"Holding on to You"- mix critique

listening as I type:

1. good vocals at beginning! could stand to be a tad more clear.
2. loud intro for rest of the instruments. too loud for me..
3. drums sound very good sir!
4. lead guitar part was nice, but a tad too soft for me - bring it out a little more?
5. i like the lead singers voice - BGVs are nice too.
6. BGVs on chorus are at a perfect level! good job sir.
7. this song makes me want to call my wife and tell her I love her. I'm getting sappy inside. someone hold me.
8. good break there around the 2:45 minute...
9. i love the stop downs to the acoustic and vocals only.
10. I will always hold on to the things that made me fall for you"...wow, someone's really really really trying to get laid here... jk - actually decent lyrics
11. love the fade out.

ok. this was a good song. good mix, good everything. I figured out the issue with number 2...i had the volume up too loud. Who knew, right?

great job!

cholo
 
thanks alot for the anaylsis.

i agree, i don't really like that lead part. i don't know why...just doesn't do it for me. It needed some more like...attitude or something. The acoustic we had was a crappy one too....sounds very boxy even through the u87.

I'm currently working on new tune with the band....starting to track drums tommarrow. I can't wait. My studio is in an old barn, so the basement has like 12ft celings, however these drums were tracked in a really small crappy sounding room, but i like the way they turned out. The only thing triggered was a bit on the kick.
 
Hi

Pretty good song, mix and recording. I think you'll need to cut some low-mid frequencies on the distorted guitar to let space for the vocals and bass. The tone of the lead guitar might also need some fine tuning (maybe more distorsion - echo/delay ?).

You guys are pretty awesome, ever thought about getting one of your song mixed/mastered by a professional engineer to see how this could sound ? You can get the job done for $300 or so by pretty decent indy engineer.

How is the album doing ? "Run away runaway" is pretty awesome and I figure it must have some air time on radio somewhere ?

Excellent work !

/Jack Real
 
Sadly, most work i've heard from "professional engineers" are no better than what i've accomplished. To me, a pro is someone like Chris-Lord Age or David Bendeth.... and im sure they charge more than 300/song. Until I become the next chris lord age, id rather learn the craft myself than pay someone else. Good idea though.

I agree, the lead tone needs some more to it.

The album is doing pretty well around here in Cleveland. Runaway is all over the college stations and just getting into our KROK 92.3 xtreme. Like I said, theres no time to fix this as its already been pressed since June.
 
First off, nice work!

My only real nits are that the whole mix is somewhat grainy sounding, bordering on really grainy. There is also some room issues going on. The intro AC guitar has some issues, as well as an overall lack of low-mids in the entire song.

What's your tracking room like? And your mixing room?
 
not my cup of tea musically-but...

I normally hate soft rock-I'm more a garage punk person. but the recording quality overall sounds pretty good to me. well done keep up the good work. what are you trying to achieve - produce a good demo -you have done that??
cheers
 
NL5 said:
First off, nice work!

My only real nits are that the whole mix is somewhat grainy sounding, bordering on really grainy.
Click to expand...

I agree. On a good set of phones it is indeed a lil grainy. Its a good song, I like it a lot. Everything is pretty close except for the grainy aspect, the guitars seem to be the culprits.

Sadly, most work i've heard from "professional engineers" are no better than what i've accomplished.
Click to expand...

If you mean locally, I would have to agree with you. I am not aware of one studio in town that does good work, and I have checked them all out quite thoroughly. Several have all the toys one can want, and the worst engineers of all time. Save your money.:cool:

Nice work, very enjoyable.
 
dogbox said:
I normally hate soft rock-I'm more a garage punk person. but the recording quality overall sounds pretty good to me. well done keep up the good work. what are you trying to achieve - produce a good demo -you have done that??
cheers
Click to expand...

I'm trying to become an engineer. It's what I want to do as a career after I finish college. I'm a drummer also. Right now I'm just playing with the band for something to do. This cd was produced for the band to try and get our music out there.... which it is getting out there. We're supposed to have a "showcase" with a few major labels in a few weeks, but I don't get my hopes up. I'd rather learn and produce my own music than be sent to some indie studio and be told what to do by some no namer.

And yeah, studios around Cleveland have some nice gear, but crap engineers.... AKA Lava Room Studios.

This was a first mix of this song. Guitars could be explained by the input source... a crappy ibanez through a rect o' verb 50 and 4x12 slant boogie. Not the preffered tone I was looking for. Since then our guitarist has a nice newer Les Paul standard and a good strat. Crappy guitar= crap tone. Also, I'm a drummer so I'm still learning guitar tones and eq for them and all. I'm not calling myself a pro, but I'm getting there.
 
Like the acoustic sound....Vocal sits cool...Like the voice......

Some thunder did have to adjust volume down slightly when that came in....

I like the tune.........2nd verse in the beginning didn't quite catch the vocals

I think it's great............nice textures..........good lead

Steve Altonian
 
Dude, this is great! I really enjoyed the song... and you play exactly what the song needed... Nice groove!

Do you mind sharing the chain you use to track drums?

Thanks and Cheers,
J.
 
Well drums are a Tama Starclassic Maple kit and 14" yamaha maple custom absolute snare. Zildjian A-custom all the way around. I basically use my D112 on kick, 57 snare top and bottom, audix D1 on hi tom, sennhieser md421 on the floor. Shure pg81's on hihats, ride, and 2 overheads. Nuemann u87 room mic. I run the kick and snare through my Trident pre and the rest through the mackie console.... pretty standard. A/D conversion is through the MOTU HD192, onto sonar 6. I mix all of my music through the mackie, I like analog mixes better.
 
I think it sounds great except for a few things everyone's already mentioned. I do not however think you should be so...Generous with the autotune.
 
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