Finally got a rock band in here

[TexRoadkill]

Here's a rough mix from an album I'm producing for this pretty cool local band. It's the first rock project with the new gear but I like the way it's shaping up. I was mainly worried about pulling off a big drum sound but this drummer is pretty killer. I've been having a hard time getting a handle on the low end but I think I'm getting close. Let me know how the bass/kick translates.

Any comments welcome.

"Roundabout"

http://www.nowhereradio.com/texroadkill/singles

[groucho]

Wow, this sounds great. I think maybe in the battle between the kick and the bass I'd like to hear the bass come out on top a little more. But man, this sounds real good. Raw, rockin' and good.

Chris

[Lt. Bob]

4 thumbs up! Well....both my thumbs and my big toes!
I also would like the bass to have a little more presence.....maybe up around 2.5k or so.
But it's a really good song......oh...I'd like to hear the background vox just a wee bit more....anyway, as I was saying....a nice song and good performance....ooooh, nice guitar ride...
i bet you had fun doing this.

[chrisharris]

This, I pretty much love.

The first riff is out of tune...and it repeats (out of tune) ... and I don't think it's "overlookable," lol. It's almost like the sound that tape makes when it's stretched.

My only other bitch would be *something* in the low end...but I can't say something is not loud enough...just when I'm A/B'ing it with similar stuff, it's not as sonically fat, lmao. (yes, I'm a hack). But you know what I'm talking about...

Anyway, it's very cool...that's about all I really know.

- c

[David]

Tight band, really great musicianship all around. Fantastic drum's, sound great...and really played well. Voc's are sounding really good also. Yeah, what the Lt. said..maybe an eq issue with the bass and kick, but it's sounding damn good over this way! Good stuff Tex!

David

[powderfinger]

this is a great recording Tex.........the song is catchy too.........very modern............compared to a lot of commercial recordings these days it sounds a little dry, but that's not a complaint here.... i kind of like it that way

[FattMusiek]

I love the drums. Vocals are clear too. I don't hear much panning on the guitar, sounds a bit cluttered.

[TexRoadkill]

Thanks for listening guys.

Those of you who want more bass are you listening with subs or not? They have such a killer groove going I really want to nail it with the mix. I'm trying to get a handle on the low vs mid bass and understand if I need more low mids (which is what I am guessing). The first few mixes I tried my home stereo speakers were dancing off of the shelf and I had to turn the sub way down.

Thanks for the suggestion Lt Bob. I have a slight EQ boost at around 1K but I might try moving that up or widening the Q a touch.

Mixing low bass on the NS10's is like walking in the dark. I'm going to try hooking up my home stereo sub to my studio rig and see if I can mix that way. To further challenge me the bass player loves a clean low bass sound that just sits on top of the groove and I'm more used to a mid rangy dirtier bass sound that cuts through easily.

Chris- What did you AB it with? I need to find a good reference for the low end. I was thinking of maybe picking up Tonic's latest CD because as I recall they have similliar grooves. They are planning on having it mastered so hopefully whatever I fuck up on the low end mix the mastering house can sweaten up.

I didn't pick up on the out of tune lead at all and so far the band hasn't said anything. Did that bug anyone else?

Thanks everyone!
(I'll be sure to check out and comment on some stuff in the clinic when I get home. I posted this too late to do any listening last night.)

[groucho]

I'm not always great at doing frequency suggestions from afar, but my guess would be that your low mids sound good on the bass here. I would just turn it up a hair and maybe add just a touch somewhere around 800hz to help it cut through a little more. If it was too boomy, I'd lop off that under 50hz area (which I usually do anyway with bass - and often lop off much higher than that depending on the tune).

You probably know all that anyway, since this tune sounds better than anything I've ever recorded.

I didn't AB with anything. I have to admit I rarely do that. I probably should.

I sympathize with the bass issues though. I often find myself totally jazzed with everything but fiddling endlessly with the bass until I lose all sense of sanity. And on NS10s? Yikes.

but you're damned near there.

Chris

[musical5]

Tex,



Very nice. Im diggin the lead vocalists voice. Who's the band? I will have to go see em since Im a local. Whats the lead vox signal path? Keep up the good work.



Justin

[JR#97]

Cool tune. Singer has the Candlebox thing going on. The song itself gives me a Killer Dwarfs vibe. Great stuff overall. Kick ass guitar going on. I wanted to hear the guitar more in my face and bigger. Everything else sounded great. So this is what you do when you're not playing online games. Not bad....

[B.SABBATH]

sounds good! everything sounds great, but if I had to find a nit it would be that the drums sound different than everything else.. like a different kind of space.. nothing that anyone would ever even mention.. the drummers timing slipped too.. nice recording..



btw - I got a new computer and have been pinning the graphics on Q3.. pretty sweet, but ever since I got a router I can't host games no matter what I do.. that sux..

[Phyl]

Great vibe, especially from the vocals - very convincing emotion.

Ditto the guitar comments, I wanted to hear it a tad more in my face, and not so much in the center. Maybe doubling it at center points would help.

I loved the lead guitar line, it sounded very urgent and and the same time restrained, like it was fighting to keep itself from exploding into a wild solo. It keeps you wondering when the lead break will finally come, and when it does it's like an orgasm.

[Toki987]

I am cool with the mix, it sounds really good to me, especially the drums and the drums/bass together. If I had the option of helping production this I`d as for a little more presence in the guitars so they have that fine definition the drum kit has. As to the bass thing, I like that phat pump it has, but just a tad of upper mids in order to hear the windings on the strings some more would be cool to me. The vocals are done really well, but I`d still bring up the level a little. I read the bass comments so I listened on a set of 30 yr old Jensen SA-5's , a set of AR`s , and a set of desktop computer speakers with built in subs.

[Whoopysnorp]

I really hated the fuck out of the song, but the recording sounds great. I'd have to concur that I'd like the bass to jump out a bit more, but it definitely works as is.

[LooneyTunez]

Overall, this is a pretty good mix. Like others have mentioned, that one guitar part is out of tune, I'd like to hear more spread on the guitars, and more definition is needed in the bass guitar.

One thing that really sticks out for me is the snare sound. Couple of things about it actually. First off, if you mic'd both the top and bottom of it, there is too much of the bottom (snare wires) coming through, and I'm not a fan of the reverb choice. I like a fat snare sound, but that verb isn't quite working. If you've got a pre-delay on it, try shortening it a little, or try a different verb, and bring the verb level down some.

Other than these minor issues, you've got a good production going here Tex!

[TexRoadkill]

Thanks guys. I agree with most of the comments. My goal now is to get a little more mids into the bass and create a better guitar/vocal soundstage. When played through a surround sound system almost everything but drums and bg vox is coming out of the center speaker.

I'd agree with the snare sound also. It is a bottom mic and it's mixed too loud right now. I've been playing with the verbs and trying to get something big that isn't too washy. I'll keep playing with it.

I still can't seem to hear the out of tune lead. Is this something that everyone is hearing or just the two of you? Is it the string bending that is giving it bad intonation to your ears?

JR and BS- Geek On! I actually played a little last night for the first time in a week. I forgot what it's like to be busy with a project. Now I'm trying to juggle two of them. When it rains it pours.

[Phyl]

I think the guitar is fine.

The guitarist is obviously using a lot vibrato (with his fretting hand) and tends to keep the guitar melody wavering behind the vocal. I find this sort of playing very melodic and pleasing, others seems to find it discordant. I think it lends a lot of emotion and urgency to the part.

[TexRoadkill]

Originally posted by Phyl
I think the guitar is fine.

The guitarist is obviously using a lot vibrato (with his fretting hand) and tends to keep the guitar melody wavering behind the vocal. I find this sort of playing very melodic and pleasing, others seems to find it discordant. I think it lends a lot of emotion and urgency to the part.

That's kinda what I thought too. I had put some reverb on it before and it just got too washed out with all the vibrato. I'm going to keep messing with it and try to get it a little bigger sounding. I'm pretty pleased with the lead tone considering it was a LP to a Tube Screamer through a little Fender Blues Jr cranked to the max.

Musical5- The vocal channel was simply a MXL V93 through the Ghost preamps. I used about 6-8db of RNC compression. I built up a partial vocal booth using some 703 panels. I'll PM you the band name because I don't want this to show up on any internet searches until we are finished with the project.

[Phyl]

Cool.

[terrible_buddhi]

I am curious of the band myself...I moved to the east coast after 8 years in Tempe (go devils!) and miss that tempe sound...these guys have a bit of that

[SLuiCe]

Sounds really good Tex!


I'm having some trouble with the vocal levels. Mostly during the chorus. Maybe they need compression or normalizing, and I'm leaning toward compression, because I'm hearing the beat 1 accent that must be bumping the levels toward the red while the lest of it is probably hovering around -18 dB. Just estimating here of course, but do you hear it? Don't over compress it over course, because I like the dynamics. But just something to help you get the overall vocal level up.

I love the harmonies. They're soothing. The other elements sound pretty damn good to me too.

Nice track, Tex.

Tom

[Bulls Hit]

The vocals and guitars sound fine to me. Singer's got a good voice.
One thing I'd look at is the snare drum sound which just doesn't fit somehow. Also the toms disappear into the gloom which leaves a bit of a sonic hole whenever the drummers moves off the snare.
Also any way to edit/punch the second snare flam where he's late just before the vocal?

[studioviols]

IMHO the very first guitar riffs can come up out of the mix a bit at 0:24, the drum seems to be louder than the guitar, that's very atypical for this genre, that guitar riff actually needs to be 'soaring' and much, much louder.

Vocal is upfront at 0:25 ... good job. If you bring up the drums anymore, you would be competing with his vocal, I'd drop the drums there, so when the chorus begins, bring them back up ... for contrast and to 're-engage' the listener.

I think you could lower the instrument levels a touch on this first chorus at 0:46 and create more headroom for the vocals.

That means you have to start at the very beginning, and lower the drums first. The drums are eating up all the headroom in the tune.

Drums were designed to cut through battlefields and large groups of hooting and chanting wildly dancing and yelling primates around fires.

Sweet vocals simply cannot compete, with any kind of drums.

At 1:43, I'm loving how upfront the lead vocal is. His voice has tremendous character, yet remains 'good singing'.

We get to HEAR the harmony vocals !!! gee, don't spoil us ;-)
IMHO, good harmony vocals are GOLD, solid GOLD. Covering up good harmony vocals and merely using them as coloring is a big mistake, and you aren't making that mistake.

The lead singer's voice is naturally 'gently shredded', so his sibbilance factor goes up, you've GOT to keep him up out of those harmony vocals, and yes, we've got to hear the harmony vocals also. I would simply use less effects on his voice.

Send all the instruments to one bus maybe, and compress that bus for that section ? Let the harmony vocals and his lead in that chorus exist on the same bus, and mix them as a submix, compare meter levels. You can do this in SONAR and in software.

I urge you to listen to 'Copeland' on mp3.com, some of the mistakes they make with their lead vocal are obvious, and this will reinforce the good things you are doing. Copeland is very similar to what this band is doing.

I think what's happening with the lead-rythm guitar during the first chorus is wonderful.
But later, as the vocals stop, the guitar sound needs to change just a bit, for contrast, keep the listener 'engaged'. Not only get louder at 1:26, but sonically change in quality, maybe a little EQ there, or less reverb.

At 2:00 on this next chorus, I think you are using to much reverb, these boy's vocals are sweet, let them stand more on their own, you don't have to drench them so.

When harmony vocals are that good, you can let out a little touch of character in each voice, by backing off on the compression.

At 2:24 the drummer gets a nice fill there, and that's done well. Later, the punches at 2:40 are too complicated, they just need to be more simple. At 2:51 that fill is awkward and needs to be re-tracked, it spoils the mood of the song that's been setup so far.

The drummer is simply too busy compared to the other instruments.

It's a wonderful song. Beautiful vocals ! Mix the drummer down, just yank that damn fader down on this roadkill and let those GOLDEN harmony vocals jump out bigtime.

Overall, I'm just missing some 'brightness' to the mix, you can restore some of that in mastering. I'm also thinking that yes, it's a bit overcompressed. Let the vocals out from under the compression. Keep the instruments compressed, but let the vocals out, because they are the big hook in the song.

Everything that occurs in the song, is happening for the vocals. There's no blistering lead guitar here, no incredible ... violin ...

The fans will remember the harmony vocals and 'the boys', not the drums. Pull the fader down on this drummer.

Thanks for sharing.

[chrisharris]

Originally posted by TexRoadkill
I still can't seem to hear the out of tune lead.

Maybe I got a bad mp3...it's out. I'm not talking about the bends, either...it's an intonation thing, and to be honest, it kinda' smacked me in the face the first time I heard it, so I guess I got a bad file. the weird thing is, it's just about exactly the same the 2nd time through, so it makes me think that it's NOT the file, b/c that'd be a pretty bizarre coincidence.

Here, I'll put my opinion where my mouth is. That riff, the second time through, was either pasted, or it was played almost immediately after the first one...like in real time...right?

Since you asked, I think Tonic would be a perfect reference for A/B; God, I love that band.

I was using 7mary3 and Fastball...With and w/o subs, and a couple of spins on the cans, b/c I like the song... 'cept for that HORRIBLY OUT OF TUNE RIFF, lol.

This is probably WAAAY more than you cared