Criticism needed for Newbie recording/mixing effort.

S

srmd22

New member
I have a work in progress. It is actually my first tracks in PT LE in several years. I dabbled with PT in the past but never really got too far with it. I have laid down about half of the song here, and mixed a bit as I went along. It is very much "in progress," and a lot of it will probably be redone. I was hoping to get some advice before compounding any mistakes I am already doubtless making. To me, the sound of the mix does not have the same clarity or balance that I hear in many of my favorite mixes. (I particularly dig Dire Straights and Pat Metheny mixes, although those are not good comparisons for what I am writing; not sure what is, maybe Fleetwood Mac or... hell, I have no idea where my music fits in, if at all).

Please let me know if you have specific ideas how I can improve the sound of this thing, before I totally botch it. Eg the bass drum (superior drummer) seems lost in the mix to me. I have it output to another track but don't know how to properly process it. The vox sound eq'd incorrectly, but I don't know what I am doing wrong exactly.

It is the song titled "ARISE UPDATE (In Progress)", (the other being an even older, crappier version). You can get an overall impression from the first 2 minutes of the track.

http://www.myspace.com/siroriginals

PS: ignore the cheesy myspace page.
 
I think it's a cool tune, especially the guitar riff (reminds me of side 2 of Led Zeppelin III :D). But the vocal and keyboard parts drown out the guitar too much, in my opinion. Maybe EQ it to give it more balls? Drum track is at a good overall level.

You say you're writing as you record? That's always been my approach, and I always end up re-recording everything afterward. Sometimes I refer to the first version as a pre-demo, if it sounds horrible enough.

At least your "cheesy myspace page" has your recordings on it. All I have are the words "under construction". I've had a lot of equipment failure lately and the best I can do is demo the stuff I'm writing.
 
srmd22,

It impossible to properly analyze and judge mixes based upon mySpace streams. If you offer the segment up for download, much more can be done.

It's also impossible to tell how to improve a mix if one cannot tell the difference between what they have and what they want. If, for example, you don't know what you want the vocal to sound like, there's no way you can define whether what you have now needs something or not. I think you need to get a better idea of where you want to go before you start wondering if you're heading in the right direction or not.

But if you're looking for inspiration, look up the song "Get Me Out Of Here" by Billy Pilgrim, which has similarities to your song and may give you some ideas.

G.
 
Good advice, thanks. I'll try to figure out how to put a file up for download. I agree about the guitar being drowned out. I think I might double the track (duplicate, rather then replay) and bring it forward a bit. I thickened up the bass drums,but now they are too thick and rumbly.

I also added a bit of a scratch electric guit that needs some (alot) of work.

I will think a bit about where I am trying to go with the mix, that is a very good point. Going to check out that artist now.
 
srmd22 said:
I think I might double the track (duplicate, rather then replay)
Click to expand...

That accomplishes absolutely nothing other than make the track louder. You'd get the exact same result by simply turning up the one track. If you're going to double something, play it twice.
 
RAMI said:
That accomplishes absolutely nothing other than make the track louder. You'd get the exact same result by simply turning up the one track. If you're going to double something, play it twice.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I should have been more descriptive-- I just figured most people would know what I was getting at. I plan on some old tricks with the duplicate soundfile/track. I'm a noob, but not quite that noob. One trick is to hard pan the duped track and set it off from the original a handful of samples, to thicken it up. Another is to process it a bit differently to bring the sound of the instrument forward. You probably know all that and were just not thinking about it. I guess it sounded like I was just going to duplicate the track and leave it there, which you are correct, would be stupid.
 
Think I figured it out.

Let's see if this works. These are still mp3's but not streaming from myspace, at least. The first is the original one, the 2nd is one I tweaked a bit (messed up the bass drum pretty bad, gotta fix it), and the 3rd is a .wav version of the second (in case .wav's are better).







Yay, I think it's working. Man the drums are way too much in the 2nd and 3rd one. I'll have a much better version by the weekend, with the tracks fleshed out and the mix more refined, but I am still not sure what the hell I'm doing.

In terms of what I am going for, I'm not too sure about that either. I'm looking for a sort of jazzy/spacey/rock thing, think maybe fleetwood mac, steely dan and pink floyd put in a blender with a hint of zeplin and Metheny tossed in. And a touch of New Age (I know, yech-- just a touch).
 
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