First Song in the Clinic

The Cancers

The Cancers

New member
Hey all. I'm a fairly new member and I've spent hours and hours since I found it going through the threads in the mp3 clinic. Pure awesome, so glad it's here.

Anyway, here's a song I recorded with some of my band. The mix ain't quite there, but every time I try a new mix it starts heading south on me. Any tips or comments would be thoroughly appreciated.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=972193

And, yeah, it goes on a bit long. It's gonna fade out whenever I get around to doing it.:o
 
Bump, with a numbered list of suggested responses:

1) Did you hear that midi cover of the Hillary Duff song with the two preteen girls singing over it? That had more balls than this. Give it up and sell all your equipment, I think you might be retarded.

2) You've breached a major etiquette protocol in posting this song here. You should have <insert thing I should have done here> before ever thinking you were ready to post. Even retards know that.

3) This is a classic example of <insert a mistake or problem of which this is a classic example here>. You should read up in the <insert name of forum here> forum, specifically looking out for <insert various keywords to look out for in above mentioned forum here>. But that's OK, at least you're trying, retard.

4) Hey, retard, do this: <insert itemized list of things to do to the mix to make it sound phenomenal and as though it was done by you, and not some retard, here>.

If you don't feel like copy/pasting, you could simply post the number 1-4 of your response and be done.

Thanks, looking forward to hearing from you.:D
 
3) This is a classic example of <sounding like Bono meanwhile singing over a psychedelic early 70's kaleidescope cocophony>. You should read up in the <Psychedelic> forum, specifically looking out for <Sri Chimnoy, twangy mono ins, Beach Boys> that's OK, at least you're trying, My man.



I listened to all your song, twice. It's got nice tone. I like the irreverent (to some) lyrics.
 
Man, so much packed into such a short response. If I sounded like Bono, I didn't mean to, but awesome, that guy's got pipes.
If it's coming across as psychedelia, awesome, I was really just going for some densely packed pop (though there's probably a thin line between the two, it's placement dependent entirely on how many and what kind of drugs you're on).
Lyrically I think irreverent is an apt analysis. This is part of a loosely connected song cycle (eventual album?) about a guy raised in a hardcore rural southern baptist church and becoming disillusioned with the whole lifestyle at least partly because he's in love with his cousin who it turns out is his half-sister.
Thanks so much for the listen and the comments. Anybody wanna tell me what's wrong with my mix? :o
 
The Cancers Song Cycle. "Put the Pedal to the Melanoma"
Mix wise the vocals, drums & bass are having a bit of a brawl up the middle for space - it's a bit everything up the centre boys with one thing out on each extreme to define the space - you'll need to do some reading on EQ carving to make sense of the middle. You don't have to hard pan.
The vocal sounds live & in a room but a little thin too - it could be given a little punch.
There's a little miss in the bass line somewhere - not bad but noticed.
The Bono things is certainly there.
The lead guitar lines could be boosted & moved to the centre when soloing.
Good song & a good start.
Try to mix it in mono & then, when you have everything sitting nicely in he stack slowly move things out in the stereo image.
 
you are The Cancers of music!
(sorry couldn't resist)

anyways, the production on this is definitely very straight-up-the-middle and might have been (?) what you were going for. i do not hear bono at all but texturally and songwritingwise it reminds me of alot of indie-pop from the 90's (fan of the Bats by any chance? the Wedding Present? SpinArt?) nice vocal "hooks" and velvet-undergroundy guitars churning and chiming away. you're right about fading it out a little earlier of course. somewhere around the 4-minute-mark?
 
Thanks so much, gentlemen. Rayc, I've been training my ears to do EQing for a while, but progress is slow. Part of it might be (and please tell me if I'm wrong) that I'm primarily working with the eq that comes attached to every track in cubase LE. I haven't been able to A/B compare it to a high end, expensive EQ plugin to find out how much of a difference it makes, though I've got to imagine the algorithms and magical EQ fairies that live inside something like the Waves stuff are more accurate/responsive/pleasant sounding.
Thanks again for the advice and attention, and look out for a new mix soon.

PS - Velvet Underground is the only band mentioned so far that was a direct influence musically, and if it's noticeable enough for 1 out of 3 to mention it, then I'm psyched. Feels like a golden ratio sort of thing.:D
 
I think the cubase le eq's are not the problem here.

You've got everything battling at the same low-mid freq point, as well as around 2-3k. It kind of sounds like you worked on all the parts in solo? I think you are just a few tweaks away from a great mix though.

As far as balance, the drums get lost in several parts.

Hope that helps.....

:D
 
Thanks NL5.
I didn't mean to imply that I thought the problems with this mix were the fault of anything but my ears. I guess I was just asking more generally whether there was a noticeable quality difference between the onboard EQs and top dollar plugins.
I know that EQing, like any other aspect of recording, is a learning process, and it just takes a lot of time training my ears to get it right. I'm just wondering which of the following two analogies best fits the ear-training situation:
1) I'm just starting to learn how to play guitar. I have a low end but functional guitar (Cubase LE built in EQ) my friend Eddy Van Shredder gave me because he has so much superior equipment at this point that he doesn't need this old POS anymore. I hear him play, then hear myself playing, and I'm not satisfied with the quality of sound I'm getting. It's going to be a mistake for me to go out and drop a bunch of money on a better guitar (Waves or other high-end, high dollar EQ plugin), because I don't know how to play, and higher end equipment is not going to fix that. Learning to play is the first, most important step to improving my sound.
Or
2) I'm just learning to ride a bike. I have a hand-me-down bike (Cubase LE built-in EQ) given to me by a friend. Part of that bike's design is that the back wheel is square. Just the way it is, no putting on a round wheel, this bike is stuck this way. It would benefit me to go out and buy a better bike (Waves or other high-end, high dollar EQ plugin) because, no matter how much I practice on the square wheel guy, I'm not gonna be learning how to ride an actual bike. Even if I master the square wheel riding routine, I'll never go as fast as someone with round wheels, and I'll end up having to relearn the whole process once I eventually do upgrade to a nicer bike with two round wheels.

For anyone who doesn't know, the Cubase LE onboard track EQs have four "bands" I guess you'd call them, frequency, level and Q controls on each band, and an option (on the Q control knob) to turn the first and last bands into high or low pass filters.
It seems to me that some of the higher end stuff has the same basic controls, so I've gotta assume the difference is in the implementation on the algorithmic/programming level.
Which of the above analogies best describes the situation of training my ears to do some proper EQing?
And yes, I understand there are other contributing factors, like the room one is in, the monitors one is using, etc... so let's assume this is an ideal, theoretical environment.
Am I riding on a square wheel, or am I just a shitty noob guitarist?
I suspect I'll get the shitty guitarist response, but can I get some reasoning with it? I can understand how it would be pointless to drop a bunch of cash on a multiband compressor or high end maximizer/limiter before I understand the basics of compression, but in the realm of EQ, doesn't the higher end product respond/manipulate-the-waveform/sound noticeably "better"?

This has gotten way out of hand for a mixing clinic post, so, if anybody knows of a specific thread where this question is answered, or thinks I should post it elsewhere because it has a better chance of being answered there, let me know.
Thanks,
The Cancers (of music)
 
There's no reason a simple song like this couldn't basically mix it itself. The problem isn't your square wheel, shitty playing, or Cubase LE. It's just simple tracking/mixing. Just keep working at it. Turn knobs and push buttons until you get what you want to hear. Cubase LE isn't great, but it's way capable of helping make a good mix.

I'd suggest yout turn everything way down and get the kick, if you mic'd it, or the whole drum mix out front. Then slowly bring up the bass. Maybe carve out some low end EQ in the bass gtr to keep the kick from disappearing. To me, there's one big element that seperates a crappy home recording from an almost pro sounding home recording - kick/bass seperation. If you can get a clear and present kick/bass relationship then you're more than halfway to a good mix. Okay so now you have present drums, and a bass rumbling along with it. Both the kick and bass are clear and present. Now you bring in the guitars somewhere off center, on both sides if you have the tracks, to fill in the stereo field. Then you bring up any accent licks or leads and the vocals. If your source sounds and miking techniques are up to snuff, it'll sound good already. Now you can tweak eq's, compressions, reverbs, etc for the wow factor.
 
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Thanks for the tips Greg, and I assure everyone that, as soon as I get home tonight, I'll be dedicating as much time as it takes to a remix with all your suggestions in mind. Any thoughts on the more general question I posed?
 
You mean the eq question? I don't think it matters what kind of eq you use. It's all in the hands/ears of the user. A multiband parametric with adjustable Q settings is probably your best chance at accurate EQ'ing. Cubase LE gives you 4 bands, which should be plenty if you use it right. Some of the higher end plug-in EQs allow you to add as many bands as you want.

If I may make a suggestion, go to www.cockos.com and download Reaper. It's a recording software that kicks ass and it's essentially free. You're supposed to buy it on the honor system- 60 bucks - but you can download the full version for free and use it till the cows come home. It's stock plugs are pretty good and the layout is very easy to use. It blows Cubase LE out the water. And...it comes with a great multiband parametric EQ called "reaeq" that's totally user friendly and you can add as many bands as you want. I switched to Reaper about a year and a half ago, and I'm thrilled with it.
 
Good job, you have an excellent material, and performance it´s fine.
More volume to the BD and a better (wider) stage of drums I think will helps a lot.

Taking care with the balance BD / Bass guitar Greg talked about.


Ciro
 
Thanks Ciro, and thanks again Greg. Yeah, I've been playing around with Reaper some, and I'm actually saving up to buy a new computer+recording interface and I'm planning on building the whole system around Reaper. Guess when I try the remix, I'll do it in there and see what I can come up with.
So is there really no proprietary digital sound wave manipulation algorithm? Are all digital plugin EQ's essentially the same (assuming they have the same or analogous controls)? Can I get for free what others pay hundreds of dollars for without putting myself on the wrong side of the law? If so, can I go ahead and put myself on the wrong side of the law anyway, just for shits and giggles?
 
The Cancers said:
Thanks Ciro, and thanks again Greg. Yeah, I've been playing around with Reaper some, and I'm actually saving up to buy a new computer+recording interface and I'm planning on building the whole system around Reaper. Guess when I try the remix, I'll do it in there and see what I can come up with.
So is there really no proprietary digital sound wave manipulation algorithm? Are all digital plugin EQ's essentially the same (assuming they have the same or analogous controls)? Can I get for free what others pay hundreds of dollars for without putting myself on the wrong side of the law? If so, can I go ahead and put myself on the wrong side of the law anyway, just for shits and giggles?
Click to expand...

No. Neither pay for it or steal it. Don't worry about it either. I'll give you the down low on how eq works, but what everyone said above is true ... 4 bands is usually enough to get the job done. Here's a few things you need to know prior to purchasing ANY equipment in the future.

Rule One: Tracking IS Mixing. Pay close attention while doing so using ...
Rule Two: Your ears are free, and they happen to be your most valuable piece of equipment. Learn to critically listen while performing rule one.

Rule Three: If you have to twist too many knobs to get it to sound merely decent, you screwed up rules one and two.


EQ: Works via phase cancellation. Phase cancellation is that physical properties thingy where if two identical waves are 180 degrees out of phase (meaning one wave is up while the other wave is down), then the result is silence. What EQ does is it "silences" or "boosts" certain user determined frequencies at user determined levels via blending additive or subtractive phase at the point set by the user. The broadening of impact ... specifically how WIDE the frequencies covered that are impacted is call the Q.

In the old days of graphical EQ, Q was often preset ... based on the number of frequency bands the graph covered. Parametric EQ became popular because it allowed users to widen or narrow the Q, and set it to exactly what frequency needed addressing.

Cheaper EQ hardware in the past sometimes let the phase cancellation "bleed" through ... and you could actually hear the phase at work. The higher priced units hid phase better.

I do not know of any digital EQ that sounds like a old cheap hardware EQ. Most are pretty clean. The more expensive plugs these days still address phase artifacts, but they also are meant to emulate desireable characteristics of their hardware cousins ... which may or may not be applicable to any given production situation.

Still, almost ALL work horse EQ on any given DAW will serve most purposes fine ... just pay attention to rules one through three.

Best,

Kev-
 
Cool song,like the jangly guitar thing, although mix does seem to have a flat 2-dimensional vibe to it...you have gotten some great advice in the previous post that I can only echo..I have learned soooo much from these guys...this is a great place to learn from, just keep at it!
 
New Mix Bump

I've been working on this for a while now. It's been a fun song to practice mixing with.
I took all the advice I got into account, and approached it from the ground up. I think it's a marked improvement over what I had up, though it's late and I haven't given it the fresh-ears-in-the-car-tomorrow-morning test, so there may be some dying cats screeching away in there that I'm just not hearing.:D
Let me know what you think. And thanks again to all who've been helping.
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=972193
 
Amazing. Proof of what Greg L said about present drums and bass rumbling along with it. I think it's much improved. It's a great song. Very catchy.
 
Sounds good man, nice song!
Your performannce is pretty good and the 2nd mix is pretty good. Don't worry just keep at it, take the experts' advice here, be patient and in time you'll see the improvement. We've all been thru the process....;)

Joey :):):):)
 
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