4 instrumental songs for review

[Johnny Belmont]

Hi. I have four instrumental songs, that are waiting for vox recording, so, I thought I should post them here, for anyone that could give some insights, opinions, and feedbacks. I'll tell you the equipment I used to record and mix them, but not separating by songs, because it wouldn't fit here, I guess. You will see that what I have is far from what I could call an studio.

I started using a crappy mixer (Wattson MXS-12) on the first two songs, and then used the Behringer Xenyx 802 mixer. The audio interface (sound card) used was Creative Audigy.

So, for the electric guitars:
I used a fender mexican strato in all of them, with a Line 6 Spider II 212 amp. For the pedals, I used a Boss BCB-60, that contains: Boss DD-3, Boss CS-3, Boss SD-1, Digitech Metal Master, Sound One Wah, Digitech RP-50 (for tremolo and phaser) and Marshall Jackhammer. Some effects, like chorus, I also used directly from the Amp. The connection was: Guitar -> Pedals -> Amp (Line out - no mics) -> Mixer -> Sound card

The bass:
I used a Memphis (it's a subdivison of Tagima, a Brazilian trademark). The connection was: Bass -> Boss CS-3 (Line out - no mics) -> Mixer -> Sound card

Acoustic Guitars:
I used a Takamine guitar (Line in on Mixer) on some, and Music Lab Real Guitar VST on others.

Drums and Percussion:
I used EZdrummer, with Pop Rock, Latin Percussion and Drumkit From Hell expansions.

Keyboards, Piano Violions and Sax:
I used Bome's Mouse Keyboard, with my PC keyboard, and played simulating a Midi Input on the program. The Connection was: My Pc keyboard -> Bome's Mouse Keyboard -> Passing Through Midi Yoke -> and recording Midi on Acid. I used some Vst's: Pianissimo, True Piano, Musicrow Container, Luxonix Purity, Korg M1, Garritan Groffiler Cello, Sample Modeling Mr. Sax-T.

On the mix, I used the directx plug-ins:
Transiest Shaper, Voxengo Elephant, Stillwell Verbiage, Waves Super-Tap, Waves X-Noise, Amplitube X-Gear, Waves R-Bass, Guitar Combos Twang, Studio Devil Guitar Amp, Studio Devil Bass Amp, Vintage Amp Room, Audio Ease Cabinet, Waves C4, Sony Express EQ, Voxengo LM Max Punch, Nomad Analog Valve Driver, Waves RComp.

As the client request, I did a "fake live song", I put some cheers (on beginning, as musicians enters stage, and at the ending), and some reverb on master.

What I did was, the guy sent me acoustic songs with only Acoustic Guitar and Vocals recorded, for me to create the arrangements, record instruments and program samples, and mix the whole "shbang".

The Link: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/defa...bandID=1007513

That's it I guess. Hope you'll help me. Thanks!

[jeffmaher]

Cut #1 is really swell! A very powerful mix and master. The honking synth in the middle might strangle the center for the vox...but you'll figure that out, I reckon.

Really good work there...

[Jags]

Song 1: agree, mix sounds good to me, plenty of air, but i'm listening with headphones so take anything with a pinch of salt! Have to say though, don't like the hihats, might just be me, or what you're going for, but I think they hold the song up rhythmically. It's almost like you've set them up to be a more natural, less rigid, but taken it a bit too far, and it just sounds stuttering and out of time, particularly when emulating double handed bits. Again, you might be going for that, but it really stuck out for me.

Song 2: Nice intro. Drums fit much better. Maybe altering the loop a bit more would help make it seem more natural (I tend to find more complex/unorthodox rhythms often lend themselves less well to repetition than standard beats).

Will have a listen to the others later. Be interesting to hear the vocals; I can imagine some cool stuff in my head!

[Johnny Belmont]

Originally Posted by Jags

Song 1: agree, mix sounds good to me, plenty of air, but i'm listening with headphones so take anything with a pinch of salt! Have to say though, don't like the hihats, might just be me, or what you're going for, but I think they hold the song up rhythmically. It's almost like you've set them up to be a more natural, less rigid, but taken it a bit too far, and it just sounds stuttering and out of time, particularly when emulating double handed bits. Again, you might be going for that, but it really stuck out for me.

Song 2: Nice intro. Drums fit much better. Maybe altering the loop a bit more would help make it seem more natural (I tend to find more complex/unorthodox rhythms often lend themselves less well to repetition than standard beats).

Will have a listen to the others later. Be interesting to hear the vocals; I can imagine some cool stuff in my head!

Thanks for reply!

I'll take a look into the first song's hihats. I saw the tempo thing after I created it, but I thought it was just something in my head. Guess not...

In the second song, I did want to change the drums, change the beat in some parts, and put some fills on it, but the client told me he wanted that way, so, I did his way, only put some breaks, a fill at the end, and four beats, two are almost the same with some variation (verse and chorus) and two are different stuff (pre-chorus and bridge).

[kcearl]

nice stuff Johnny...only got to song 2 as Im going to do something..agree with the above statements..I felt the first song was missing a couple of fills during changes...but that could just be me

Im glad you can show such quality on lower end recording gear..gives us all hope

[Johnny Belmont]

Originally Posted by kcearl

nice stuff Johnny...only got to song 2 as Im going to do something..agree with the above statements..I felt the first song was missing a couple of fills during changes...but that could just be me

Im glad you can show such quality on lower end recording gear..gives us all hope

Thanks for reply!

I'll take a look on the fills. If you have time, listen to song 3 and 4 - I like them much better than song 1 and 2.

[Johnny Belmont]

Originally Posted by jeffmaher

Cut #1 is really swell! A very powerful mix and master. The honking synth in the middle might strangle the center for the vox...but you'll figure that out, I reckon.

Really good work there...

Yeah, maybe you're right about the keys, I'll try doing something like, doubling the track, and panning a little, like 15 or 20% for each side, and after, I'll lower the volume again.

Thanks!