First Mix Job, Please Critique

[Pope on a Rope]

This the first song I have worked on that goes from beginning to end minus vocals. Would you have listen and see if it is worthy of being put away as pre-master. I plan on adding vocals later when singer recovers from cold and cough.

Just a little over 8MB.
http://home.comcast.net/~deathspazm/music/xNo_Vox.mp3

Please critique song itself and guitar solo. I need some non biased ears to offer opinions.

Thanks

[HeyHeyMyMy]

I'd love to listen, but that file is just too big for my very slow connection speed. Any way you could compress it or something?

[Pope on a Rope]

Is 3MB OK? I just compressed it to 128Kb, the other is at 320kbs. If you want smaller I could accommadate. I was trying o keep the quality up there. I sometimes forget that not everyone is on a fast connection.

http://home.comcast.net/~deathspazm/...No_Vox_128.mp3

[Strryder]

I think it sounds pretty cool, I like it, it reminds me of old Black Sabbath.

[NYMorningstar]

You'll get more reviews on this if you post it in the mp3 clinic.

[Pope on a Rope]

Originally Posted by NYMorningstar

You'll get more reviews on this if you post it in the mp3 clinic.

Thanks. I'll do that. Didn't notice that forum.

[Cloneboy Studio]

The drum samples are too soft sounding for this type of music. The percussion is mixed down way too low. It sounds wimpy as hell, which can't be your intent.

The shaker sound is cheesy. Get a high hat in there.

The silence during the rests are too tight sounding. Sounds absolutely fake and dumb.

The hard pan of the rhythm to the left around 1:20 absolutely sucks. The guitar solo moving around DOES NOT WORK when the rhythm suddenly goes bye-bye in the right channel. Especially when the lead goes to the left with the rhythm guitar. It sounds very unprofessional.

The guitar solo has a few out of tune pitch bends that need to be fixed. The playing needs more excitement to it.

Is there any bass guitar to this? I don't hear any. If it's there it is buried underneath the too loud, too bassy guitar parts.

What gives with the stereo panning at 3:15??? Everything goes left again. This just sucks.

One thing you have to learn is not to get too cute with the stereo panning. It's a common mistake new engineers make. SO CUT IT OUT!

Overall you did a good job, but too much guitar, too little bass guitar, the drums sound weak and cheesy, and eliminate the fancy pants panning.

[Pope on a Rope]

Thanks Cloneboy for your brutal honesty.

What part are you referring to with the shaker? It's supposed to be a hi-hat, I didn't use any shaker. I really can't find any hi-hat hits that I really like, I haven't got access to a kit to make my own. I'm using Fruity Loops with an assortment of samples that I found here and there.

Unprofessional is about right, I'm far from professional. I'll work on the panning thing. I'm mainly putting this stuff together for a demo so that I don't have to describe what it is I'm trying to put together for a band.

There is bass in there, but it's really wide and getting in the way of the guitars I think. The guitar parts are actually not all that bassy, I like the bass to to do that. Probably too many guitar layers making it sound too fat. I was thinking of doing the guitar parts over because it is too layered sounding. I'm still new at this stuff.

Everything was just recorded straight to hard disk without eqing or adding any effects. Any panning in the drums is the way the samples were when I acquired them.

[Cloneboy Studio]

Keep in mind that overall you DID do a good job!

The panning is the worst part and that is an extremely common mistake and very easily fixable.

The high hat sounded like a shaker to me at one part.

Work on seperating the guitar and bass lines a bit with EQ and compression, and try beefing up the drum sound a bit and you'll be fine.

[Pope on a Rope]

Thanks. You just can't get this kind of criticism from friends and family.