What do you think of the mix?

[sjdean]

Don't criticise the playing. For some reason, unless I play absolutely perfectly in time, even something as miniscule as a 30ms pause on hitting the string at the right time makes me want to smash my guitar/bass/whatever Im playing at the time.

My voice isn't the strongest, but it's the first one I wrote and Im kind of happy in some respects by the rawness of it.

So forget about the playing, let me know what you think of the mix?

Main things I've suffered with is a lack of air/space in the guitar. It feels very boxy and stifled. I've added as much EQ as I could in the 5000+khz range. The cymbals, especially the ride and hi hats have been too piercing. But I think I've got them under control. I've had to make them louder but stifle them with a de-esser. Finally the voice, not sure what to do with that. It's probably the Behringer C-1 I have. It's probably just picking up how my throat closes off while Im singing, but there's a raspy, nasal sort of tone to it that I don't like. I don't want it to be crisper and lighter than it needs to be than it needs to be, but it does also feel there's a big horny bit in the middle of the EQ range like Im talking into a tin can. Seems to occur at 650Hz so I cut that a little.

Unfortunately the mixer I have, Acoustica Mixcraft 6, although it has Output and Send buses, appears not to be able to have an Aux send, so I can't use sidechains. Other equipment, iZotope Alloy, iZotope Ozone, Amplitube.

I've added a test mix to it. I've got it to a state Im sort of 95% happy with. Looking very much forward to your considered advice.

Thanks
Simon

 

[NotThatBright]

That ain't bad, dude. I'm a sucker for the ride cymbal. I often have a thick bass line like that, so I can understand what you're saying about looking for room for the guitar. It'd be nice to get a little more volume on it, but it's fine as-is.

 

[sjdean]

Thanks. Im a big Rush and Cheap Trick fan. So I like big intricate bass lines, punchy drums, clarity on the cymbals, a certain brightness without being too sharp and a vocal line buried slightly under the track.

Im just really struggling with with the box/honk on the guitar which becomes prominent when mixed in mono and especially prominent in the car.

 

[TripleM]

I could have used a bigger sample of the song. The section in your link is pretty small - 38 seconds. I had to play it like 10 times. But anyway...

I didn't think the guitar sounded boxy. It sounded decent. not terrific, but decent. I wonder if you had the treble turned up enough on the guitar. It's competing a little bit with the vocal. You might just want to turn it down a little.

And yeah, the vocal is not real strong. A lot of wavering on pitch.

The bass was a little loud to me. Maybe a small cut in the low end as well.

The cymbals are super phasey. Don't know if it's bad mic technique, or MP3 conversion or what. But it was pretty bad. The snare is a little muffled. It needs a better defined attack.

I liked the energy and feel of the song. It has a real good vibe.

 

[sjdean]

Thanks for the feedback TripleM. Don't worry about the cymbals. Well. Worry I guess. But, it's not mics or anything. I use EZ Drummer. So glad you couldn't tell the difference. Trouble is I found them too harsh. The rides and splash/crash cymbals are all picked up on the "overhead" mic. I found that the ride was too loud while the splashes were barely audible. I turned down a little in the 5khz+ range, slightly increased the 3khz range, then applied a de-esser to try to remove some of the bite.

Maybe worth re-recording the vocals then.

I think I got a bit of a knack at this. Certainly it's been good learning all this and I don't particularly want to go back and start re-recording everything. This was my first baby, and I'd rather leave it as a testament to where I was. Though part of me wonders whether I should add some spit and polish

Simon