critique some bare bones post punk?

[rasdestroyer]

hi.

the band i play in (The Well) just finished recording the closest thing to an LP we'll probably ever come up with, and i was hoping i could get some constructive criticism from ya'll about the near-final mixes we've come up with.

tracks available at www.soundclick.com/thewell

the first song, "Not Alright", the seventh , "Nervous Buzz", and the final Untitled track are all nearly complete and probably the closest to the sound we're after.

we tracked everything live (except the vox) in my little garage studio into an aardvark direct pro q10 (which i still love despite the constant XP bugs).. used a bunch of senn 421s on toms/guitar, a couple 57s, an AKG D112 on bass, Beyer m88 on kick and m201 on snare, sm81s as overheads. mixed in sonar with minimal noodling.

the big challenge for me on this recording was to get the guitar to sound big without doubling all my parts, which i've done in the past with limited success. it certainly "thickens" everything up, but i always felt like it was kind of cheap considering that in a live context i'm only one person , and i wanted this recording to sound as much like our actual band as possible without employing any phantom musicians.

unfortunately, i had this revelation only after we actually tracked everything, so i couldn't just throw a couple extra mics on the guitar cab for different sounds to tinker with. instead, i ended up quadrupling the guitar track in sonar, manipulating the EQ on each, and reversing the phase on one track, which seemed to fatten/widen the whole sound magically. i'm still not sure i understand how that worked, but maybe somebody can illuminate what i'm missing?

in general, any critique ya'll have to offer is graciously appreciated..
thanks!
bryan

[BlackHawk2029]

sounds awesome! i love the raw punk/postpunk/diy sound, and you guys hit it perfect. awesome job.... i'd compress the vocals a little bit though.

[Greg_L]

Doesn't sound bad. The drums are played very well, but sound kind of flat and lifeless in the mix. Snare needs more presence and the kick needs more low power. Lets hear some tone on those toms. The vox sounds pretty good, but can come up some and they're kinda dry. I can tell you're the guitarist because that shit is way out front.

So, give the drums more presence overall, drop the guitar just a hair, and maybe compress the vox and give them some ambience. Overall though, it's pretty good.

[rasdestroyer]

thanks both of ya'll..

i'll work on bringin those drums out in the mix a bit,
and yeah, the gits are a bit loud ; i think that they
ended up in front of everything because i spent so much
damn time trying to tweak the sound and they inched
up little by little.

i've compressed the vocals somewhat, but i'll try to
blend them a bit more ..

in any case, thanks again for the criticism!

b

[SnakeDog5050]

I listened to "Not Alright" and "Nervous Buzz" I dig the tunes, good rocking writing. Love the style. Mixwise, in general sounds like the guitars are little fuzzy in a frequency occupied by the vocals, so maybe lowering them a tad or EQing them a bit might do that trick. And I agree I'd like to hear more punch out of the drum kit. Good playing and good luck with the LP, added you a soundclick fan of yours

[SnakeDog5050]

I listened to "Not Alright" and "Nervous Buzz" I dig the tunes, good rocking writing. Love the style. Mixwise, in general sounds like the guitars are little fuzzy in a frequency occupied by the vocals, so maybe lowering them a tad or EQing them a bit might do that trick. And I agree I'd like to hear more punch out of the drum kit. Good playing and good luck with the LP, added you a soundclick fan of yours

[rasdestroyer]

i uploaded a remix of "Not Alright" to soundclick..
it's listed at www.soundclick.com/thewell as "Not Alright New Version"..
tried to address some of the issues ya'll pointed out..

-EQ'd the toms for more tone and presence
-EQ'd the snare for better presence
-brought up the low level freqs on the kick
-tried to bring the guitar down in the mix a bit
and distinguish it from the freqs the vox are on..

i think it sounds a bit thicker and clearer..
any advice?

thanks loads!
b