Thanks for the feedback everyone. I messed around with the mix some more, taking everybody's advice into account:
- lowered the vocals
- lowered lead guitar during the solo to make rhythm more audible
- brought some low end back into the bass
- added a bit of widener to the delay guitars
- added some reverb to widen the drums (probably the most drastic change)
Is this better or worse than the original? I'm worried I may have made the vocals too soft or the bass too rumbly...
I like this musically and for the most part the mix is good. I feel the vocals take over the song too much though. The drums and some of the guitars (especially the rhythm during the chorus) are pushed too far back in the mix and need more presence. But what I'm thinking you could try if you want to see what I mean, is to lower all the vocals maybe 3db and then 'master' the mix, add a generous amount of compression to the entire track to help mesh everything together. I am NOT talking about brickwalling. Maybe compress to -12db RMS and see what that does.
As it is, things all feel a little too far apart from each other in the mix (not necessarily a bad thing). Mastering might be the easy remedy.
The drums have a slightly lo-fi feel but I think they work great in the context of this song. If you're going to use this drum setup for all your material, that might be something worth addressing (separately).
Fwiw, I would be willing to tinker with it (wouldn't take me more than a couple minutes) to illustrate what I mean. It doesn't seem I can download the track from soundcloud... MP3 would suffice if you're guarded about sharing original content like that.
Thanks a lot for the advice. I see what you mean about the vocals taking over, especially during the chorus. I lowered them by about 3db and I like the way it sounds. I don't have much experience mastering, but I tried using a multi-band compressor to make it a little more 'exciting' and glue things together. If you can critique my 'master' or demonstrate what you had in mind that would be awesome (I attached the mix so hopefully you can download it now).
I intentionally mixed in a lot of room sound with the drums to make them dirtier. Since the intro is sort of vacant, I thought it would be a nice to have the drums fill up space.
View attachment sleepwalking modified.mp3
ashleyhanoman said:
A little bit of chorus on those guitars &/or a touch of widener could work well possibly.
I actually tried using chorus on the guitars at one point, but for some reason it didn't mesh. The widener is a cool idea, I will definitely try it out.
rayc said:
Listen to Buffalo Tom's Taillights Fade.
A good start but the bass needs some work -sounds distant and like it needs new strings or to be DI'd with some tweaking (Behri BDI21 would help).
The rhythm guitars are way too far back during the solo.
The bass actually has new strings (half rounds) and was recently set up. I recorded it through an OCD overdrive (which may have sucked some of the low end) into a DI, and blended the direct signal with an amp simulator. I'm primarily a guitarist so it's possible I mixed the bass to much like a guitar... Do you think bringing some low end back in would make the bass sound closer?
I hear you on the rhythm guitars... I had a lot of trouble with them when I was working on the solo; whenever I tried to make the rhythm stand out it detracted from the lead tone. I will try lowering the lead guitar's level and see if that helps.
Mr. Clean said:
Some good advice above. The track could use a little attention to make it spot on. I got nothing else to add to the above.
Really liked the tune though. Look forward to hearing a revised mix.
Thanks a lot man!
jonlint said:
Really good first song recording. Sounds very polished and professional. How did you get that ping pong sound on the guitar (or is it keyboard)? - sounds very atmospheric and cool! Bass tone is very good!
I think the vocal are a little too plain. I guess you are going for a "stoner" feel, but maybe you could try some more expression at parts? Also I would try more clearer pronounciation even if it is overdone - the lyrics are hard to pick up even though they are loud enough. Maybe try some EQ? The classic standard - pulling out around 1kHz where it is "nasal" and a hi EQ shelf? Also I find the distorted backing distorted guitar a little too muddy. Maybe a different tone or EQ?
Thanks! The guitars (yep it is actually a guitar, just dramatically EQ'd to sound more bell-like and drenched in reverb) is sent to a stereo delay plugin called Bionic Delay, which lets you separately control the left and right delay times. From there I added a few tap delays to make it bounce back and forth.
I think the vocals might sound plain because I'm not a great singer. I concentrated on making my voice sound smooth and on key, which limited what I could do in terms of expression. But I guess I also have a "stoner" taste in music, so that may have been a factor as well.
I originally had a high EQ shelf on the vocals, but I found it made them sound too harsh, and that the less I touched the EQ the better they sounded.