New song! Critiques needed!

P

PhilLondon

New member
Hey!

No vocals as yet, but I've been working on this for a little while. EQed and compressed in places. I compressed and limited the Master channel as I felt fairly happy with the mix.

What do you guys think? How's the tone, the EQing, drums etc?

This is the newest version - https://soundcloud.com/demosandideas/untitled

Thanks.
 
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Cool tune, i like the arrangement.

I'd turn up the bass guitar, guitar tone sounds pretty good a touch dry for my taste. Are those real drums?
 
Thanks for sharing man, I'm digging it. Thoughts:

Intro guitar: Could use a faint delay to give it a little more space.
Bass: Seems like the right level, but it could use just a little more finger pop in the 1khz range
Rhythm guitars: Awesome sauce.
Drums: Kick and snare are fantastic. Hi hat sounds great but could come down 2-4db.

Arrangements thoughts: The intro could be half as long or less. I was digging it for about 15 seconds, and then I wanted the full band to come in. When it dragged on to 40 or more seconds, I would have turned it off if I weren't listening for the purpose of critique.

Thanks again!
 
Sorry Brian, didn't see your reply. What do you mean by a little more finger pop? You think I should boost a little at 1K?

I agree that it probably goes on a little too long on the verses.
 
Nice groove man. Song seems to have not much "power" meybe more compression and I gues its to empty but mix, guitars, drums sound very nice man.
 
Have you really? Congrats man. Get the Rig Exchange as soon as you can, there's a lot of great profiles, sort via rating and get the Morgan and Princeton profiles for a start. Also, check out wiKPA
 
Main link seems to lead to a 404. Listened to the one in post 8.

Nice canvas for vocals. Good grooves and lots of potential for an infectious chorus.

The basic character of the initial guitar tone is really nice, but it seems 'honky', which usually indicates a build up in the 650 - 850 range. It's not the hard panned guitars. Those are more 'internally balanced'. That guitar features a lot of super sweet licks! That is some really cool playing with great feel.

The bass seems a bit 'burpy'. I'm getting that everywhere, but when it is bare, it can really be heard. It's supporting the song pretty well and has nice punch, but it's missing something. I am at a tiny bit of a loss for what that 'something' might be though. I'm sorry, that's not too helpful, is it? The bass seems to be skewed towards the upper end of the lows or even prominent in the low mids. Perhaps that is what I'm hearing.

Snare seems a little too 'steady freddy'. Same sample over and over it seems. That's not necessarily a terrible thing, but it is noticeable. It's really noticeable in the burpy bass bit.

The kick has a really nice sound/feel to it.

Overall, this sounds like it's going to be a very cool tune. Really needs the vocals. Can't go too far in the mix without them, I suppose. When are you planning on getting them done?

I like this a lot. Nice job.
 
PhilLondon said:
Sorry Brian, didn't see your reply. What do you mean by a little more finger pop? You think I should boost a little at 1K?

I agree that it probably goes on a little too long on the verses.
Click to expand...

1khz is the frequency where finger noise is found on bass guitar. Boost there to bring out some pop. Maybe 2db.
 
kindafishy said:
]The basic character of the initial guitar tone is really nice, but it seems 'honky', which usually indicates a build up in the 650 - 850 range. It's not the hard panned guitars. Those are more 'internally balanced'. That guitar features a lot of super sweet licks! That is some really cool playing with great feel.
Click to expand...

Perhaps I should look at cutting in that range then?

kindafishy said:
The bass seems a bit 'burpy'. I'm getting that everywhere, but when it is bare, it can really be heard. It's supporting the song pretty well and has nice punch, but it's missing something. I am at a tiny bit of a loss for what that 'something' might be though. I'm sorry, that's not too helpful, is it? The bass seems to be skewed towards the upper end of the lows or even prominent in the low mids. Perhaps that is what I'm hearing.
Click to expand...

I hear the 'burpy' nature of the bass now that you mention it! I'll have a little look into it. Any EQ tips for that?

kindafishy said:
Snare seems a little too 'steady freddy'. Same sample over and over it seems. That's not necessarily a terrible thing, but it is noticeable. It's really noticeable in the burpy bass bit.
Click to expand...

I can't do a huge amount about that unless I change the snare which will completely change the sound from one hit to the other. The snare does change from the verses to the choruses as the intensity of the hit increases, but aside from that it kinda has to stay the same.

kindafishy said:
The kick has a really nice sound/feel to it.

Overall, this sounds like it's going to be a very cool tune. Really needs the vocals. Can't go too far in the mix without them, I suppose. When are you planning on getting them done?

I like this a lot. Nice job.
Click to expand...

Thanks! It means a lot. I'm hoping to get some vocals down within a couple of weeks. I feel like every song I'm doing I'm getting better and learning more, so much that when I listen to mixes from just a couple of weeks ago I've had to redo them because they sound so bad!
 
My only suggestions would be to halve the intro or introduce some sort of change to it and, as
Bass is dominant, you may need to thin it a little.
 
Listened to it again. Still like it. I really like the dry, up-front character of the guitars. The one nit I would have is the part where the kick drops out, the cymbals are a little too much at that point.
 
rayc said:
My only suggestions would be to halve the intro or introduce some sort of change to it and, as
Bass is dominant, you may need to thin it a little.
Click to expand...

They'll be vocals at that point. 2 bars of intro and 4 of verse. It'll be fine with vocals. Obviously now it's long and boring without the vocals, but I'm confident that it will make sense with vocals.

paparoof said:
Listened to it again. Still like it. I really like the dry, up-front character of the guitars. The one nit I would have is the part where the kick drops out, the cymbals are a little too much at that point.
Click to expand...

Thanks man, I appreciate it. Where the kick drops out? You mean the bridge bit later on in the song? The kick is still there, quite noticeable for me.
 
PhilLondon said:
Perhaps I should look at cutting in that range then?
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Totally a personal choice. If you are happy with the current tone, then leave it. If it was sitting on my desk, I'd figure out an area there to cut, yeah. I think it would 'open up' that guitar tone in a really nice way. Find the right frequency and you'll likely only need a dB or two. Play around with the Q. All to taste.

PhilLondon said:
I hear the 'burpy' nature of the bass now that you mention it! I'll have a little look into it. Any EQ tips for that?
Click to expand...

Difficult to say without knowing the difference between your source and what you've got now. Is the current tone really close to what you captured, or is it pretty heavily EQ'd at this point? I'd probably look at reducing the signal around 200Hz with a moderately narrow cut and give a very generous boost around 800Hz or so using a very wide bell. I think the 'burpiness' comes from having a lot of upper bass (frequency), and maybe needing much more presence. Mind you, this is just based on what's going on in my head so go with your gut first (and I'd put money on other folks disagreeing with me). It's worth playing around with to see if you like how it changes things, but keep your old settings handy just in case - maybe with a different EQ instance altogether so you can easily A/B back and forth.

PhilLondon said:
I can't do a huge amount about that unless I change the snare which will completely change the sound from one hit to the other. The snare does change from the verses to the choruses as the intensity of the hit increases, but aside from that it kinda has to stay the same.
Click to expand...

I'm not at all familiar with the Logic drum samples. With programs that I am familiar with, varying the midi velocity will cause the drum program to vary the samples (same drum, different hits). Does it have some sort of 'humanizing' function to it?

PhilLondon said:
Thanks! It means a lot. I'm hoping to get some vocals down within a couple of weeks. I feel like every song I'm doing I'm getting better and learning more, so much that when I listen to mixes from just a couple of weeks ago I've had to redo them because they sound so bad!
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that ever ends ;). I have a very long way to go myself. I've pretty recently gotten to the point of being able to tolerate my mixes somewhat, but when I listen to a mix from a year ago... fuggedaboutit.
 
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