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moogyboy

moogyboy

New member
hey all

Since way back when I've added a few tracks to my Soundclick site:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/9/billspiropoulosmusic.htm

I'm quite aware that "Freedom Fried" is a lousy master because of my technical limitations at the time I mixed it; read the "story" for details. At any rate, that track is a mite incendiary so tread there with caution. The others are mercifully apolitical. :)

cheers

Billy S.
 
sorry, I couldn't get past the palm muting in before the first verse. I'm used to the DIY punkrock stuff so the quality dosen't bother me but the bad meter just kills it IMHO.
 
Ah well, I did say tread with caution. :) As for the weird meter, that's just me, straight 4/4 is too boring to my ears. Genres are made to be bent.

Correction, btw: each track on "Head Above Ground" has the echo, and I added global reverb to the final mix. I had it backwards.

cheers

Billy S.
 
Bringing this thread back up front here so hopefully SOMEONE will post some crit on my mixing for the three newer tracks--"Head Above Ground," "Freedom Fried," and "OLX." I realize that they're not what would be considered perfect, stellar mixes but there's something about the slightly rough edges that I like. And I think they turned out fairly well for quick 4-track recordings.

For all of them I used a single-drum-mic setup (an inexpensive CAD condensor mic) and premixed the drums and bass into one mono track, and I think I miked the guitar amp throughout as well. Bass is just DI with no compression. Since my rackmount effects processor isn't in service I had to add global reverb to my final mix, although I did patch my Dan-Echo pedal into the aux loop of my Portastudio for "Head Above Ground."

"Freedom Fried" is especially wacky because when I mixed it, I hadn't yet realized that I could plug my Portastudio into the 1/8" mic jack, so I used my old crappy method of simply mixing to mono, playing this through headphones, sticking my Apple Microphone into the earpiece, and praying for the best while I ran my recording software. I applied a little EQ and reverb, and it actually didn't turn out horrible--the slightly gritty sound quality lends itself to the song's DIY feel.

And of course, feel free to revisit that psyrupy-psychedelic favorite "Three Note Odyssey" which has already been critiqued in this forum.

All of this stuff is very low-tech and kludgey compared with what I imagine you guys do, but the end product is what matters. I did the best I could with what I had available; hopefully yall can offer your own opinions/advice.

thanks, and cheers

Billy S.
 
Three Note Odyssey: interesting layered arrangement. Nice combination of sonorities. Might want to tighten up the repetition to a shorter version to make it more casual-listener friendly. Since these are all streaming files the listener can't skip ahead if a section's losing their interest.

OLX: again, it might be practical to shorten the opening Morse Code as many listeners would click the stop button before the other instruments come in. When they do come in it gets pretty interesting and it's recorded well. Maybe the snare's a little too dominant in the mix after the first minute where the drums are rising in volume.

Head Above Ground: sounds like you're just having fun with this one and the loose vox intonation and drumset overall rhythm are along that line. I'm not a fan of recording ac gtrs from transducers, which is what it sounds like this one is. But the gtr's well played in a 60's jangly rhythm gtr style.

Tim
 
Timothy Lawler said:
I'm not a fan of recording ac gtrs from transducers, which is what it sounds like this one is. But the gtr's well played in a 60's jangly rhythm gtr style.

Tim
Click to expand...

Actually that's just a plain old strat copy played through my Peavey combo amp and miked. Bridge pickup, I think; kinda fits the sunny jangle-pop mood. I would have loved to play an electric 12-string on this track.

cheers

Billy S.
 
Ahh, yeah, that makes sense. Guess because I'm an ac gtr player I instinctively heard it that way.

Tim
 
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