diamonds -weird stuff maybe rock maybe metal

[rgraves]

mixing for someone. It's not my song, and it's a bit odd in parts (songwise), but if you could give some critique song quality wise. Actually, I just finished a rough mix, and he uploaded it to myspace, after converting it to mp3 and then myspace converting it to their stuff.

It definitely is a rough draft, and I know the vocals are going all over the place. Please give me some ideas anyways, and I'll update again when I can work on the mix more!

Thanks!

www.myspace.com/mikeredwine

Song name is diamonds

 

[chrisharris]

This is so different that I want very much to like it.

Ok, mixwise...man... I'll be as brief as possible.

1. Drums are waaaaaay buried. There's no kick that I can hear..every once in awhile, I can pick up a snare hit...but the ride's loud, lol. Weird.

2. Guitars - they're just all fuzz, man. It's not unlike listening to an Iron Butterfly guitar tone, so if you were going for that, you got it.

3. The vocal just sucks. Seriously, I don't know what to say about it that can make it better. I can appreciate the fact that the guy is trying to do some syncopated stuff, but the pitch is a problem...(the very first note is about half a step flat?)..and while the vocal is brutally loud compared to the drums at times, there are still a lot of places where I can't make out the lyrics, which I'm assuming are important to this singer. "His mind is like a diamond...mumble mumble mumble..." When he sings "be-hiiiiiiiiiiiiEEEEND"...I don't think comical is what he was going for, but he nailed comedy. I'm trying hard to be constructive, but I really think the vocal just sucks out loud. I'm not sure the big reverb you put on it helps, but it may actually be helping because it makes the vocal less obnoxious.

4. overall mix seems pretty woofy...lots of low mids, and the biggest problem may be in the guitars themselves...it's hard to tell.

Don't hate me, man...I'm actually trying to help. I'm just not sure how.

 

[rgraves]

3. The vocal just sucks. Seriously, I don't know what to say about it that can make it better. I can appreciate the fact that the guy is trying to do some syncopated stuff, but the pitch is a problem...(the very first note is about half a step flat?)..and while the vocal is brutally loud compared to the drums at times, there are still a lot of places where I can't make out the lyrics, which I'm assuming are important to this singer. "His mind is like a diamond...mumble mumble mumble..." When he sings "be-hiiiiiiiiiiiiEEEEND"...I don't think comical is what he was going for, but he nailed comedy. I'm trying hard to be constructive, but I really think the vocal just sucks out loud. I'm not sure the big reverb you put on it helps, but it may actually be helping because it makes the vocal less obnoxious.


Don't hate me, man...I'm actually trying to help. I'm just not sure how.

No no, no hating here. I appreciate the info...it's quite a challenge to approach such a "different" song. He's going for an atonal sound, so music is not going to be listener friendly to start with. Also, since the key is non existant in many parts, it makes autotune or such quite problematic, and well, to pick out each note he was going for could take up some considerable time. But I think the vocal track definitely needs to be redone, and it seems some EQ is in order along with vocal compression for sure. That's my next step.

Thanks for any critique!