First Clinic Post.....

Barometer

Barometer

New member
And I'm nervous as could be. This is just a couple of live recordings from our studio, no click track and set up for live room sound. I didn't intend to post with stuff like this, but it's still going to be a while 'til we get some real studio type recordings done and I'm experimenting with these tracks 'cause they're all we've got.

Here they are:
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1853&alid=-1

Spice Clock and FKAWBT are the songs. Both are originals. I've never mixed anything down before, this is truly a virgin run. Another guy that used to play with us and moved away used to do the mixing. This is also our first mixdown from recordings using the Delta 1010. We're really sloppy and our equipment sucks. I'm sure you'll notice some strange sounds along the way, there's definitely a buzz in the bass itself and the guitarists cables and pedal are crap. And I noticed some weird digital sounding whirl on the high end. Drums are poorly miced and recorded to one stereo track (they were the hardest part). Apologies ahead if I damage any of your ears. :o

So enough of my complaining, please let me have it, give it to me straight. Need some big time sen-sei action here. I know not what I'm doing and need all the help I can get, even down to recommended procedure for editing some of the tracks to get them sounding decent. I noticed the lo-fi really sounds bad, but the hi-fi is OK. Thanks all :D

Oh yeah:
Spacewalker PC 1.8 P4, 512 RAM, Win2k
Delta 1010
Yamaha EMX2000 mixer
really crappy mics
 
Man, after reading your post, I was totally prepared to hear a huge, hissing, out of time, pile of dog doo.

I wasn't disappointed.

NO WAIT, hehehe...that didn't come out right AT ALL. What I mean is that this doesn't suck at all. Listened to "Spice Clock." I dig a busy bass. There are chops here.

I hate giving "mix" comments, because that's what people who aren't deaf and who know how to mix are supposed to do...but here goes nothing: The keys and the git panning/switching thing is cool...I'd personally bring each of them a tad closer center, and the guitar in particular seems further "out" in the stereo field...but maybe that's just because it's quieter than the keys.

The drums start out at a decent level...then they just seem to fade further into the background as the tune progresses...like the drum riser is slowly moving backwards...away...away...way...ay...y. Then they come back for awhile...then they depart again. :D :D

Man, if this is really your first attempt to mix something, I look forward to your refined work.

You're not gonna' hurt anybody's ears, I know that. That's as far as I dare go on this.
 
FKAWBT

One more thing. The second song is totally cool. What are you playing? (instrument). I hope it's the guitar, because I have huge wonderful things to say about the guitar work on this track. The "piano" is cool as well, but I know dick about a piano.

Anyway...starting at 2:07, the guitar kicked my white ass. Turn it up...it's fighting with the piano, and I'm thinking it should be front and center for the last minute and a half.

okay...NOW I'm done.

(and cut off the first 2 seconds...totally gives away the hiss).

Really...done...NOW.

Cool
 
just listened to 'spice clock', and I think it's really good for being live.. This is a good jam!!


someone else will have to help with critical suggestions.. I would say it's maybe panned a bit too wide.. I like it being panned, but maybe not so hard..


I liked it..
 
I agree with the rest of the comments in this thread.This is a nice funky jam ("Spice Clock")....the panning is too extreme on everything though.I think it would sound more coheshive if you brought things slightly back to center as Chris suggested.Good playing all the way around.Im gonna pull out my guitar and wail along with this one.:DI love funky jams......gives everybody a chance to solo.;)

Good tune man....cant wait to hear some studio slick stuff from you guys!
 
Listened to "FKAWBT" and it's a cool jam too..it has the same extreme panning problems as the first tune but it's still a good tune.I guess thats you on the skins?Good drumming man.
 
Thanks for jumping in! It's a nice recording for your first shot.

FKAWBT
1. The drums sounded real nice and....REAL. That's a bonus around these parts. It's also a real effort to record live drums. I heard a lot of the ride cymbal and not enough of the bass and snare for my taste. Nice to hear a real kit though. Keep at it, and let us know what you do to improve the recording.

2. Guitar was well played. got some chops there. Maybe a bit louder?

3. Piano sounded like the only fake instrument in the room. Just jumped out at me. Then again I've been fooled by gigasampler twice now so maybe that's a artifact of the poor mics? You know I think it might sound cool if you doubled the melody at :20 in a two octave spacing. Maybe give it a latin kind of feel. Maybe not, but worth trying anyway imo.

4. The guitar and piano seem to walk on each other a lot. It will be more obvious once they aren't panned so hard but I think each guy could hang back a bit when the other is taking a solo.
 
oh yeah... i'm groovin' baby... loved spice clock. I didn't care for the extreme wide pan, though. I loved the sonics of everything. So what if it isn't commercial grade... it's a jam.. I think it worked great the way it is. In my head, I was wanting to hear something more Fender Rhodes like in the keys. Maybe add a little dirt to them. I was also longing for some organ...

I loved the drums. excellent guitar chops.
 
Hey Barometer,
.Hey man, Im listening on shite speakers here at work, so mixing advice isnt coming from me:D . Very cool jam. Im listening to FKAWBT. Great drums and drumming, great guit. playin, and a very handsome bass line..... that much I can hear. The only thing i didnt like was the keys..... not so much. The performance didnt sound near as tight as the other players. I didnt like the piano sound either (through these speakers, ...... might be my fault). Really cool stuff man.
I enjoyed it alot!

:cool:

g
 
Nice job.

On Spice... I liked the tone and verb on that guit that was panned to the right. Good sound on the bass. Nice playing all around. Things were panned pretty hard (as you've heard).

On FKAWBT... Much the same with panning. It's pretty crazy listening on headphones. Good sound on the instruments and very good playing.

Also be careful with instrumentals. You need to have lots of changeups going on to keep listener interest (or at least keep mine).
 
Thanks so much for listening. I was expecting alot worse, your encouragement and support is greatly appreciated. In general the panning seems to be a major issue. I have my monitors set up close together so I probably just misjudged it. That'll be the first thing I redo :)

chrisharris: glad you liked the songs. Sorry to say I'm not playing the guitar, I'm the drummer. Our guitarist is very good, he played as a studio musician in Tenn. a few years back and is just now getting back into playing with us. I'll pass on the comments.
The drums were tough, and I see your points. I'll probably spend just as much time on them again as I have spent on the entire songs, but I do want to get them more consistent. I'll be kicking up some of the guitar solos too.

B.SABBATH: glad you liked it too, I haven't yet had a chance to check out your stuff, but I noticed your posts and will get there soon

Kramer: Thanks for the compliment on the drumming. I find myself wishing I was so much better. nice to hear that someone doesn't think I suck ;)

erichenryus: Just checked out your song, nice Like I said above, the drums are driving me nuts. Since it's a stereo take and the snare and kick aren't very present it's tough to try to pull them out without screwing the cymbals. Any advice on this matter would be greaty appreciated. But they are REAL, glad you liked that. The piano is 'faked' with keys and a crappy Yamaha box plugged straight into the board. I wasn't the happiest with the way they turned out and will be revisiting them for sure. And I see what you mean about the leads walking on each other. One of our problems is we all want to jam out real hard and sometimes it gets pretty busy

JR#97: Groovin', thanks! I'm still playing with some of the Dxi plugins to see what kind of cool effects I can get for adding dirt and stuff. I'll work on that.

Guernica: Compliments from you were unexpected and well received. You're too good to be diggin' on us :p . I agree, the keys are a bit loose, that's usual for our keyboard player. In the live setting he mixes very well with our rigid technical guitarist though. Maybe it's just not as apparent here. So glad you liked the songs though. I would still love to hear some mixing advice from you should you choose to relisten on a better system :)

TripleM: Thanks, I was worried about the verb on the guitar, thought I might have overdone it, I'm happy you liked it. And I'm so glad you liked our playing, we can be alot less sloppy than these recordings. We do alot of instrumentals and I hear ya, it's tough to keep 'em interesting throughout. We have some songs with lyrics that I'll post later. We try to mix those into our sets along with some covers and it seems to work out OK. We're much more geared towards performing where instrumentals become less of an issue, but thanks for the advice :)

Again, I will be dealing with the panning. Any advice on what to do with the bass in that respect? It's just straight up right now. Keep the comments coming, this is a great help
 
listening to the second one..watkyrfl..lol...what doesthat mean???

and btw is fuzzy waldorf the name of yer band if it is its hillarious..but if its your given name then its very classy...;) ...this reminds me of the middle of a doors song......i know its a jam...but it just does werent all the dorrs songs jams???lol..i overheard you say u are playing the drums right??..very nice the drums have a really nice sound to them...great job ..i play on elec set and its very obvious...but this is sweet.....that guitar player is pretty dang good eh?...actually all of this is tasty piano...drums all of it......


thanks

jamal
 
Thanks jamal,

FKAWBT is an acronym for a name that's too long and that I can't reveal here. :rolleyes: :eek: :p

Fuzzy Waldorf is our band's name. Our friend was drunk in our studio one night talking about golfers for some reason and kept saying Fuzzy Waldorf all night long, mixing up Fuzzy Zoeller and Duffy Waldorf. It just stuck, glad you like it.

Yes I'm playing the drums and I'm quite surprised that everyone likes them. I fight with their sound constantly, especially lately since I switched to 6 mics. I hope it gives me more control, this stereo track of my kit is really tough to work with. I'm stoked that I apparently don't suck as much as I thought I did, but that's what we all think right ;)

Your positive feedback means alot, I hope to improve it some. I'm trying to put together a quicky preliminary demo with what I can salvage out of our live recordings. More to come and fixes on these... :cool:
 
I listened to "fe-Kaw -fit",(with a name like that,I had to!):D
Really nice piano playing,and the guitar lead at the end was great!

Seems like too much reverb/delay on the guitar,everything else is pretty dry in comparison,also the piano was a little too far out front.IMHOP

Other than that,really great recording,and tight playing.
I liked it,very nice!

Pete
 
Thanks again,

jamal: LOL :D I might have to use that one. We figure that's what people are going to do with an acronym like FKAWBT. It can mean so much and we want to keep it a little mystery ;)

muzeman: Thanks for the listen. I know what yo mean about the guitar not quite matchng with the verb. I've actually been struggling a bit with the keys to get them to blend a bit better. Next pass should have less panning, clearer guitar solos and less keys. Thanks for the advice and I'm glad you like our playing. :)

I'm feeling a little weird that I got NO stars at all (whine whine whine :p ), but I guess most of these threads are starless :cool:
 
Barometer said:
I'm feeling a little weird that I got NO stars at all (whine whine whine :p ), but I guess most of these threads are starless :cool:
Click to expand...

There, now you're a star! And I gave you a thumbs up!

And here's some faces:
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Can you feel the love?
 
I'm Impatient

Barometer - Not that you should have it ready yet, but I was wondering if you have another mix of the FKAWBT tune with the guitar just DOMINATING at the end. I really like that git work. I know you didn't play it, and I SWEAR I'd probably say something cool about the drums if I KNEW anything about drums, but I don't, so I don't want to cheapen your thread with drivvel.

Anyway, yeah...you could pass on my meaningless praise to the player, but before you do, you might bear in mind that my FAVORITE guitar solo of ALL TIME is (God, this may get me banned)...MY SHARONA, by the Knack. Horrible song, with an incredibly melodic and perfect guitar solo.

c'mon with the remix...I like this tune a lot and need to download it and loop it.

bye
 
Wow chris, my first request. I feel so special now ;)

Honestly, I got tied up with the Football game last night. Totally screwed my fantasy game and it pissed me off to no end. So I just didn't feel up to mixing. But I'll be working it late tonite after practice so hopefully I can get a new version posted before tomorrow. And if not, we have a half day tomorrow so I'll get on it right after work if there's till fixin' to be done :)
 
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