Lend me your ears: Heavy Rock tune...

[fritzmusic]

Hey everyone,

I wanted to post this mix of my current band and see what you guys think. Any constructive criticisms about anything you hear will be most helpful in the future. Although I did preliminary mixing on the drums, our bassist mixed the rest of this on an Ensonq Paris. We ran into ALOT of complications on the Paris software concerning DirectX effects application and we did alot of things in a roundabout way that I don't have the space to explian right now. Does anyone else here use the Ensoniq Paris and is there any way that we can use different software to mixdown on? I personally use N-track Studio on my home PC and I think that it has a more simplistic, WYHIWYG (what you hear is what you get) approach to everything as oppsed to the Paris and was wondering if we could capture our audio through the Paris and perform mixdown through N-track after the fact? This was one of our very first recordings we performed through the PAris and while we've improved light years since then, I just down't like the workflow of the Paris software at least for what we need and perform on it. The hardware does an excellent job of capturing clean audio but I just hate the software.

Although we did everything in the digital realm, we tried really hard to give the song an almost analog feel at the same time. Then name of the song is Spookie Jar.

Only the bass drum was resampled through a DM5. The drums almost sound like we were running into some phasing issuses with the drum mics. I was wondering if the drums have an odd chorus-y or almost a "tinhorn" sound to you and if it does, does it stand out too much to distract from the rest of the song?

Anyway, here is the link to our Spookie Jar song on Soundclick:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/7/spookiejarmusic.htm

 

[johnnymegabyte]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Toooooooooooooooo distorted.

Work things out before posting a song sounding so awefull.

This song has plenty of potential. From what I can tell, the chemistry is there, the sing is good, the musicians are good. I would like to hear it "cleaner". Sounds a bit like Dream Theater. Still would give the song a thumbs up. Do a better recording and maybe, two thumbs up.

 

[FunkDaddy]

Intro is very cool to begin with but than you just start wanking off and it gets stupid. Get into the song already.

Tone down the reverb on the vocals, it doesn't work as is.

Get rid of what sounds like a whale giving birth, it doesn't help the song.

Where it gets heavy it sounds really cool. Good stuff.

 

[fritzmusic]

Whale giving birth. lol. That's too much. Awww c'mon... I'm surprised you didn't catch the Michael Jackson scream in the background near the middle of the song...lol

Yeah I when I suggested the intro was too drawn out (1:00+), the rest of the band saw it as "dramatic"...pffft!

I DID ask the "mix-master" to tone down the 'verb on the vox earlier in the mixdown process but did anyone listen to me? I'm gonna print all this stuff out and rub it in their faces..so by all means, let it fly...

We weren't exactly mixing for a Grammy Award here as if you can't tell but I've heard worse crap over the radio making millions...

Thanks for the listen and comments no matter how bad they may be.

 

[Alchemist3k]

Work things out before posting a song sounding so awefull.

That's a bit out of order imo. It's not that bad. Also, learn to spell.

My constructive criticisms are:
1) the reverb on the vocals is aweful. Too much - less is more.
2) I like the solid state guitar sound. Turn it down a little, or use reverb to put them back in the mix a little. (Not to be rude but I have my doubts whether you already know how to do that technique if you're using software as basic as N-Track. There are posts on the board about it if you do a search.)
3) There are timing issues. It's only slight but the music does speed up and slow down a little bit.

All in all it's really not too bad.

 

[fritzmusic]

Alchemist3k:

Thanks for the listen and the critque without all the "distortion".

I've actually been working in digital with music for well over 7 years now and this particular mix is not well representative of MY mixing prowess at all, I was just literally "shooting in the dark" on the Paris DAW with the drums as that's the only hands-on I got with the song while our bassist mixed the rest. You would not believe the runaround you have to go through to get just a basic rough-sounding mix on a Paris DAW. Personally, I hate Paris but our bassist shelled out a gob of money on it and we politely obliged by recording on it and mixing while hammering out our learning curve on the system. Yeah if you think this sounds bad, you shoulda heard what we originaly started with. I know this is kinda drawn out and I hate making excuses but the sound really was awesome when we were monitoring to record but as soon as the audio hit the HDD, everything went to crap and we were recording at 24bit. The sound changed. Everything was changed internally by the Paris DAW and that was problem #1 but instead of trying to fix the friggin problem (against my voicing) everyone figured the sound would somehow magically fix itself if we threw enough effects at it. HA!

Actually from my experience, the sub $100 N-track software CAN perform effects routing functions much better than $1,000+ Paris will do but in a more straight-line workflow AND in real time. You'd really be surprised but then again, if you had to work with Paris, you'd understand. Paris only offer's mono directx/vst effects (per-mono track) while you can expand any mono track to stereo in N-track to utlize the stereo qualities of any DX/VST effects and that makes a huge difference for one. Paris is also limited on how many DirectX effects per track can be ran limiting you to 4 fx per track while n-track is only limited per track fx by your PC's processing power. Also, on Paris, one cannot "audition" all audio tracks with effects applied to see how it fits in the mix with everything else...you must SOLO each track, apply the effect, tweak it and hope it sits with the rest of the mix until you literally have to burn a new submix to see how your fx application sits with everything else. Paris is really goofy and I don't understand how anyone could run it in an efficient workflow manner after running N-track Studio. Yeah, N-track is cheaper but for what we do, it would fit our needs better as we're not trying to score to a movie with a symphony orchestra.

BTW, those guitars were running through a Marshall JCM 800 series tube amp...but I agree with you, it does sound solid-state. It was turned waaaay down (so not to distrub the neighbors) which I told them they needed to re-record without regard for the neighbors cranked up so they capture the warmth of those tubes but again, did anyone listen to me? Thanks for bringing that up.

As far as timing, I originally suggested we track my drums to metronome. We couldn't do even THAT in Paris without a crash-course in rocket science and we were pressed so bad for time by the time we got an audible signal intto Paris that I tracked the drums by themselves without playing along live or with a scratch track so we wouldn't risk getting any "bleed-through" of any other instruments that everyone else was so worried about although I had suggested that we at least plug a guitar pedal into a sub-mixer direct and just send me a moniitor mix through headphones. SO I played the drums totally by memory without any instuments. There were alot of really idiotic technical hurdles in this recording that shouldn't have even been an issue and it's a damn miracle the song turned out as well as it had so far.

I don't mind if people dog on me for the horrible quality. I've dogged on it plenty about the same things everyone else is bringing up but the rest of the band thinks I'm being either too picky or obstructionist. Thanks for all the comments and taking the time to listen. I truly believe this will help them open their eyes a little once they see I'm not the only one who has the same opinions that you guys are bringing up.