Spania - Vocal-less mix

[Seafroggys]

Here is my solo project I'm working on. I'm primarily a drummer, I play keys and I've been learning bass this summer. I'm a terrible vocalist, and have yet to nail a half-decent take.

Regardless, can you guys check out this early mix of this song? It has been normalized to -0.2 db, otherwise nothing else has been applied to the mixdown.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...songID=6860340

[Seafroggys]

I've made some changes (haven't uploaded anything) but I fixed the cymbals and gave them more air, they seemed too muffled before hand. While it sounds good on my monitors and nice headphones, it doesn't sound good on my cheap headphones. The snare and organ sound lifeless, really dull and mid-rangy. Any suggestions on those?

(yes, much needed bump)

[heatmiser]

Whoa...almost fell off the front page...can't have that.

I gave it a few listens on pc speakers and thought this was really cool. Very involved arrangement. I thought the keyboard intro was a bit long nor did I care for it all that much (sorry), but once the drums kicked in, I was hooked.

The drums seem to have been played and recorded very well (no expert here), but perhaps a bit of an exaggerated stereo spread (toms in particular)? I dunno...sounded nice.

Love the bass...some may find it a bit loud, but I liked it up front. Was that a jazz bass as mentioned on your equip. list? 'Cause it sounds like jack bruce on an eb at times.

The whole thing is so rythmic - it could use more melodic elements, but I guess that's where the vox would come into play. Would love to hear this with vox - half decent or not. Nice job .

[Rokket]

I would redo the keys in the intro. Sounds amateur compared to the rest of the song. Also doesn't sound like keys...

But when everything kicks in, you have something going there. There is a bit too much of the room in your drums, perhaps turn the OH's down?

Edit: It's not the overheads, I think it's your overall mic placement. Getting a lot of extraneous noise. Not bad, but a little tweaking could go a long way.

The bass playing is pretty good (I am a bassist primarily), but it kind of sounds boxy. I'd give it an upper freq (5000hz or higher) boost and see what happens.

[Seafroggys]

Keyboard intro being long? Hmm, I'll consider truncating it. It does feel kinda long.

Yeah, I've been playing drums as my primary instrument for 9 years now, when I first purchased recording gear the first thing I wanted to do was to be able to record my drums, so I feel I got it down. As far as the exaggerated stereo spread, meh. I've heard albums with wider spreads (especially on the monster sets, mine's only 3 toms), but I like it as it is. I guess growing up on Beatles albums made me partial to wide stereo spreads.

The bass is too overpowering on my Creative 5.1 PC speakers. It sounds nice on my monitors (KRK RP-6's) but moving them to the Creative w/ subwoofers makes it overpowering. While I do have a very bass prominent/warm sound set up, this is too much, so I'm gonna do some tweaking. It is my Jazz Bass, and thanks for the Jack Bruce comment, I love that guy so much. I really started playing the bass back in June, when I bought my Fender.

As far as the boxy comment, I've been considering turning down my tape sim I run on the bass because it does sound kinda muddy, so I'll try that.

Next post:

Yeah, I have been rather lax on fixing the amateurness of the intro. Its more or less a live take from a Casio keyboard midi-in, and I did some midi tweaking. I may just hard quantize it though. Though judging from the comments, I may just shorten it. And that's not even the full intro, I left out the beginning of the intro (for your information I was inspired by Deep Purple's "Lazy", which had a 2-3 minute organ intro). As far as not sounding like keys, its a Hammond B3 emulator with heavy distortion....so it may not sound all that natural (again, heavy Jon Lord influence here).

Yeah, I didn't really notice the room sound in my drums until I started listening to the mix on my crappy headphones, which was well after everything was tracked (sans vocals). I record in a garage, unfortunately, but luckily its very dry (for a garage). I normally record with a heavy wool blanket/curtain gobo thing I built, but I didn't use it this time, because through my studio monitors I didn't really notice a difference. But on other sound systems, it comes out. :P I'm happy enough with the performance to let the production deficiencies slide.

Anyway, here's my current mix w/ vocals:

http://seafroggys.croxis.net/spania.mp3

And thanks for your comments! Keep them coming!

[heatmiser]

Wow. That was not what I expected . A better mix to be sure, and the vocals add interest, but they seemed overly processed maybe?

I dunno...I don't want to lead you astray and it is a really unique and cool composition, but I would have liked to have heard your vocals a little more clearly on this.

The bass seems to have been tamed a bit on this mix, yes? I still think that sound you got out of that fender cranks!

[Seafroggys]

Yeah, I had to tame the bass, when played back on my 5.1 system it was way too boomy.

I turned down the Delay a tad on the vocals, but it sounds better than without the Delay. Yes, I used autotune, you can hear it 'work' a few times but such is required to the nature of my voice.

Anyway, I think I'm pretty damn close to a final release. Just need to prepare the master and put it on soundclick. Which soundclick genre would this fit under? I put Garage Rock initially (it was literally recorded in a garage) but not sure if its too hi-fi/complex for that style of music?

[heatmiser]

Originally Posted by Seafroggys

Which soundclick genre would this fit under? I put Garage Rock initially (it was literally recorded in a garage) but not sure if its too hi-fi/complex for that style of music?

Not sure, as people are all over the place with the genres there. I agree that, despite being recorded in a garage, it doesn't sound like garage rock to me. Maybe...umm...progressive?