Please comment on song, need some input.

C

coolsoundman

New member
Hey folks,

This is my second hand on recording with some new equipment and learning my way around Sonar. The song is called "Open the eyes of my heart". It is a Christian song, but we recorded it our way. It is still in its raw form, not mastered yet. I have done a lot of eq'ing on the channel strips and added some compression and some sound effects. I don't know what more to add or take away from the mix. For now, the bass guitar still sounds a little muffle and the drums are too. But with my monitors, it sounds great. So please, give me some feed back on this. Thanks.:D

www.myspace.com/grupogenesissanangelotx
 
This is soley subjective because it's a known fact that myspace sucks for audio, but...

A little, no scratch that, waaaay too much mid and low range mud. And the guitar licks in the right channel are buried deep in the mix.

The mud is coming from too many instruments competing for the same freq ranges.

On a performance note, the performance is tight and the singing spot on.

PM on the way....
 
My two cents:

I really enjoyed the natural sound of the vocals, clear but not hyped, very nice.

The muddy bass seems to be stepping on everything. You may want to pull it down in the mix and see if you other instruments pop a little more. If you can retrack the bass with a better sound, that would help alot.

For me the vocals were just a hair too loud. They seemed "out" of the mix.

The arrangement and alternate chord progressions were a cool touch, new life for this old tune.

ac
 
ok, here's another take on the mix. I had my brother come over and give a listen to the song. he gave me some pointers on what to do. i tried to do what he wanted me to do and i ended up tweaking and readjusting a whole lot more. for vocals, i added eq, compress then the reverb in the bus. i guess what helped was that i added eq on the mains channel. you know the default eq at the top of the strip. i also added a compressor on the effects, and some how it sounded pretty good. i did three takes on the song, please let me know which one sounds better. oh, almost forgot, on the last take i lowered the bass guitar a bit, hope it helped with the overpowering of the song.
again, i posted them on myspace, sorry.

www.myspace.com/grupogenesissanangelotx
 
ok, so nobody's responded yet. Just to let you guys know, i only put two demos. one is where i didn't add any eq'ing to the master slider. after i did that, it sounded rather much better. i also toned down the bass guita so where it won't be overpowering th song. it's in the same web site, sorry, but give me some input on it. thanks.
www.myspace.com/grupogenesissanangelotx
 
I know this song--I've sung it and played it and led it enough of times! I like what you've done with it.

I'd agree with the others about the confluence of "muddy" frequencies. I'd also bring up the lead guitar that's weaving in and out with the vocals--worship music needs more musical edge--not less.

And I love the hammond-eque organ treatment. That sounds great throughout!

So open the mix up and get some more mid-high to high frequencies in there. Keep going, it's sounding good!
 
The cymbals are a bit harsh. There were def some timing issues that could use a fixin.

Try a de-esser on the vox too
 
I am in the Philippines right now... SonicFlood is on the way to do a concert here. I am hearing this song on the radio everywhere I go...

I listened to your new mix. You're getting there, but remember that every member of a praise and worship band is important in their own right, so give them all some space in the mix (the lead guitar is buried as if you don't really want it heard). I was bassist for a couple years, and soundman for a year in our church before I retired from the Navy and moved to the Philippines. We played this song a lot. It can be a real crowd mover if done right. You are almost there...
 
on the lead guitar, i was trying to hide it in the back ground. almost unnoticable, that was my brother's idea was. i'm trying to make it sound like its way in the back of the mix as to surprise the listener to kind of notice that there is a guitar playing back.
on another point, when you said that there were still some mids that were trying to overpower. can you try to pinpoint or sort of point to where i need to adjust. my monitors are the Event tuned reference monitors, and with them it sounds pretty good. And when I added the eq on the slider channel of the master strip, it started to sound a lot more clearer. i also added compression on this channel as well. Unless i'm missing something on another channel. i've got two sub channels for the drum mix and almost one for every instrument being played. the vocals i only added very little reverb and some compression. i'd like to tweak it up some more, but i just don't want to screw up what i have done already. but thanks for the input.:D
 
On the verse, the hi hat seems to be getting in the way of the vocals. If you have the capacity to duck the hats while the vocals are going, that would help.

I'd also pick some of the more tasty lead guitar lines and bring them out. Then delete the rest of them... but that's just personal taste.

Oh, and one tip for your drummer (which I had to remind myself this morning as I was playing drums at church)- the coolest rhythm in the world is not very cool if it distracts from the rest of the groove - ie hi hat in verse 1. It really just makes him sound like his timing was off- though on the second listen I could tell that those were just cool syncopations. By ducking as mentioned before, you can probably clean up some of that yourself.
 
I listened to #3.... I agree the hihats are distracting but so is the snare when it comes in. The drums tracks could go down a hair IMHO. The rest of the instruments seem rather buried (guitar/organ). You can't hear them well when the vocals are going. Good point about editting the guitar track and bring it up/in/out around the vocal lines. Great vocal delivery/recording. Bass is better on the #3 version...:D:):D:)
 
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