some new experimental hardcore keyboard rock

T

thecugga

New member
whats up everyone

last time i had just received my first pieces of recording equipment (2 condensers, mixer and soundcard) and i recorded a tune right away and posted it on here. i thought it was awesome ... turns out it wasnt nearly as good as i thought and it was ripped apart by everyone ... which is cool, its all constructive...
but ive had about a month or so with this equipment to hone my skills and i know ive improved. now its time to find out by how much??? i tried to follow the advice given to me last time around.

also, i'll say right off the bat that i need a snare mic and i dont like how the snare sounds in this recording.

the tune is called "(NEW) the portico project - as pathetic as her cover stories"
the link is www.purevolume.com/mlviiwheredreamscometodie

you can stream it and it'll sound like crap, or you can download the highest quality VBR encoded mp3.

if people could give me some input on what im doing right and what im doing wrong that would be great. this is the only place i check out to learn what the hell im doing so thanks for all the help so far.

enjoy....peace!!
 
please dont take offense, but i'm not really feeling it. I wouldn't really call it experimental either... but i didnt listen to the whole thing through. Merzbow, deerhoof, john cage, drahomira song orchestra, maybe animal collective, maybe the microphones, etc..... are experimental... and thats a pretty broad range of experimental. To me, this feels more like prog rock (although i'll admit i dont know much about that genre so please dont quote me). I'm really tired right now so i cant think of anything to help you out with it or critique it, but i promise ill come back later and listen to it the whole way through and give you my opinions on the specifics.
 
I'm not digging the music and I'm sorry to say I can't quite appreciate the experimental part of it. It's as if Ministry stuck with their keyboard roots, but in a not so good way. ;) But what do I know?
 
Well, it is different. I like it for it's quirkiness. My only real advice, would be to try and make the drums more aggressive. They sound a bit thin. They could use some bass. Is everything panned to the center? Everything just seems that way on my system.....A pc system with 5.1 speakers. Mix just doesn't seem full. All came from the center, and was more midrange than anything. Maybe play with a little eq, try and give it some bottom end. Neat tune, in a weird way.
Ed
 
ok maybe its not experimental. i dont care what its classified as, that wasnt really the point. im just trying to improve my recording skills so i can record a decent mix when i get back with my band in september and we have some real tunes to record. ;) these songs im just throwing together in an hour on a day off to give myself practice recording.

so if anyone hears something im probably doing wrong or has any comments/tips/suggestions on things i could do to improve my recordings thats more what i was looking for ... thanks
 
PS not to rip on the people here, but this isnt exactly the best forum for asking for advice on anything remotely experimental. if you listen to the advice in most situations, it will be that much less experimental.
 
thanks dogman. ya i agree its a weird tune...

yeah i noticed that the sound seems to come from the center too. when i listen to professional recordings or many recordings by people on here, the sound seems so much wider than anything i can put together.

the overheads are panned hard left and hard right. snare, kick, keyboard, and lead vox are in the middle. on the backups i used some very stereo imaging plugin to widen them and it seemed to do its job of separating them from the leads.

any advice on what i could do different to reproduce that wide sound i hear on many other mixes would be great.

also, should i be trying to eq the entire mix, or even just the entire drum mix? because up until now i have only ever eq'd single tracks (ie. snare track)?

thanks
 
thecugga said:
also, should i be trying to eq the entire mix, or even just the entire drum mix? because up until now i have only ever eq'd single tracks (ie. snare track)?
Click to expand...

This is what most people would call mastering. Take the song, and mix it down to two tracks: left and right channel. Then you listen to the song in an entirely different way than you did when you were mixing. This time it is the song and not the individual tracks you are going to be editting. From here it is all art, and I have no clue what to tell you. There are a bunch of people here that are into mastering who can help you better than I can.
 
thecugga said:
thanks dogman. ya i agree its a weird tune...

yeah i noticed that the sound seems to come from the center too. when i listen to professional recordings or many recordings by people on here, the sound seems so much wider than anything i can put together.

the overheads are panned hard left and hard right. snare, kick, keyboard, and lead vox are in the middle. on the backups i used some very stereo imaging plugin to widen them and it seemed to do its job of separating them from the leads.

any advice on what i could do different to reproduce that wide sound i hear on many other mixes would be great.

also, should i be trying to eq the entire mix, or even just the entire drum mix? because up until now i have only ever eq'd single tracks (ie. snare track)?

thanks
Click to expand...

As far as panning, keep the main vocs in the center, and stuff that is a mono track, the snare, kick etc, play with putting them slightly to one side....Not all to the same side, but panning something 10-20% to the right, then something else to left....open it up a bit, but don't hard pan a mon track, unless you only want it heard on one speaker. When I record, I usually have 2 guitar tracks, and pan them a bit left/right. Sometimes 50 % if that is what sounds good. I then might want the bass in the center, so only pan it 10% to one side, and main vocs are centered. This is just an example of something simple, but gives you a starting point.
Ed
 
thanks for all the help. i find so much of the time i'll have a song that i think sounds great and then someone will say something like "it needs more kick". i'll go back and add more kick and it'll sound good and then when i go back and listen to how it sounded before i added more kick it just sounds horrible and i dont know how i ever thought it sounded good before.
thats what happened with this tune. dogman your observations that it seemed like all sound was all coming from the center and that it was mostly mids was spot on. first of all i went back and realized i gapped out and didnt pan the overheads which fixed one problem. i then fooled around with the eq of different tracks in the mix for awhile until i got a nice full sound. i now go back and listen to the version you all heard and now its so obvious

my purevolume site is f'ed right now and not letting me upload, but once it does i'll upload this new version and hopefully someone can check it out and see how shes improved.

thanks again for all the help
 
thecugga said:
these songs im just throwing together in an hour on a day off to give myself practice recording.

so if anyone hears something im probably doing wrong or has any comments/tips/suggestions on things i could do to improve my recordings thats more what i was looking for ... thanks
Click to expand...

In all seriousness, as friendly as possible, no meanness intended - you identified your biggest problem already. Throwing something together in an hour on a day off means you are not taking care and paying attention to details. You MUST take care and pay attention to every detail before you can ever begin to ask queastions like "how can I improve my mix and recordings." Doing something half assed and then coming here to ask how you can make it better is like asking us to do it for you. That's lame. Go back and spend two weeks on ONE SONG....get everything set as good as you are able....THEN come back and ask how to do it better. Good luck. :cool:
 
i meant i WRITE the songs in an hour or so. i didnt mean that the final product is done in about an hour. i played around with with one for like a week. and its only drums, keyboard and vox. to most people on here it probably sounds like i threw it together in an hour, but im just startin out ;)
 
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