New Song "Moving On" - Looking for Mix Feedback

dewhitt

dewhitt

Dave DeWhitt
Hi All,

Here is a new song called Moving On that I just finished. I'm looking for mix feedback and any comments are welcome. This is my first time recording a uke, so curious to see if it turned out ok.

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10626552

Based on some of the comments below, I figured I'd also add a link to a mix without any stereo output processing or compression:

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=10629279

Best Regards,

Dave DeWhitt
 
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Great vocals on this Dave. Very tight and professional sounding performance and arrangement.

Since you asked about the uke, I actually thought it sounded a bit odd in a processed kind of way...may just be me or the 128mp3, but it didn't seem to ring out at all but sounded almost like it was heavily gated? I dunno if I can explain it properly, but that was what struck me. Probably wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't asked and it wasn't in the forefront there a couple of times. I'd be curious to know how you captured the uke and what if any processing was done.

Very well done though and thanks for posting.
 
Great song. You continue to write at a professional level. I really think your stuff deserves some airplay and I hope you get that someday.

I'd like to hear this song without being squashed flat. It's a very dense mix to begin with and then it is flatlined through a limiter. Have you been doing this with your previous songs?? Give this mix some room to breathe and let the different elements shine.

It's a great song.
 
Hey, thanks Pete and Dave, I appreciate the listens and the feedback.

Pete, I agree about the ukelele...I am not sure if it's the one I bought, the way I'm playing it, or the way I recorded it, but it kind of sounds that way dry - muted and not really ringing out. Not being a ukelele player, and also not really having that much experience with how they are supposed to sound, I wasn't sure if it was off or not. I basically just stood in front of a Mojave MA201 fet LDC pointed at the sound hole and strummed it with my fingers. I think the mic is doing a pretty good job of capturing my playing, so maybe I need to try to retrack it and let the notes ring out a little more. I'll definitely play around with that. Thanks for the feedback!

Dave, yeah, this mix has a compressor on the stereo bus and there is quite a bit of makeup gain applied because the mix was peaking pretty low. I'm getting ready to submit this one and a bunch of others to have them mastered, so hopefully the mastering house can take the unprocessed tracks and make them sound better than what I've done here. I've kind of done the same thing with my previous songs on the mix bus, but all of my tracks were mixed at different levels (rookie mistake, I guess), so I've been going back and trying to get them all peaking comfortably below zero so that the mastering engineers have some room to work. This will be the first time I've had anything mastered too, so hopefully this is the right approach (based on what I've read it seems like it is).

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Best,

Dave
 
Thinking a little more about my post above...I guess in hindsight it's kind of stupid to ask for mix feedback and then admit that I've thrown a compressor on the stereo bus and squashed the crap out of it. Maybe I should post the uncompressed track to get pre-mastering feedback?

Still learning,

Dave
 
I like it dude, but the vocals get buried at times. The BG vocals I can just barely hear. But it's yours and it is a really great song and it may be exactly like you want it. So take it with a grain of salt.
 
dewhitt said:
I basically just stood in front of a Mojave MA201 fet LDC pointed at the sound hole and strummed it with my fingers.
Click to expand...

Hmmm...so certainly not over-processed. It sounds like your technique is fine. I just listened again and it really isn't bad at all. I'm just nitpicking. Maybe it is just a product of the overall compression of the master on that one instrument when it is out front?

dewhitt said:
Thinking a little more about my post above...I guess in hindsight it's kind of stupid to ask for mix feedback and then admit that I've thrown a compressor on the stereo bus and squashed the crap out of it. Maybe I should post the uncompressed track to get pre-mastering feedback?

Still learning,

Dave
Click to expand...

There was a long, heated thread about that a while back. While I don't advocate "squashing the crap out of it", I think it is fine to do whatever "mastering" you normally do before asking for mix advice.

You want it to sound the way you envisioned it when people listen, so giving it that final polish makes sense. If you're like me, your "mastering process" isn't all that extensive, so if you go back and remix and have to "remaster" again, no big deal.

I don't know how much we differentiate the two processes in the clinic. People post everything from garage practices to finished, released material. As long as it sounds good, I don't think anyone cares how much, or how little processessing has taken place.

In short, just post whatever you think sounds best :).
 
Yeah, dude... When I first listened to this, I thought the Uke sounded good. Then I compared it to "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz (one of my favorites), and realized it actually sounds really good! Seems like Uke's are muted by default. Take with a grain of salt, because I know nothing of Uke's, but the one Jason Mraz recorded... and I think he might know what he's doing. :) Yours sounds great in comparison.

Anyway... After that, and the band came in, I've gotta be honest. Something seemed off. A song like this, singing about moving on, and Uke's and guitars 'n' such should sound natural, in my opinion. This song sounded pretty processed, and as others have mentioned, a bit stifled. It's like this song is trying so hard to be something, it forgets what it is. Let it breathe... Let it move and flow. Make it sound effortless and free. (reading that last stuff, I realize it makes no sense, but.... ah well)

As far as posting mastered stuff, I do it all the time. I want people to judge my works as I want them to be heard. I squash the crap out of my stuff. I know a lot of others do too. I see no problem.

Great concept for a song, dude. Keep at it. Performances are top notch.
 
Impressive

You have some real talent. One of the best I've heard on this site in my short time here.
I also listened to the other track on Soundclick. Great guitar lick. You should repurpose that for a stronger song. Again,... impressive.
 
Thanks Trumpino, I appreciate the feedback. I did pull those BGVs way down...I had gotten really used to hearing this tune with no BGVs at all, just the single lead line, and I really was debating about keeping it simple like that, but then I added them to make the tune more stylistically consistent with the other songs I'm working on for the album. You aren't the first person to say the BGV levels are low, so I might have to revisit for the next mix.

Pete, thanks for the comments on mastering. I can't wait to hear what a real mastering engineer does with my stuff, I just hope I don't mess the mixes up too badly to start with :) I guess I'm going to be spending some time perusing the mastering forum to see if I can get some guidance on how to best prepare my mixes, etc.

Hey Jason, thanks for the feedback, man. I'm not sure how much I can really change the flow of the song at this point, but I get what you are saying. The way I record my tunes at the moment makes it tough to get that truly natural feel I think. Luckily, for the style I'm in, I'm ok with that :) I'm trying to get this set of songs done and put them out as an album later this summer, and then once that's finished 1) relax for a bit and have a few drinks to celebrate, and 2) start over with a different style and recording approach. I'm thinking that my next set of tunes will be a little more raw and bluesy, and I'm hoping to write with live drums and bass in the same room and then record that way, so we'll see if that gets closer to the moving and flowing you describe above. As always, thanks for the thoughtful feedback.

Best,

Dave
 
I just added a link above to a mix without any stereo mix processing. It's not as loud, but sounds better...maybe? :)

Best,

Dave
 
Hey Dave - Great song and your voice has a great timbre on this tune. I listened to both versions - twice as nice! :) Everything was just so....crisp and clear, you can hear everything (except some of the back ups) so up close in the comp mix. The no comp mix was a little subdued, but I liked it overall...a bit warmer. Was there any track/inst. compression on the no comp mix, or did you just take off the final peak/squash master compression?
Nice Uke playin', my fingers are too big for those tiny things.
:):D:cool:
 
Hey Brad, thanks man. Yeah, I have compression on the individual tracks and I left that alone and just took off the master output compressor. It's a subtle difference (other than the volume) but I think it sounds nicer without. I'm hoping a good ME can take that and work some magic on it without squashing it like I did :)

Best,

Dave
 
I think it sounds much better. No distortion or clipping. I can hear the BGV's better now.
and I didn't even turn the volume knob up so not much difference in volume. :)

thanks for sharing.
 
This was very well done, and I like the "unmastered" version better.

So what did you use on this? I haven't been hanging out in the clinic for some time now, so I'm not familiar with your stuff, but you're obviously loaded with talent. What are you using for the guitar tracks? Drums?

One of my kids actually saved up for and purchased a uke...he plays the hell out of it. I have no idea why, lol.

Anyway, feel free to ignore the questions if you've answered them before. Nice work.
 
dewhitt said:
I just added a link above to a mix without any stereo mix processing. It's not as loud, but sounds better...maybe? :)

Best,

Dave
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think that sounds better. A little more natural sounding this way. The cymbals in particular sound way better. I kinda liked the way your vocals popped more out front on the first mix though :). Well done.
 
Cool, thanks guys. I am feeling it more with the uncompressed version too. I think I may do one more mix with the BGVs up about .5 dB and then call it done.

Hey Chris, thanks for the kind words. Not sure how much detail you want, but you asked, so here goes... :)

I use a Line6 Toneport UX8 as the main interface to my DAW, which is Logic on a Mac. I run my guitars, bass, and mics into the Toneport and then process them with Pod Farm. It's been a learning process, and still is, to figure out how to get halfway decent guitar tones. Generally what I do now is use the neck pup on my strat and put that through a Soldano SLO 100 model in Pod Farm with the gain/drive way down and the treble and presence backed off too. I also usually turn the volume knob on my guitar down to about 6 for rhythms and about 8 or 9 for leads. I'm liking the tones I'm getting this way, even though they're still not anything to write home about, but they are not fizzy and hard on the ears like the tones I used to get with everything cranked up. Bass is straight into the UX8 with a Silverface Bass Model (not sure what this is modeled on...?), and real drums are a relatively recent addition to my studio. I mic the drums with a Glenn Johns/Recorderman hybrid type setup, and I try to pay attention to the overheads especially to make sure they are in phase. Overhead mics are Avantone CK-1s, I have a Shure Beta 58 (ugh) in the kick and an SM57 on the snare. I generally blend the recorded kick and snare with some Steven Slate samples that are triggered, because my lame kick and snare mics, lousy room, ok preamps, and complete lack of any outboard compressors, etc, make it pretty difficult to get the type of tones I'm looking for without cheating. I also use parallel compression on my kick and snare in general when I mix drums. My vocal chain is a Mojave MA201 fet LDC into the Line6 UX8. I usually compress my vocals in Pod Farm and put them through a console preamp model (not sure what console it's modeled on...). Acoustic guitar, when I rarely record it, is mic'd with the Mojave and then double tracked. The ukelele was a cheap one I actually bought last year for my wife (at HER request, I promise), but she never plays it, so I decided to give it a whirl. I recorded that the same way I do my acoustic, just standing right in front of the Mojave with the mic pointed at the sound hole.

So, as you can see, I rely on a lot of modeling "stuff" for what I'm doing, and in general I think it's pretty cool. However, if I had the money I'd certainly opt for a more "real" approach with everything. I'd love to have a real Soldano SLO 100 for instance and mic that bad boy up with a nice ribbon into a great preamp. Not happening anytime soon though, so I'm making the best of what I have. Ditto with drums, vocals, etc. I'm sure we're all in the same boat though, so I'll stop the pity party now :)

Anyway, I hope I didn't make you sorry for asking...lol.

Thanks again guys!

Best,

Dave
 
dewhitt said:
Anyway, I hope I didn't make you sorry for asking...lol.


Dave
Click to expand...

Not at all, man. This is why I listen to tunes in the clinic.

As far as opting for a more "real" approach, I'm not sure it's better in the recording world. Modelers have gotten soooooo much better in the past couple of years. That stuff never works well for me in a live setting (except for a Line 6 Variax Acoustic...I love that thing). Anyway, I had a Pod a few years ago, and it always seemed to just get lost in the mix on stage, but for recording, I think it's hard to beat the convenience and quality of a lot of guitar modelers.

I really assumed the drums were ezdrummer, because they sounded so good. The blended samples sound great and make sense, and I'm really jealous of you guys that play drums.

Personally, I'm working with Guitar Rig 4 as of late. It just sounds better than the recorded sounds out of my amp. I mean, I like the way my amp sounds in the room, but no matter how much I dial back the distortion for recording purposes, it just comes across as small unless I use a modeler.

Anyway, I appreciate you taking the time to explain your setup. You've really got a great voice, and you're capturing your sound very well in my opinion.
 
Cool to hear that you like your Variax. Yeah, I have to admit, the new JTV59 Variax has caught my eye a little bit. I've been playing a couple of acoustic cover shows a month or so in local watering holes with a buddy of mine, and I usually bring an acoustic and an electric just to mix it up a bit. That new JTV looks really nice, has real pickups in it, and aside from the models and the acoustic tones built in, the thing that really has me liking the idea is the immediate tuning changes and the digital capo. Man, I can see situations live where that would be really sweet, especially the tuning thing...my originals are pretty varied with tunings and capo...i have a couple of songs in DADGAD, one with drop D, and one or two with a capo. Being able to use that one guitar to do it all would be pretty amazing. It's got me thinking :)

Best,

Dave
 
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