What About Me

ido1957

ido1957

9K Gold Member
Hamilton Steele- What About Me

Hi - new tune we're working on. We've been mixing all day so we need to take a break and see how it's going so far.
Let me know what you think of what we have so far.
mjhamil - Vocals, Bass
ido1957 - Vocals, Guitars
Poeticintensity - drums

Thanks :D:D:D:D
 
It's a good tight performance, and the elements fit together pretty well.

My preferences would be to drop the left & right guitars a bit to let the kit and lead come through the middle a bit more.

I thought the lead vocal was a bit 'safe'. It's doing everything right, but I was dying to hear a bit more energy in the delivery.
 
Good preferences actually gecko zzed. We've been working on that balance over the last few mixes and that change would probably help. Thanks!
 
Nice one Gerry, Mike & Jason.
I like the guitars where they are otherwise the hihat & cymbals will be too big.
Nice harmoniy line too.
 
Sounds really good. I agree with Gecko on the guitar panning, and I might try to get a little more of the beater attack sound on the kick.
 
It definitely got me into a groove. I agree that it didn't have the energy of an SRV performance, it was more of a long-car-drive kind of upbeat song.
 
rayc said:
Nice one Gerry, Mike & Jason.
I like the guitars where they are otherwise the hihat & cymbals will be too big.
Nice harmoniy line too.
Click to expand...

NotThatBright said:
Sounds really good. I agree with Gecko on the guitar panning, and I might try to get a little more of the beater attack sound on the kick.
Click to expand...

Thanks Ray and NTB - I'm still on the fence about the rhythms, I'm going see what the concensus is and just sit back and listen a bit before making any changes.

Schwarzenyaeger said:
It definitely got me into a groove. I agree that it didn't have the energy of an SRV performance, it was more of a long-car-drive kind of upbeat song.
Click to expand...

Cool - this was originally called Stones B as that is the sound/groove we're trying to emulate on this one. We started out with a bunch of distorted LP rhythm tracks then I decided the Strat would sound better. The LP tracks are just really quiet now to give it a little bite.
 
I like the song. General vibe of the song is the type I like. Good performances.

The mix has an overall cloudiness to it. Like a general 500hz overload. Mostly in the guitars and vocal. Maybe a bit on the bass, but it's tough to tell for sure.

I think the guitars might be a db or so too loud. I can hear the vocal just fine. I just think the rhythm guitars are drawing too much attention. Minor nit - it'd be fine if you left the levels where they are.

Drums sound pretty good except the kick. It's lacking a bit of thump. It's weak in comparison with the bass. I can hear them both - it's just that bass has low end power to it, but the kick doesn't.

All of these are nits. Overall it's very good.
 
Thanks TripleM - I'll get Mike to take a look at the settings and see if there's an overload in that range. The kik is coming through on my truck stereo loud and clear, so I think I'll leave that for now. The guitars are pretty much all that's going on in that range so it's hard to hide them lol but there's been a few mentions about them so we'll see what we can do there.
 
The guitars and vocals are throwing this out of balance for me. They're both way up front. The drums also have a heavily compressed sound to them that flatten them out and squash them down. The drum fills reveal the craziness. The snare is lost most of the time, then Bam! A big fill with toms booming all over the place. Do you have the individual drum tracks?

I'd suggest starting over with the mix. Let the drums breathe. Don't let the snare get buried. Get some of the boomy woof out of the kick, get some slap on it, and build the mix around the drums. There's plenty of room in a sparse arrangement like this.
 
Yes we have the individual drums this time. They are sent to a drum bus where they're compressed with a limiter. Maybe if we reduce the limiter everything might sound more even?
 
ido1957 said:
Yes we have the individual drums this time. They are sent to a drum bus where they're compressed with a limiter. Maybe if we reduce the limiter everything might sound more even?
Click to expand...

A limiter is way too heavy handed for drums IMO. Use an actual compressor.....and use it gently. Compressed drums are lifeless. The Density MK is a good free easy to use compressor for drums.

Get the mix balanced out first though. You might not need drum compression at all.
 
Greg_L said:
A limiter is way too heavy handed for drums IMO. Use an actual compressor.....and use it gently. Compressed drums are lifeless. The Density MK is a good free easy to use compressor for drums.

Get the mix balanced out first though. You might not need drum compression at all.
Click to expand...

I limited them to pull them up volume wise mostly. I may have to drop the levels on everything else to get them loud enough to balance properly. Then I'll see if they need compression still. Thanks for pointing this out as I'm still working on individual drum mixing, we used to just drop the stereo file in and go with that.
 
ido1957 said:
I limited them to pull them up volume wise mostly. I may have to drop the levels on everything else to get them loud enough to balance properly. Then I'll see if they need compression still. Thanks for pointing this out as I'm still working on individual drum mixing, we used to just drop the stereo file in and go with that.
Click to expand...
Yeah don't worry about pulling them up. Drop other stuff down. The drums are the foundation.
 
I was going to say that theere is a limiter in this mix doing some damage. I have it on at sort of low volume and the only thing that glares out at me is that pulsing sensation in my ears that i have heard alot of my own mixes when i was trying to get cool with limiters.

I love the guitars where they are. I think if you try and work with your limiter a bit it may even out the playing field for those guits.

Thanks IDO i enjoyed this.
 

An horrendously big hit in '82 and a decade or so later as well.
Horrid piece of schlock.
I prefer yours.
 
I won't comment on the mix because I feel like it's been critiqued pretty well. I will comment on the song.
I love the song. I really like that kind of straight ahead rock groove. No frills just a.good beat, solid chord progressiin, and great lyric. Tom petty was a master at this. I've listened to a few of your tunes man and you consistantly come up with great material.
Great song IMO
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top