I can't figure out how to mix worth anything.

[traciiroxx]

I would like to start off by saying I posted here a while back to try and get some help, and instead of getting any help all I got was ripped. I understand you might think my songs are crap, but I really don't care. I like them, and that's all that matters to me. I am only recording for my own entertainment. That being said, I can't get my mixes to settle down no matter what I try. It should be noted that I am using the pretty crude equipment: A shure SM57, and a tascam 414 portastudio as a preamp to record to cakewalk. I also understand that I cannot sing very well at all. But I just want people's help to get these mixes sounding as good as they can.

All of my songs are available at: http://traciiroxx.tripod.com/interest.htm

My Own World, and Wasteland, are in my opinion, probably the best of the tracks, but feel free to critique any one you wish.

[FIRESOLE]

Music is Subjective (as are all art forms) You can't let negative comments affect you. If you like it, that's what matters most.
That being said:

I thought your cymbals sounded worse than mine. And that's not good. Your 2 toms were as dead as dirt. I got used to the snare and kick tho. The guitar with wah has a thin screechy tone...hard to make sound good...( search for guitar recording techniques in these forums, lots of good advice). The rhythm guitar was a chunky distortion...kinda hard to blend the 2 guitars and not sound cheesy. I would wet the vocals way up with delay man!
More reverb on kick and snare. Bass...lacks definition...eq that biatch..maybe even use an effect like dyna comp effect on it.
Hopefully this time you will get some solid advice from the many pros in this forum.

[traciiroxx]

It would help me out a lot in finding all these problems if you could please tell me which song you are talking about.

Thanks

[79_Les_Paul]

Now that's funny!!

[slkeen]

Listening to My Own World. The bass is low overall. I had to turn up the bottom end, and then it just got muddy. Guitar sound OK, drum level is OK, but not very crisp. I think if you start by mixing the bass and drums first, you'll get a better sound. Try to get the drums and bass perfect. That's the foundation that everything else rests on. You want a balance between the kick and the bass, with clear definition. EQ to get a tight sound, probably bring the overall level up, but cut some around 200-300 hz to get rid of the mud.

[Calwood]

Listened to "My Own World". Ummmmmm,.....uhhhhhhhh

Yikes bro! It's hard to know where to start! But here goes,.....

Double your rhythm guitar track!!! Maybe triple or quad it. Play around with the panning of those tracks. Do some net research on panning methods in mixing. Basically you want your rhythm guitar tracks to be stereo and BIG in music like this.
That whammy rhythm your playing through the vocs should be re-written to fit better but kept in the center.

I dont know what to tell you about the bass 'cause I cant hear it. Is there a bass in this mix?

Those drums suck!! I'm assuming they are samples. Even so,..youve got to get them in stereo!!!!!!!! Dont pan the cymbals or the toms all the way to one side.

Maybe after you get your rhythm guitars thicker and the drums bigger and bring a bass in,......you can fit that horrible vocal track in there,..find an effect that helps it. Maybe a stereo chorus??? plus a little room verb???

I'm not really sure why your posting tunes though. I looked up your other posts,...so far,..you said you werent concerned about the sound quality,..you dont care what other people think of your songs because you like them and thats all that matters,...soooo,......whats the purpose here.
I just gave ya some things that might help ya with your mix,..but not really sure thats what your after.

Oh well,...

Take 'er easy,...

Calwood

[packratlouie]

As for the vocals in both of the two songs you mentioned. Practice the way you hold your notes, and where you are breathing from. Sounds like you are rushed, and improvising the timing and placement of the lyrics.
For the guitar, you really want to at least double track it, and throw one track on left channel, the other on right, at least. For a nice chorus effect, on any part of guitaring, double track it, pitch bend it by maybe 1 or 2 cents, then start with around 1ms delay. "Could" sound neat. As for the drums, just eq it a bit, and I think you could come up with a pretty decent tone. The reason i play such little electric guitar is because I have never been able to get a good quality distortion tone, but after reading some of the posts on here, I have been able to come up with some interesting methods. First clue... try overdrive pedals instead of distortion. Hopefully this stuff helps.

[traciiroxx]

That guitar was recorded using the built in overdrive channel on my marshall vs30r (solid state) amp. I've been having trouble getting it to record without sounding overly harsh.

[Greykitkat36]

Originally posted by traciiroxx
That guitar was recorded using the built in overdrive channel on my marshall vs30r (solid state) amp. I've been having trouble getting it to record without sounding overly harsh.

Keep the treble down and turn down your amp. You dont need to Be Loud in a recording session for it to sound good. Thats what your mixer is for! To track the songs the way you want them to sound. The louder you are, the worse it will be, especially if your micing the amp.

[traciiroxx]

Does it matter that the mixer is actually a Portastudio 414?

[Blue Bear Sound]

Friend... I'm afraid MIXING isn't the issue.....

I just checked out some of your songs - before you worry about mixing, you've got to get a handle on serious performance and timing issues.

If you don't get the basic musical elements down, you could be George-freakin-Massenburg and it still wouldn't sound right....

[Industrial]

I just listened to "WASTELAND" (and all the others actually)... I'd like to offer more detailed opinion on other songs in the future.... but lemme just say this:

I'm not sure what your perception is of yourself, especially if you've been riped on before by others.... It would take me awhile to go through all your songs... Here is my impression:

Taking things into context... that is your doing it yourself and you claim to not be very talented at engineering. Really, your not bad at all fella. I was pretty impressed really... the mixing obviously needs a bit of polishing... but your voice isn't as bad as you may think.

You have a very nice voice for 80's style light rock.... but you have serious voice control isssues!

In fact, you have a definate BON JOVI thing going on there with your voice.... really..... The one thing that I didn't like was your lack of voice control and/or not enough thought or practice in finishing that song into a final product.

Your emphasizing some of the wrong parts of the words... your voice is going up when it should go down, etc.. it gives it that sort of cheasy effect.

At the end of certain words, your voice pitches upwards for emphasis... I think you need to pitch down on some of the words and it will sound alot better. You need to go back to your lyrics, maybe shorten or abbreviate some words if it throws off the timing... and you need to record a couple of hundred takes (no, really..

I literally mean 30 - 100 takes if you really want to nail this perfect. The takes alone will make you a better singer... just keep trying to do something different on each take and improving a little bit each day... I see definate potential there... you really have a very Bon Jovi voice... but you just need to get the inflection down 100 percent... not 80 percent.
-------------------------------------------

(a) The spatial imaging on Wasteland appears extremely flat. The first problem I think is that your mix appears to be compete mono. Include stero imaging in the remixing.

I noticed you did a much better job at panning on a few of the other songs... although a tad extreme on one song... but much better.

(b) I think your voice volume needs comes down in the mix, my expertise really is not in mixing down... so I could be wrong. I think its workable as-is... by a person really good at mixing....

(c) I think you need to cut the lower end of the mid-range down (at the bottom edge of your voice-band... it's making the whole mix too dull...

(d) I think you should emphasize the lower band very carefully with a 31-band EQ to bring out the guitar... but don't overdo it.

(e) I think you need to boost the mid-high at the high edge of your voice just to give your voice a tiny bit more edge and clarity.

[traciiroxx]

That actually helps a lot, gives me a lot of specifics to work on. I'd like to hear your comments about the rest of the songs specifically, if you ever have time.

[Blue Bear Sound]

The bottom line is that good sound starts at the source with the PERFORMANCE.

Worrying about the engineering aspects before getting a performance that's even passable enough to be recorded is like giving a 6-year architect plans for building something with Lego.....

No one's going to give a damn whether the mix is good if the performance is full of timing errors and bad notes.

Seriously... I'm not saying this to be a jerk - but a reality check is in order.

Work on your playing and performance, THEN worry about working on engineering skills.....