Rise... working title anyway.

L

leaningpine

New member
Let me know what ya'll think,

I recorded this a couple of months ago with a friend of mine, drummer Kevin Brown, he's a much better drummer than I am! I played the bass and guitars and I'll be adding the vocals when I'm done with the words.

It was recorded live in one take, guitar and drums, then i added the bass, other rhythm guitars and the solo.

I mic'ed the drums using 2 large diaphragm AKG perception 100's over head, a 57 on the snare, kick and ride cymbal.

Guitars were direct from a line 6 flextone III

Gibson SG 61 re-issue

Ibanez mikro bass

I mixed them in adobe audition 3.0 on my poor mans monitor system ie: pioneer CS-J525's

I'm trying to deal with the speakers I have now because I don't have the money to plunk down on good monitors.

http://plunder.com/51b2d0c66a
 
You used only 1 mic for the kick, snare and ride? that's an odd configuration considering that the snare is at the other side of the ride (usually).

I didn't like the guitar sound, it's too fuzzy. I can't hear the bass, but i think that there is no much to do when you have many drum pieces in a single track... in overall you did the best anyone could do with that... maybe the guitars are buried under the drums...

You know, there are virtual instruments that will make your sound a lot better, specially for drums, you only will have to consider extra time programming the midi, but it worth it, check my signature, all my stuff are made with virtual drums, they sound great... even the bass is a virtual instrument.

Cheers.
 
I meant 3 57's on each, snare, kick and ride.

Bass is touchy, especially since I'm mixing on stereo speakers. There's a real fine line between too little and too much.

I'm trying to find a way to clear up the EQ of the instruments. I'm not sure how much my speakers are working against me because I don't have a frequency chart for them so I don't know how flat they are, or if they even are. I've read that the frequency response is 40hz-20khz so they've got a good range.

I don't EQ much, it's close to flat and I only cut freq's, never boost. I think I did a better job miking the drums on this tune than the other i have up, I'm thinking about re-doing that tune anyway.

I don't really care for virtual instruments. I like playing the real thing!
 
Pretty good start here. I notice the snare seems louder than everything else. Either less gain on the drums, or more on the guitars would help. The guitars are a little fizzy. Maybe just back off the distortion a click or two. There are some timing issues with the drums, like around 1:23 and 1:35 ish. Overall though, pretty good.
 
your guits are clipping and very thin during the intro.Prolly the amount of gain you got onto 'er.

Drums don't sound terrible . much better then most of my efforts.

but yea, your stringed stuff sounds thin. Hard to explain casue i am guilty of that as well. just not sure how to correct it either.

maybe someone can enlighten the both of us.


Possibly speakers. I don't have the best monitors. and it's intrsting that your guitars have that same thiness mine tend to take on.
 
I can hear this song sounding sick with a professional production job. I definitely dig the song.

That being said, it's being held back by the mix. Rhythm guitars? Way less gain, MUCH more body. I don't think this is something any amount of EQ will fix. Re-track with a tone that is much larger sounding. You want more lows, mids, less gain. Guitar driven music needs huge guitars. These guitars lack size and are too fizzy.

You might want to look into getting a drum vst like Steven Slate drums, and learning how to use a midi sequencer to write your drum tracks. I would recommend tabit (www.tabit.net) Essentially it's a stripped version of guitar pro, but it's really easy to use and will do everything you need for song-writing. When you are done with your song, you can export your drum track as a midi file, and load it directly into a drum vst. Whala, you have a pretty decent sounding drum track. With some tweaking and experience, you can get some REALLY pro sounding drum tracks. That's how I write and produce my drum tracks, and they sound pretty good if I do say so myself. www.myspace.com/shawkins8

The other approach is obviously to just keep working on micing drums and get better at that skill. That will definitely be both interesting and useful if you have any interests in being an audio engineer/producer some day.
 
Thanks alot everybody. I'm gonna try working on the mix throughout the week. I'll re-track the guitars possibly with a mic this time and the drums are definitely not sitting well. I got to listen on a set of KRK rokits last night and on these monitors there was very little bass, too much snare, the drums pretty much rode on top of everything else.

I'll get it one of these days!
 
you could always trigger midi snares and so on with the audio then you can blend the audio and midi hits together to your liking.
 
I'm definately liking where you are going with it. It's got a cool rhythm to it and that solo is pretty cool. I guess if you got a chance to listen to it on KRKs then you are hearing the same thing that I hear, but I don't really feel like I'm good enough to comment on mix other than I see what everybody else is saying about not enough bass and the guitars a little thin. I've been trying to get a little better about getting more punch out of my guitars lately too. What is that effect or whatever it is that you put on the guitar at the end of that solo?
 
The effect I use at the end of the solo is a modified Electro Harmonix deluxe memory man delay. I modified it so I could I could change the delay time with my foot via a wah pedal.

What does everyone think of the KRK's rokit 8's? Are they any good? I've only got about $300 or $400 bucks to work with. It's either these or Behringer Truth's.....
 
leaningpine said:
The effect I use at the end of the solo is a modified Electro Harmonix deluxe memory man delay. I modified it so I could I could change the delay time with my foot via a wah pedal.

What does everyone think of the KRK's rokit 8's? Are they any good? I've only got about $300 or $400 bucks to work with. It's either these or Behringer Truth's.....
Click to expand...

Cool effect I'll have to look that up. I've got the rockit 5's and I love them. I'm pretty new to actual recording but since I've had them I've actually made a mix that (to me at least) sounds pretty good on even my laptop speakers. I'm sure there are alot of different oppinions on the subject though. I got mine through musicians friend for about $300 and they came with auralex isolation pads. Good luck on your search.
 
leaningpine said:
The effect I use at the end of the solo is a modified Electro Harmonix deluxe memory man delay. I modified it so I could I could change the delay time with my foot via a wah pedal.

What does everyone think of the KRK's rokit 8's? Are they any good? I've only got about $300 or $400 bucks to work with. It's either these or Behringer Truth's.....
Click to expand...
I used to have a pair of Rokit 5's. They make good monitors for the money. If you are on a budget, you can't go wrong with them. As always, if you can demo them, make sure your mixes sound fine, it would be better.
 
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