rock mix

[zildjohn01]

i finally decided to stop asking how to do stuff, and just do it. this is my first attempt since my crappy laptop, $5 radio shack mic days.

it's hard rock, or at least it's supposed to be. i only have the first verse and chorus done, i want to see if there's anything i can change before i go ahead and do the whole song.

drums
- two nady sp5's x-y off a little to the ride side, centered through the snare and kick, about 6-7 feet up (low ceiling)
- sm57 on snare
- atm25 on kick
- no processing

guitar
- fender frontman 25r, wide stereo mic'd w/ two sm57's
- no processing

bass
- same setup as guitar (yes, you heard me right)
- again, no processing

voice
- sm57 w/ cheap pop screen
- light reverb

it's called Why. ok, bash away...

[rayc]

The guitar is too thin & the bass to boomy with almost no definition.
Did you sing? The voice sounds hoarse.
Drums sound OK but the bass drum is MIA.
Sounds like it might be a good song.

[gtrboy]

sounds like a lot of overheads. if youre going to have toms in the cymbal mics leave the bass in or a flatter eq. i mix the kick, then snare and bring up the overheads to get the cymbals and high end. double the guitars and pan them.

[zildjohn01]

i didn't have time to rerecord anything, so this all is just remixing. the new version

yes i sang, i kind of just slapped the vocals on top so i could submit this here and see what people thought. i've been expirementing with a hinder-type of voice lately, and i guess either i'm not that great at it, or a sm57 doesn't pick it up right (or the $2 windscreen is junk). or there's craploads of processing they do that i have no idea how. i'll rerecord those later.

as for the guitar, i'm pretty sure my micing is the problem, it's something in the mids (i think) that i just don't like about the tone. it's a lot more noticable to me with consumer headphones. i added chorus to it just for kicks though.

should have said this up at the top - i'm mixing from 3 sources: 1) computer speakers, 2) some entertainment-system type speakers that came with a record player from the 60s sometime 3) some $10 headphones from walmart. my mixing is what sounds the best across all 3 sources right now. i do need a decent monitor.

here's the changes i made:

- i added compression to the bass gtr to make it more consistent
- lowered drum oh's by 2-3 dB
- added heavy compression to kick for consistency, along with some needed eq (still doesn't seem consistent enough, maybe too loud, i'm not sure)
- added a chorus to the rhythm guitar - that's all i could think to do besides micing differently
- lightened up the reverb on voice a little, cuz it sounded kind of muddy before to me (i will rerecord these though)