Last One In The Room - alternative mix

andrushkiwt

andrushkiwt

Well-known member
hey,

I wanted to try a more, um, natural (?) sound with this one since I couldn't come up with many synth-y, delay type parts I like to throw in. Two things that I'm wondering your opinion on, in particular:

1. the intro guitars. kinda dirty. rather fuzzy. how do they sound to you, and what do you think they offer the track?
2. the overall mix bus compression. too much? about right?

I tried a touch of "small studio" verb on the master bus too. I preferred the version with the verb rather than the un-posted mix without the verb. It's about 2% wet, so not much at all. I think the pre-delay is 0ms and the verb length is 600ms.

all comments welcome. thanks!



It was all for nothing.
A diamond I can't see.
An ordinary something,
they never did believe.

October is ending,
my soul's not so clean.
February's coming,
you were the last one in the room
when I walked out.

My opinion's turning.
I guess that I was wrong.
An ordinary ending.
On this exit, you're my secret,
I won't let them twist my words yet.

I believe it sounds so angry through
the locked up doors, and I see you're waiting for
my confession, but nothing kills me more.
 
Catchy song. I'm not at all crazy about that intro guitar sound. It's not so much that lofi fuzz but the rumbling undertone that bugs me. You must have a nicer tones to choose from. Vocals do sound more natural, and the whole thing is noticeably less compressed than your recent tunes. I like this direction, vocal especially. Drums could come up, apart from the cymbals (crash esp.). I'm not hearing much snare during the chorus. What I do hear of the snare is a bit dull and toppy. Bass is fairly indistinct but I suppose doing its job. If it were my song, I'd lower the guitars (as always...). That effect at the end sounds to me like a delay pedal with all the knobs cranked. It could be half as loud. I'll listen again tomorrow.
 
I hear the cymbals being squashed and pumping. If you have them on a drum comp, think about processing them separately. IMO i hear this being a bit over compressed overall. But that is just my personal opinion.

I think if you just hold back a bit it would be awesome. I truly dig the tunes btw. :)
 
Sounds good to me. If I heard it anywhere else I would have thought it was a Jimmy Eat World song. No idea what their newer stuff sounds like, if they're even still around. But a lot of those bands' sounds became a lot more modern as time went on. Yours is cool because it sounds like an old song. For a word of the day that I recently learned, it is a simulacra - of 90's emo-rock or whatever genre.
 
jimmys69 said:
If you have them on a drum comp, think about processing them separately. IMO i hear this being a bit over compressed overall.
Click to expand...

I know what you're talking about...that's why I mentioned that in the OP. They are processed separately, and they're only being compressed on the snare hits. It might be that specific crash I'm riding on at those velocities. As in, programming problems rather than mixing problems?

The mix bus compressor is only taking 2-3 db total off. With a fast attack and release. I might want to look at a longer release. Is it pumping, to you?

Thanks. These are the areas I'm looking to improve, for sure.
 
Robus said:
Catchy song. I'm not at all crazy about that intro guitar sound. It's not so much that lofi fuzz but the rumbling undertone that bugs me. You must have a nicer tones to choose from. Vocals do sound more natural, and the whole thing is noticeably less compressed than your recent tunes. I like this direction, vocal especially. Drums could come up, apart from the cymbals (crash esp.). I'm not hearing much snare during the chorus. What I do hear of the snare is a bit dull and toppy. Bass is fairly indistinct but I suppose doing its job. If it were my song, I'd lower the guitars (as always...). That effect at the end sounds to me like a delay pedal with all the knobs cranked. It could be half as loud. I'll listen again tomorrow.
Click to expand...

So the intro guitars are the same as the "chorus/heavy guitars". What's weird here is that when the chorus is strummed, the guitars' volume are relatively even. But once I start palm muting (intro), one chord is louder on one guitar than the other since they both use different cabs and mics (virtual). I wanted to use a single take for the intro, but I couldn't find/come up with anything chunky enough. So I used a double take on my already selected chorus guitars (to differentiate between those and the lead guitars playing octaves).

I thought it was more compressed in sound than other tunes, so funny you say otherwise...although the meters weren't going crazy at all, so you're probably right.

The snare has a new plug I'm trying out. It's called Rough Rider. It is meant to beef up the sound and I thought it sounded good on the snare and toms, but I removed it from the toms for some reason. I think the mix sounded clearer during the verse when the toms are going strong. So this is why it probably sounds thicker than usual. Good ears Ray.

And the repeating thing at the end was a pain. In reality, the bounce feature of my DAW did not grab the slight delay and harmonator pedals I automated into the end, so I had to improvise and copy and paste about 0.5 seconds of guitar noise about 18 times. That's what that sound is. It really only happens once, but I copied and pasted it over and over and over. I kind of like it. I wanted it to sound like I dropped my guitar next to the amp and it's feeding back.

EricIndecisive said:
Sounds good to me. If I heard it anywhere else I would have thought it was a Jimmy Eat World song. No idea what their newer stuff sounds like, if they're even still around. But a lot of those bands' sounds became a lot more modern as time went on. Yours is cool because it sounds like an old song. For a word of the day that I recently learned, it is a simulacra - of 90's emo-rock or whatever genre.
Click to expand...

Well I definitely want a modern sound. I suppose my writing and arrangement choices are more 90's...that's kind of my music era of choice. :) thanks for the kind words, and no...you're definitely not the first to throw out a Jimmy Eats World comparison.

Robus said:
Very good tune. The most rocking I've heard from you.
Click to expand...

Hey thanks! I actually thought it was one of the least rocking, ha! I guess I hear the "pop" underneath it all more so. Maybe the lack of delay/techy sounds makes it more "rock"? Actually the gf said the same thing... she said "it's very rock". hmmm. I suppose the ending adds to it.
 
I haven't been around as much as I would like to be lately, so I haven't heard everything you've done in the last while, but this is the heaviest thing that I think I've heard from you. It still has your sound that you've got going on (and I could pick your tracks out now without knowing it is you). You do this style well. Within this style, melody is absolutely critical, and you are very, very good when it comes to this. The song is really well penned, IMO.

The cymbals are a bit loud and coming at me from a weird spot. They are sort of a little bit below ear level and I expect them to come at me from the top a bit more. Perhaps dropping the level and adding more shimmer to them will help with that?

They cymbals are all swishy, pumpy and chokey too, so I suspect that is either compression or "the SoundCloud effect" happening there. My guess would be your bus compression settings though. What settings are you using? Threshold? Attack? Release? How much GR?

Snare has a hollowed out sound to it. This can be from compression or a phase issue.

Digging the tom grooves.

Good vocal performance and nice melodies. I like the harmonies too.

I think the mix is not there, but this is yet another good track from you.
 
I agree with what kindafishy wrote. The melody is really good, and I'm digging the more natural sound of the vocal. This is the way forward for you. Maybe go cleaner on that palm-muted guitar part? However, drums are where you need to focus your attention first. The cymbals need work, and kindafishy might be right about a phase issue on your snare. There's not much body to it.
 
I'll get into more tomorrow, but the snare is completely reshaped by the Rough Rider compressor. It makes it dense and heavy. A-B-ing it with and without that compressor, I opted for this sound. Its not just a normal compressor, it's sound is distinct and very heavy.

I have to fix this cymbal issue. Programming is straightforward with them. The OH compressor only chops off the snare hits that are very loud. The bus compressor is reacting to the kick and vocals the most - so I don't think any compressor is affecting them. I add a top end boost of maybe 1db at 5kHz that nicely touches the vocals and hat, but it might be destroying the cymbals. Soundcloud doesn't help.

I'll upload the original file tomorrow and I'd appreciate comments on the top end of it compared to the soundcloud file. At a party now, but maybe I can still do it. Think I have drop box on my phone.
 
Top end sounds considerably better than on the Soundcloud. The repetitive crash cymbals that are doing the job of the hats throughout much of your song are cleaner than before, not noticing the same compression artifacts. I'm hearing what sounds like a rimshot on random snare hits, didn't notice it before.
 
Robus said:
Top end sounds considerably better than on the Soundcloud. The repetitive crash cymbals that are doing the job of the hats throughout much of your song are cleaner than before, not noticing the same compression artifacts. I'm hearing what sounds like a rimshot on random snare hits, didn't notice it before.
Click to expand...

Ok. I'll have to figure out a way to account for soundcloud in my mix. Anyone else hear the cymbals clearer in the wav?

I'm thinking soundcloud adds a top boost aside from compression.
 
Bubba Po suggested uploading a .wav file to Soundcloud rather than an Mp3. I tried it and think he's right.
 
Dropbox sounds much different from the soundcloud version. Way better. Wow, I have heard soundcloud damage a track before, but this is the most extreme example I have ever heard.
 
andrushkiwt said:
I know what you're talking about...that's why I mentioned that in the OP. They are processed separately, and they're only being compressed on the snare hits. It might be that specific crash I'm riding on at those velocities. As in, programming problems rather than mixing problems?

The mix bus compressor is only taking 2-3 db total off. With a fast attack and release. I might want to look at a longer release. Is it pumping, to you?

Thanks. These are the areas I'm looking to improve, for sure.
Click to expand...

I am hearing pumping - noticed it right away when everything kicked in. Not sure I like it in this application. It is making the cymbals sound unnatural.

IMO the intro guitar sound is OK but since it's by itself for so long, you really ought to have something great there. Actually I think it sounds real nice on the non-palm muted parts. I guess it's just the intro part that sticks out to me.

Vocals sound really nice IMO.

The drum arrangement is great.
 
Ugh great. Ok I'll try uploading the wav to SC tomorrow and testing that out. Thanks for the help. Man that stinks.
 
Wow. I don't think I have anything to critique that hasn't already been said, and I'm listening on my truck stop headphones anyway. I just want to say for now that this song and performance are great. I can't wait to hear it on my monitors.
 
paulman77 said:
Wow. I don't think I have anything to critique that hasn't already been said, and I'm listening on my truck stop headphones anyway. I just want to say for now that this song and performance are great. I can't wait to hear it on my monitors.
Click to expand...

hey thank you. the pumping and cymbals are bothering me. i'll note those and work on them for next time
 
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