Need opinions on new recorded song?

Bloodsoaked

Bloodsoaked

Death Metal Freak
I have done some recording for one song and I am trying to mix it and really have no idea where to begin. You can check out what I have recorded so far here: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=481840

The only thing the song is missing is a Bass track. There is one Beatcraft drum track, 2 guitar tracks panned left and two guitar tracks panned right. The three vocals tracks are panned even (in the middle).

There is no FX on any individual track. On the Main FX I used EQ and the Master Limiter. That is the only "mixing" I did. Please let me know what you or anyone who would like to listen to the song thinks and what can be done to make it better.

This is my first attempt at home recording. The style of music is not for everyone but it is what I like.

Thank you...
 
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IMO, recording is fine.

Mixing needs some work. I feel that the guitars a too loud and I'd take em down a bit (my ears are ringing now BTW). I've been playing/experimenting myself with the material I record for the band I'm in and I've found that you can take the guitars down quite a bit and they still sound great. At the moment I reckon that they are drowning out the vocals. I know that with this genre some may say that it's not a bad thing (drowning them out that is) but I still feel that they should still stand out in the mix. I would also be tempted to bring the guitars in a bit... not too much... and perhaps even put some of the guitar at about 20% from centre either left or right or both, you certainly have enough tracks to try this with.


And get that bass track sorted ;)


andy
 
Synkrotron said:
IMO, recording is fine.

Mixing needs some work. I feel that the guitars a too loud and I'd take em down a bit (my ears are ringing now BTW). I've been playing/experimenting myself with the material I record for the band I'm in and I've found that you can take the guitars down quite a bit and they still sound great. At the moment I reckon that they are drowning out the vocals. I know that with this genre some may say that it's not a bad thing (drowning them out that is) but I still feel that they should still stand out in the mix. I would also be tempted to bring the guitars in a bit... not too much... and perhaps even put some of the guitar at about 20% from centre either left or right or both, you certainly have enough tracks to try this with.


And get that bass track sorted ;)
Click to expand...

I am trying to get the vocals to sound more or less embedded into the mix but I can not seem to get them to. They seem like they are seperate from the mix. I want everything to sound like it fits. I will try bringing the guitars down a bit and bringing the volume on the vocals up a bit and see what I get.

I hope with a bass track it will sound even better. Do you have any music posted I can check out?

Peter
 
You have a classic case of a BAD BAD HORRIBLE guitar tone with scooped mids and harshiness....no mids, no body, harsh..stings my eardrums very badly.

All the mix sounds so scooped, drums also...did you scoop all the mids? run the mix and guitars through a BBE Sonic Masturbator 369 ?
 
TheDewd said:
You have a classic case of a BAD BAD HORRIBLE guitar tone with scooped mids and harshiness....no mids, no body, harsh..stings my eardrums very badly.

All the mix sounds so scooped, drums also...did you scoop all the mids? run the mix and guitars through a BBE Sonic Masturbator 369 ?
Click to expand...

Surely guitar, or indeed any sound can be pretty much down to personal taste. Perhaps this is the sound that Bloodsoaked wants to use on his tracks and there may even be people out there that want to listen to this.

Can't argue with your "scooped" comments cos I know sweet F.A. myself... and I'm told that my own guitar sound is pants too so there ya go ;)



Peter,

Just listened again and although I don't fully agree with TheDewd, he may have a point. So we need to ask the question "is that the guitar sound you want?". Probably could do with a little extra bottom end but, as has been stated in may threads around here, get it sorted at the tracking stage if you can, rather than EQ'ing it afterwards.


I'm in a band called Flesh-Resonance and we host our main site over at Artistlaunch:-

http://www.artistlaunch.com/fr

But I think you might find it a bit quiet fot your tastes ;). BTW, don't expect to find anything there any better than what you have achieved. It's not bad, and we had our last CD pressed from a glass master, but improvements are being made IMO.

As it happens, the two guys who started this band used to play for a Death Metal band called Morbid Symphony... quite some years back.

Have fun slaving over that hot mixing desk

andy
 
Well, most (if not all) metal bands I've heard in my whole life, had full mids on their guitar tone. The sickiest exception is Metallica, which had much better tone on Load than on NJustice cause they cranked the mids,
 
TheDewd said:
Well, most (if not all) metal bands I've heard in my whole life, had full mids on their guitar tone. The sickiest exception is Metallica, which had much better tone on Load than on NJustice cause they cranked the mids,
Click to expand...

you know a lot more than me about this kinda stuff so I'd have to bow out on this one
 
Well, I'd listened to it and these are my comments:-

1. It sounded "thin".
2. The drum is too perfect. Sounded mechanical to me. Humanize it a bit.
3. No 'umppph" on kick... (well, get the bass track sorted :))
4. Nice guitar track... mmmm... but i prefer a 'fat' & 'full' guitar sound (it's personal preference, i guess)
5. Vox - bring it down a little bit.

Just my 2 cents....
 
TheDewd said:
You have a classic case of a BAD BAD HORRIBLE guitar tone with scooped mids and harshiness....no mids, no body, harsh..stings my eardrums very badly.

All the mix sounds so scooped, drums also...did you scoop all the mids? run the mix and guitars through a BBE Sonic Masturbator 369 ?
Click to expand...

Scoop all the mids? Still very much a newbie so I am not 100% sure what your talking about. I had the mid on my amp at about 4, into the mixer all even and then into my computer. Each guitar track has no EQ on them at all. What your hearing is just what was recorded. I did use a limiter and EQ on the entire mix to get all the tracks even. The EQ settings for the entire mix are as follows:

0, +2, -1, -2, -1, 0, +3

That is if you were looking at the EQ (I home it makes sence).

I used this pre-set setting as it is called Punchy Mix and seemed to sound good when I put it on the whole song. Maybe that is a bad way to EQ, I have no idea.

I have uploaded a newer mix with better (in my opinion) guitars on the right side that seem to make it sound a bit better. For the most part I am happy with the guitar sound. It you listen to the part where is breaks down the guitars sound think and heavy, at least to me.

One issue I am having is I have a good sounding ride cymbal in there on different riffs and it is getting dround out. Is that a frequency thing? If I play the drum track alone I hear the ride cymbal fine, in the overall mix it disapears.

Thank you and if you can check out the newer copy of the song with better guitars.

Peter
 
Synkrotron said:
Surely guitar, or indeed any sound can be pretty much down to personal taste. Perhaps this is the sound that Bloodsoaked wants to use on his tracks and there may even be people out there that want to listen to this.

Can't argue with your "scooped" comments cos I know sweet F.A. myself... and I'm told that my own guitar sound is pants too so there ya go ;)

Peter,

Just listened again and although I don't fully agree with TheDewd, he may have a point. So we need to ask the question "is that the guitar sound you want?". Probably could do with a little extra bottom end but, as has been stated in may threads around here, get it sorted at the tracking stage if you can, rather than EQ'ing it afterwards.


I'm in a band called Flesh-Resonance and we host our main site over at Artistlaunch:-

http://www.artistlaunch.com/fr

But I think you might find it a bit quiet fot your tastes ;). BTW, don't expect to find anything there any better than what you have achieved. It's not bad, and we had our last CD pressed from a glass master, but improvements are being made IMO.

As it happens, the two guys who started this band used to play for a Death Metal band called Morbid Symphony... quite some years back.

Have fun slaving over that hot mixing desk

andy
Click to expand...

I will check out your band tonight when I get home from work. I would love to check it out. While death metal is my favorite music to play I do listen to all styles of music.

I think I am happy with the guitar sound. As mentions before, in the break down part the guitar sound is thick and heavy. I just re-did the guitar tracks on the right side and think it makes the song sond better. Take another listen if you like and let me know if it sounds "any" better.

I think I will get a bit more bottom end when I record the bass track. If not I will continue to mess with the mix.

Peter
 
TheDewd said:
Well, most (if not all) metal bands I've heard in my whole life, had full mids on their guitar tone. The sickiest exception is Metallica, which had much better tone on Load than on NJustice cause they cranked the mids,
Click to expand...

I love a guitar sound like Decapitated. Not sure if you know their sound but the guitars are tight, heavy and thick. I liked Ride The Lighting and Master of Puppets guitar sounds better than any other Metallica album.
 
staring said:
Well, I'd listened to it and these are my comments:-

1. It sounded "thin".
2. The drum is too perfect. Sounded mechanical to me. Humanize it a bit.
3. No 'umppph" on kick... (well, get the bass track sorted :))
4. Nice guitar track... mmmm... but i prefer a 'fat' & 'full' guitar sound (it's personal preference, i guess)
5. Vox - bring it down a little bit.

Just my 2 cents....
Click to expand...

What exactly do you mean by "thin"? How would I go about fixing that? The drums are a drum machine and not being a drummer I did the best I could but for the most part I am happy with them. Maybe as you said the bass track will give the kick some "umppph". Was your "nice guitar track" comment serious or sarcastic, LOL? Is my guitar sound not fat and full?

Thank you for taking the time to listen and comment. I have brought the vocals back down, let me know if you notice and improvement.
 
Had another listen...

Is that a frequency thing?
Click to expand...

yep... at least I think it is anyways. The high freq of the guitar is fighting with the cymbals so much so that you can hardly tell that there are any cymbals there at all.

Have a go at taking the guitars right down in the mix... less than -18dB and you'd be surprised how loud they still appear to be. Raise them a little... perhaps up to -12dB/ Perhaps export a version of each and compare.

The reason I say this is because I've just become more involved in the recording process of the band I'm in. I felt that there were occasions in the past where the guitar was a little too loud and did drown other stuff from time to time. I found that if I dropped the guitars out completely and then gradually brought them back into the mix, I didn't have to bring them right back up again... Try it and see... post the results as A/B's


cheers


andy
 
Bloodsoaked said:
I love a guitar sound like Decapitated. Not sure if you know their sound but the guitars are tight, heavy and thick. I liked Ride The Lighting and Master of Puppets guitar sounds better than any other Metallica album.
Click to expand...
Master and Ride have guitar tones that contain some mids, but not as much as I like still.

Having a great guitar tone comes down to these:

1) What guitar are u using?
2) What pickups are u using ?
3) What type of pick are u using?
4) What gauge of strings are u using?
5) What amp are u using?
6) What mic are u using?
7) What preamp are u using?

Of course, the biggest limitation factor is the amp. If you crank the mids on a crappy amp, you won't go far anyways. It's just gonna sound "as bad" but with mids.

There is more to EQ to a good guitar tone anyways. The "grain" of the distortion and the overall "fatness factor" of the amp is to be considered.
For example, a Bogner Uberschall amp is what I consider a "fat sounding" amp.
A Peavey 5150 on the other hand, is a buzzy mess.
Marshall's DSL and TSL series are somewhat thin, I much prefer JCM800 series from the 80's. Avoid JCM900 series.
And Mesa, well it depends on the model a lot, but they are quite fat and the tones naturally contain a "mid" that makes it sit in the mix quite well.

Ohh and one last thing, forget about miking an amp that's not tube.
..and the only amp simulator that's worth a try is the POD 2.0 or XT (pro or not). The V-AMP is to be avoided as it has a "thin" sound. But it takes ALOT of work to compensate for the lack of a good tube amp miked properly with a ribbon mic and a good API preamp.
 
Bloodsoaked said:
Scoop all the mids? Still very much a newbie so I am not 100% sure what your talking about. I had the mid on my amp at about 4, into the mixer all even and then into my computer. Each guitar track has no EQ on them at all. What your hearing is just what was recorded. I did use a limiter and EQ on the entire mix to get all the tracks even. The EQ settings for the entire mix are as follows:

0, +2, -1, -2, -1, 0, +3

That is if you were looking at the EQ (I home it makes sence).

I used this pre-set setting as it is called Punchy Mix and seemed to sound good when I put it on the whole song. Maybe that is a bad way to EQ, I have no idea.

I have uploaded a newer mix with better (in my opinion) guitars on the right side that seem to make it sound a bit better. For the most part I am happy with the guitar sound. It you listen to the part where is breaks down the guitars sound think and heavy, at least to me.

One issue I am having is I have a good sounding ride cymbal in there on different riffs and it is getting dround out. Is that a frequency thing? If I play the drum track alone I hear the ride cymbal fine, in the overall mix it disapears.

Thank you and if you can check out the newer copy of the song with better guitars.

Peter
Click to expand...

EQing an entire mix is undesirable. I'm serious about that. Leave it to the mastering engineer.
....and if YOU are the mastering engineer, then be sure to get the tones you want while tracking so that minimal EQ is required further down the road.

Ohh and about the cymbals, an important part of the mixing process ig giving the instruments place to breathe. It takes quite some time to learn though, but in the end, it's what makes the difference between an amateur and a pro. A way to give depth is to play on EQ and positionning. But as far as I could hear, the drums are too low in the mix (as far as my personal taste dictates it...) and this doesn't help your ride to come out.
 
Sounds pretty good to me man. If I could get my tunes sounding half that good, I would be happy.. It will really pick up when you get the bass in there. Not my style ,but, sounds good, nonetheless.
 
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