Life on Venus

Anders Erisian

Anders Erisian

XLIII
Hey all, just been mucking around with this track i threw together on Sunday night.
Not so much a song as a nonsense rhyme to music, I've already spent probably more time than it's worth on trying to get a mix that sounds ok, and I've got other things to move on to. Played it to a couple of friends, usual friend responses including 'i wouldn't share stuff like that'. Not the best source of criticism on the mix itself. But i usually stick to instrumentals, so i was wondering how this vocal sat in the mix, more than anything, it's pretty flakey, but i resisted the urge to bury it. The overall sound of the piece would probably never fit a 'modern' mix, but i thought this is about as good as i could get. Just trying to learn a bit by heading somewhere unfamiliar, any other observations or criticisms more than welcome before this one hits the archive - negative feedback is probably more useful in 'problem based learning' for me :thumbs up:

 
I don't know, I like buried vocals but this one sounds kind of quiet and has a different sense of space than the rest of the song... some compression, verb, EQing might help, and a more enthusiastic performance. The ending seems abrupt, don't know if you care.
 
The vocals are way too ow for me. Can't understand a word. I personally don't see the point in burying vocals.

Mix wise, it kinda sounds like it was thrown together in a hurry but it's not too bad. I'd like to hear it with the vocals sat nicely on top of the mix. You could maybe drop the drums down a touch too, they're very dominant to the point of almost over-powering everything else. (They might not seem that way with a clearer vocal in the mix)

That's all I got. :thumbs up:
 
Mr Clean said:
The vocals are way too ow for me. Can't understand a word. I personally don't see the point in burying vocals.

Mix wise, it kinda sounds like it was thrown together in a hurry but it's not too bad. I'd like to hear it with the vocals sat nicely on top of the mix. You could maybe drop the drums down a touch too, they're very dominant to the point of almost over-powering everything else. (They might not seem that way with a clearer vocal in the mix)

That's all I got. :thumbs up:
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Thanks man! The last change in the mix i made was to drop the vocal pretty significantly, i guess i did bury it after all. I was fooling around with the drums, i'd usually pull them back a bit more, they are over the top - obviously too much so. They definitely were less obtrusive in the mix with the vocal sitting higher. Thanks for helping out.

fat_fleet said:
I don't know, I like buried vocals but this one sounds kind of quiet and has a different sense of space than the rest of the song... some compression, verb, EQing might help, and a more enthusiastic performance. The ending seems abrupt, don't know if you care.
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Yeah, definitely an abrupt ending. I thought the vocal was a bit loud, it does have a bit of verb, comp and eq, but i know what you mean about the differing sense of space, maybe I'll just notch up the wet mix on the reverb. I agree on the underenthusiastic performance, but i should have put more into that, and I might have another crack at re recording something more convincing. thanks for the perspective.
 
Well after the couple of replies I got about this, i thought i would have a go at improving the vocal. I retracked about ten takes ended up choosing the best three panned about a bit for a trebled vocal effect. After what was said about the vocal not having the same 'space' as the rest of the piece, which is sort of washy and verby anyway, but not up front at the same time, it was a challenge to reconcile those two almost contradictory things, and this is what i came up with. I turned the drums down a bit too. I've listened to this now enough times to really start to dislike it, it's a sad cliche, well it seemed like a good idea at the time. I think the vocal is too loud now, but the lyric should be intelligible. That's about all i wanted to know.

Regardless, i've learnt a few things from this, mostly canning any idea of singing, I'll never be any good at it but more so i just don't enjoy the process of trying to record my own voice, and the whole one man band with a robot drummer thing anymore, good way to practice and improv, but the results are usually meh. It's all become a computer game for me, and it is fun, but pretty antisocial. I have a friend who lives 10k up the road who is a brilliant drummer/percussionist, and i'm sitting here programming samplers and noodling around on guitars/basses for hours while he's sitting there smoking cigarettes and watching TV, and noise making is no issue where we live :facepalm:. Also learnt to steer clear of this psychedelic space-hippie nonsense.

So if anyone cares this is the final mix - this is dead to me now hahaha so if it sounds totally off i don't mind if you say so, If i post anything here again hopefully it will be more real.
 
I thought the second mix was an improvement. I still think the synths are competing too much with the vocal.

The other thing I noticed was that the bass and drums were not locked in with each other. The line the bass is playing doesn't mesh well with the drum pattern. The rhythm of the song, as a result, is a little messy.
 
Drums. Low smoky vocal. Keys space.

What's not to like? Don't like it? Follow the chord changes then. Follow the groove if the changes seem so insubstantial.

Follow the arrangement if all else fails. It's magic.

I'll come back and comment on the mix later. I got lost in the tune.
 
Thanks for listening guys. I agree that the ambient synth is probably too loud, but it was only a db or 3 either side of where its at and it either became lost or drowned everything, not much leeway and i tried to go for the middle ground. Trying to notch it out with eq just didn't seem to work either, it just sort of sounded incomplete. The rhythm is a bit of a mess, i tracked the bass to the drum track, i was just practicing really and hit record on what seemed like a cool sounding 'groove', just one take through and i hadn't even 'warmed up', apologies for that. Definitely out of synch with the kick, sounds more connected to the snare and hats to me, which is probably unorthodox, don't know what i was thinking there, i think i wanted it to be a bit 'bouncy'. I blame the rigidity of sequenced drums, no matter how humanised, the grid always wins ;) The call and response between the organ and guitar is a bit shonky timing wise too.

As far as what dobro said goes, i appreciate that feedback. Dislike is a bit strong maybe, probably more just overexposed to focusing on what i saw as a weakness.I admit my reason for posting this was as much to get some insight into how i was going in overcoming the limitations of my mixing environment and gear. Nearest i have to 'modern' studio monitors is an old set of homebuilt LS3/5a clones, hardly ideal. I can get a mix ok on those, but the rest is all referencing, luckily i have quite a collection of old hi-fi gear too. I'll be building a dedicated recording space in a couple of years time, but i fully intend to work with what i have now. I know this wouldn't suit many people's tastes, but to know that it was at least listenable, is pretty good validation for something a bit rough. Thanks for that.

I'm going to muster up a few locals and do some recording, mostly acoustic instruments, but i'll try my best to twist them out of their 'folksy' ways, but i don't want to waste anyone's time if all that comes out of it is totally unlistenable production wise. Got a couple of projects started already, but stalled, I'll probably come back and post some mixes as they start to flesh out a bit more, and continue to loiter here, given i haven't totally alienated myself yet. Thanks again for the comments.
 
Anders Erisian said:
As far as what dobro said goes, i appreciate that feedback. Dislike is a bit strong maybe, probably more just overexposed to focusing on what i saw as a weakness.I admit my reason for posting this was as much to get some insight into how i was going in overcoming the limitations of my mixing environment and gear. Nearest i have to 'modern' studio monitors is an old set of homebuilt LS3/5a clones, hardly ideal. I can get a mix ok on those, but the rest is all referencing, luckily i have quite a collection of old hi-fi gear too. I'll be building a dedicated recording space in a couple of years time, but i fully intend to work with what i have now. I know this wouldn't suit many people's tastes, but to know that it was at least listenable, is pretty good validation for something a bit rough. Thanks for that.
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I have no idea what you're saying here. Are you making excuses? Anyway, to clarify: I like the tune, but I think the vocal should be clearer. Did you mix it low so that people couldn't make out the words? Don't do that. :)

See, I promised I'd come back and comment on the mix. I think the vocal should be more prominent.
 
Haha yeah, i might have come off a bit insecure amongst all that, but in all honesty, i just meant that I'm capable of producing sounds that i am pretty happy with myself and really don't perceive any serious deficiencies in my gear to inhibit that. So that adjustments to a mix could be discussed, as opposed to just 'it sounds bad', which can be fair comment in some cases, gives some affirmation to that belief. Too much reading of audio forums probably. I didn't think this was unlistenable, but surely posting on a public forum like this is a good way to throw it to the lions.

As far as the vocal goes, i did want people to be able to understand the words, but i think it's more a case of the lack of enunciation/vocal talent than anything in the mix. I thought it was prominent, but i know the words. But it is revealing that so much weight is placed on vocals, even what amounts to a nonsense lyric. I'd happily have left this as an instrumental, but i just felt like having some fun trying to do something different and a bit challenging. And it was fun, which i really is most of the point of music, and i definitely learnt from it. Oh, promises in either direction have always made me a little uncomfortable, but i appreciate the sentiment, and the opinion anyway :)
 
There's a lot I liked about this Anders - guitar tones sound good and the bass groove rolls along really nicely. I see you're asking more for critiques for future reference than this current mix. The main thing that stood out is that there are a few timing issues throughout - one being that the vocals are a bit behind the rest of the groove in spots.

You mention that it's just a nonsense rhyme set to music and I wonder if you improvised the lines as you went along - because it reminds me of when I sing random lyrics over an instrumental to find the meter or melody. Because I'm not sure of where I'm going next I end up picking phrases that don't quite fit or miss the timing spot that I eventually get with practice?

There are spots of the instrumentation where the timing is off a little too - possibly for the same reason? I don't think there's any reason to feel self-conscious or down on your vocal abilities on this showing though. Hating any mix that you've just recently completed is a perfectly natural emotion... :D
 
Thanks Rob, you pretty much nailed it there, very much a spur of the moment thing, and those timing glitches are my mental latency overriding my lookahead capability musically :)

Musically everything i have been recording for the last 12 months has been pretty much of this nature. My guitar, bass and keyboard chops probably suck more than my recording chops, i always struggled playing with other musicians who are much better than me, but after putting some serious time in, still mediocre but i'm starting to feel like i can sort of keep up and fit in, and sometimes even lead the way. I don't really write songs except by accident. This particular one i had been mucking around with drum samples, trying to find some new sounds to inspire me, it's actually two 'kits' playing in unison in this track, which is why it might be a bit dominating, but i thought it would be a challenge to mix anything with such heavy drums. I'd spent a couple of hours playing around with the balance and writing the midi sequences and just picked up the bass next to me and started noodling. Decided to flesh it out a bit so it wasn't a complete waste of time. I could have spent some time cutting and pasting everything to time, but that was never the objective, and the vocal aspect took over for me.

Thanks for the general appraisal though, I'll chalk this mix up as a moderate success from now on, I'll keep on singing, and won't use all my guitars for firewood quite yet, spring is here anyway :)
 
I pretty much agree with what's been said about the mix...vocals are buried.
As far as the tune goes...it's weird sounding and that's what I like about it. I like the weirder stuff. (For instance my favorite song on the led zeps houses of the Holy album is "The crunge").

You have your own sound and groove. You don't sound like everyone else and I really dig that.
cool song.
 
Thanks for that Jimi, at the very least it's good to hear I don't sound like i'm ripping anyone off, and have started to develop my own sound. I've always had a thing for weird stuff too, especially when an artist not known for weirdness steps outside of what you would normally expect from them. Bit of that going on for me too, normally guitars for me are either barre chords and fuzz or classical style fingerpicking and pure, this is sort of somewhere in the middle.

Went through a phase of listening to late 60's 'psychedelic' jazz/funk/rock B-music lately, stuff like Rolf and Joachim Kuhn, Lee Selmoco, even Sam Spence, pretty obscure and dated, and that seems to have rubbed off a bit. Always loved that syncopation and melodic bass grooves to back up all the flowery and excessive guitar, organ and brass soloing. I also blame my old man, he was a Jazz&Big band nut, and worked in the heyday of broadcast radio here in the 60's&70's, and had a massive record collection. As a kid i thought this is what everyone listened to, then I heard the Ramones & the Sex Pistols..... second album i ever bought was Never Mind the Bollocks (first was a compilation called breakdance), and I'll never forget the look on his face when he asked me what record i'd bought. At least all those influences don't sound like a complete mish mash to some people.
 
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