simple, purposeful, and musical. If I were to quibble, I'd say the lead solo at the very end could be more focused and melodic. But that's a quibble.

Mix-wise, what I notice is inconsistency in levels of your guitars. Take that skanking wah thing that you do on the right over that reggae-sounding part. Notice how it's much louder the second time around, maybe too loud. Then later in the song, that clean ska thing on the left suddenly gets loud. I'm not saying they need to be at a uniform level throughout, but just be careful that they don't get loud to the point where they become a distraction. All that said, a lot depends on the vocal. My guess is that you're going to want to bring all the rhythm guitars down when you fit the vocal in. You might find yourself bringing the bass up by a hair.

Whatever you are doing on the programmed drums, keep doing it. They sound great.

Good work.
 
Cheers, I've not recorded clean guitars much and definitely no wah skanking. I've not got a compressor on the way in so I was having to be careful with the dynamics of my playing.
 
Clean tones can be more difficult to get right than distorted ones, in my experience. Clean-to-cleanish is what I do 90% of the time. These clean tones sound good. Is everything the Blackstar? I like that amp. You might try compressing on the way in. It will make your life easier. I run an outboard compressor between the microphone preamp and the interface on absolutely everything.
 
I thought it was really good. I thought all the guitar tones were really good. Clean, crunch, everything. Playing was good too.

I like the drum sound. Snare might be a little heavy. Maybe a presence boost somewhere around 4K-6K or that area.

Bass was ok. A litte sterile. Could use use a little more low midrange.

Nits are all minor. Very good sound overall.
 
Yeah. It's all from my Blackstar. I've gotta work our how to use the focusrite compressor on the way in so I don't have to think about the dynamics so much.

Cheers triple M
 
Yeah, give that a try. Compression is more critical for clean tones because the amp is compressing less than would be the case if you were doing a distorted sound. This is just the problem I've been dealing with the last few days as I've been working out how to record a Fender Princeton. It does beautiful clean tones but can be a little spiky on the attack. It seems to need a goodly amount of compression with a quick setting to catch the transients. That Blackstar seems quite versatile.
 
Hi, Jdude.

This sounds good. You seem to have your panning and tones really sorted out, now. The kick is a bit "slappy" to my taste. Listening to the drum part, I keep wanting to hear an occasional brash open hi-hat stab on the beat before the crash cymbals. Something a drummer might do to give interest to the beat without going doolally with fills.

The mix sits tight and solid, snare drum sound is nice, ambience is just about right, to me. I'm not generally a fan of the nasal, noodly style of lead riffing myself, but it works for the tune. I'm about to start working on the guitar break for "Game Over". Not sure where to go with it, to be honest!

You appear to be getting your mixing chops nicely together. :D
 
Bubba po said:
Hi, Jdude.

This sounds good. You seem to have your panning and tones really sorted out, now. The kick is a bit "slappy" to my taste. Listening to the drum part, I keep wanting to hear an occasional brash open hi-hat stab on the beat before the crash cymbals. Something a drummer might do to give interest to the beat without going doolally with fills.
Click to expand...
Cheers, mate - ask Frank if he's interested.

Bubba po said:
The mix sits tight and solid, snare drum sound is nice, ambience is just about right, to me. I'm not generally a fan of the nasal, noodly style of lead riffing myself, but it works for the tune. I'm about to start working on the guitar break for "Game Over". Not sure where to go with it, to be honest!

You appear to be getting your mixing chops nicely together. :D
Click to expand...

I'm not that much of a fan of the lead riff either - I still might change it - in fact I did mean to change it but that one got stuck in my head and that's how I imagine it now!

Just work out what key your noodley section is in and noodle away!
 
Hey man,
Very cool! Really enjoyed the performances, and all the tones sound great.
I agree with the comments earlier about the changes between sections not being super smooth.
Each section pleased me, but sometimes the transition was a bit jarring.

I don't see it taking much to smooth that out, though, if you were so inclined.

Are there vocals to follow? As someone said, that'll probably change the game completely.

Great performances...sounds super tight.

Btw..that kick. Is it SSD?
I don't know if it's just me but every kick (except the obvious Jazz ones) just sounds the same to me, and none of them sounds like a kick.
Idk...maybe I just don't know what a kick sounds like.
Anyway, yours had that thin slappy kind of sound that I seem to scroll through endlessly with SSD.
I'm gonna record myself a kick drum sample library and just abandon theirs, I think.
 
At 1:10 when the song changes the whole mix loses some volume, same thing happens when it goes to the same part around 1:52. Of course if a vocal is going over this thing, then you've got remix some levels anyway.
 
For a quick throw together it sounds fucking good. I'd be curious to hear it when finalized as a song......if thats the intent. It's got potential.
:thumbs up:
 
Steenamaroo said:
Hey man,
Very cool! Really enjoyed the performances, and all the tones sound great.
I agree with the comments earlier about the changes between sections not being super smooth.
Each section pleased me, but sometimes the transition was a bit jarring.

I don't see it taking much to smooth that out, though, if you were so inclined.

Are there vocals to follow? As someone said, that'll probably change the game completely.

Great performances...sounds super tight.

Btw..that kick. Is it SSD?
I don't know if it's just me but every kick (except the obvious Jazz ones) just sounds the same to me, and none of them sounds like a kick.
Idk...maybe I just don't know what a kick sounds like.
Anyway, yours had that thin slappy kind of sound that I seem to scroll through endlessly with SSD.
I'm gonna record myself a kick drum sample library and just abandon theirs, I think.
Click to expand...

The drums are EZDrummer - Greg has already given me some pointers on how to make them a bit better, I think I have a hint too much reverb on the kick. Minerman told me there's some sort of volume automation in Reaper that I could try using to even out the changes too.
 
RFR said:
For a quick throw together it sounds fucking good. I'd be curious to hear it when finalized as a song......if thats the intent. It's got potential.
:thumbs up:
Click to expand...
Yeah, probably will do at some point. Drums took me a couple of hours, in the morning with few takes of DI bass and emulated guitars to help me get it organised. When it got to a reasonable hour to start turning amps up everything else just took one or two takes. The "solo" is just an adlib.
 
Nice playing JD! The mix is really well balanced and I really like the stereo spread - everything is clear and has it's own space and you've got some really cool textures from the interplay of all the various parts. The walking bass/clean guitar/wah section is really good.

So, what's next with it? Have you got some vocals in mind?
 
robgreen said:
Nice playing JD! The mix is really well balanced and I really like the stereo spread - everything is clear and has it's own space and you've got some really cool textures from the interplay of all the various parts. The walking bass/clean guitar/wah section is really good.

So, what's next with it? Have you got some vocals in mind?
Click to expand...

Cheers mate,

Just a bit of retracking to clean up those level changes and, I'll probably write better leads. Then stick the lyrics words on... when I finish writing them. Should be an easy one though
 
pretty good dude. couple things that jumped at me - the nasally lead (like mentioned above) and the fact that each bass and kick note is right on the beat. i was imagining the bass line that could be under there, where maybe it would start a beat on 3 instead of 1 every so often, like a brief pause before riffing back into it...that would give it some "vibe" and character IMO.

drums are sounding great man. hard panned guitars too. nice work
 
OK, here's a bit of a remix, fiddled with a bit of the compression on the clean guitars and re-tracked them. Changed the lead to something that was closer to my original idea and improved the drums slightly.

View attachment SP2 Remix 1.mp3
 
Sounds good. I'm not hearing the erratic levels of the first mix. Guitar tones are good, both clean and distorted. I'm hearing no obvious need for compression on the clean guitar, so I guess you got that sorted. That rhythm lead figure early on sounds different, but fine either way. Can't wait to hear the full song with vocal.
 
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