1st pc recording

This was actually very good. Kind a Floydish.
I noticed that kick and snare were too far behind everything but the hat and cymbals were
so close and hard panned and too loud. It did not make me believe that it was a drummer playing all parts of kit.
It was more like drummer was some place on the backstage and two other guys was sitting beside me and hitting hats. ( No headphones here)
Overall: Very good!
Keep posting
 
Floydish, I'll take that!

I'm using drum machine software. It's good, but I'm still learning to program it to get a better human-like feel.

I have another one posted called She Waits... that has those same two guys on it :D
 
pretty good for a first one.

definitely don't pan the cymbals as hard

take some highs out of the cymblas. my tweeters got a workout on this one from them and the kick.

turn up the bass track, and try to get the thud part of the kick out a bit more.

the electrics sound pretty good for the first time. a little digital, but still pretty good.
 
Thanks guys. I went through the whole batch of drum sequences and panned more to center, reduced some levels on cymbals and tweaked down the highs some. Tried to reduce the low lows plus brought up the bass line a bit. Here's the new version:

Pull Back the Veil, again

Let me know if that's better, as I'm not using great monitors here. Thanks!

EDIT: when I uploaded this version, I overwrote the first one. Both links go to the same file. Oops.

T
 
well, i *had* drafted a critique pretty much detailing a lot of what it seems like you fixed. ;-) i'll have to grab the new version and give it a listen. here's the critique, just for shits and grins. :D


cheers,
wade

----------------
ease up on that mixbus compressor chief. this thing clips. the drums' pumping like that is often a good indication that you've squashed too far.

drums....hihat and ride are way too loud (all cymbals are, really), snare and kick sound pretty cool and could work with song if you "humanize" the pattern a bit more. those triplets are a bit stiff and for lack of a better word, overall it sounds pretty, well, canned. you have to think like a drummer in order to come up with convincing and interesting midi drum parts.

the guitars are quite good sounding. the intro/verse/outro reminds me of older metallica or even dokken and the heavy rhythm and lead guitar parts smack of iron maiden. although, the guitar that comes in on the right around 3:40 is really strident.

i can feel that there's bass guitar, but i can't really hear it. there's definitely some low info going on. work on getting the kick/bass relationship solid and then work on the relationship between the lower end of the rhythm guitars and the middle/upper end of the bass. especially with distorted guitars, it's easy to mask the bass. or maybe it's just that the bass needs to come up.

the vocals seem to be lost in effects and are somewhat buried in the mix. not sure i like the occasional panning changes on them, but it provides a point of change and in conjunction with the heavy processing serves to distract one from the actual singing, which could be a shame, i don't know. i think the singing could be quite good with some serious confidence and belting it out ala Bruce Dickinson.

at 50 seconds, there's something in the left channel that's distracting. sounds like a piece of paper shuffling or falling off a music stand?

i think the biggest problem (aside from the compression) is that the vocals and instruments don't really seem like they're in the same acoustic space. they're processed quite differently and that makes them sound disjointed. try to find a piece of processing that you can apply a little to on the main elements in the mix (usually vocals, guitars and snare among others) to give it a sense of everything being tied together.

cool tune!


cheers,
wade
 
Thanks for that thoughtful post, Wade, I really have some food for thought. A lot of it, like the fact that the vocals and the rest don't quite jive, I know, just don't know exactly what to do about it. Some of it I may have made some progress on, the rest I'll have to tinker with.
 
to tell the truth, it's largely an experience thing. i think you've got a good start, it just takes some time, work and practice.

the way i approach things is almost as if this were a live band on a stage. everyone is in the same room playing, so no matter where you are in the venue watching them, all the major mix elements (guitar, snare, vocals, etc) will have the same sonic characteristics.

the easiest way to do this in a mix is to send all of the main mix elements to a single reverb. that provides for all elements on that bus to be processed similarly.

what you've got now is more of a collection of good sounding separate elements rather than a cohesive mix. like all things, it just takes time and practice. poke around here in the mp3 clinic and listen to a lot of other folks' stuff and that should help get you going in the right direction.

i'd recommend checking out Tim Lawler's acoustic blues collaboration for a good example on how to make very disparate elements gel togeter.

keep at it!


cheers,
wade
 
Actually, this mix is light years better than the very first versions a month ago. Shoulda heard that :eek:

I'd like to try and salvage it as much as possible, because there's much I like about it. I have to wonder if I shouldn't just start from scratch, tho.

I'm definitely giving others' work here a good listen. Lots of great stuff here. I'll keep plugging away for sure.

TJ

EDIT: Check out that last link; did some tweaking and remixed. Better.
 
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