a CD I mixed....

Roel

Roel

That SMART guy.
I just found out that there's samples, and one full song of the CD I mixed about half a year ago, available on the bands website.

This is recorded in a semi/pro to pro studio with very decent gear. (Remember that extremely big console I posted pictures of? This is it...)

So I'd really like to hear comments on this mix from all you guys.

The website is: http://www.cast-down.be/
There, you go to discography, and it's at the bottom of the page, a short sample of each song, and one song completely.

You can see the studio and it's gear and the huge consolehere.

Let me know what you think of it all. Comments on the band are welcome too. I'm proud that I can say I started this band ages ago, not many of the local bands I like this much...
 
Hey,

I'm far too incompetent to offer any advice. I liked the mixing and the band. With all the dynamics in the "sandcastle"song, it must have been fun to mix.

Great job.

Theron
 
Yeah, the band is alot of fun to mix. I also mix them live... One of my favourite bands to mix. There's actually stuff happening all thru the songs, not the typical hardcore band that hardly has the faders moving...
 
BUMP!!

Come on... I really like to hear comments on this mix. This was done with decent gear, so everything that is wrong is my fault!

No possible excuses here! Kick me in the head! Go on!!!
 
I just found this thread. Good job dude. A little dry for my tastes but that's the trend for this style of music. :cool:
 
Thanks Track Rat!

Glad you like it. I like it too. Toms could've sounded a little better. But I'm pretty glad with it too.

The main complains I get about it is that it's not powerfull enough and that it doesn't sound compact enough. But I'm pretty happy with the open and pretty dynamical sound it has. Most of the people know the band from their live shows, which are ALOT more powerfull, and expected the cd to have that power too...

I'm gonne try and get a live recording of them online soon... A mix I did on a festival. Just taken from the mixer out I guess, but they told me it sounds pretty good. Except for the guitarsolo in the last song that I boosted a little too much. No way back once you've done that... :o
 
I don't know this style but it sounded tight and clean to me.
The guitars overpower vocal and everything else but it's not realy a vocal anyway ;) so maybe it's should be that way in this style of noi.. uh music :) (sorry just poking at you :))

I'll try to listen at home on better headphones/speakers and see how it sounds. I want to comment on the mix but it's not the type of music I know so it's hard to say what it should be. I still think it would benefit if the drums could be "dug up" from under guitars somehow. This stuff is like pure "headbanging energy" :D and I think the recording and mix capture that.

cheers
 
Thanks!

It's not all that hard... I'm used to alot worse. :eek: :rolleyes: Bad childhood aye. :D

The standard in this kindof music would be a more compressed sound I think. I don't know. I don't feel it needs any compression. We compared this with other Belgian low budget recordings (7 songs in 4 days. mixing and everything.) on a small boombox. This was the only mix that didn't sound as if it wasn't squeezed out of that small radio, but sounded as if it really filled the room.

Vocals are meant to more in the back. Any harder and they would've hit me in the head. :D
 
Well I am no expert on compression but it might be a nessesity for this type of music, otherwise that wall of guitars drowns everything else IMHO. I actualy listened through the whole song, the one that's complete :).

There are some interesting things happening with guitar parts rythmicaly and musicaly (like at 1:05, 1:43, 2:35 etc). And I have to give the musicians credit for keeping it interesting. I think tighter sound (compression or maybe eq) would give those changes and parts more defenition.
Againg this all MHO and comming form the outsider to this type of music.

And the vocal... uuuh, I just don't get it :) there is no melodic quality and you can't understand one word so what's the point.
May be it's all attitude but that didn't come through in recording for me. It's probably better in live act where attitude comes accross better but this stuff just doesn't seem to have a "listen againg" quality to it. Sorry I just had to vent that one out of my system :D

cheers

PS Ah what'a heck I'll listen againg :D
 
I'm looking forward to hear your comments Cyan. Don't try to be nice, listen to every little detail, I really want to know whatever could've been better.

Fed: I'm no expert on compression either... Where would you put more compression on this? I think the balance sounds pretty ok... Compress the final mix maybe? (I'm not a fan of that, that's a mastering thing to do, I think...) (It isn't really mastered by the way, just a plugin, but don't remember which one, the studioowner did that.)

There really is some interesting things happening. They do that in all the songs. That's why I love working with them. Not many bands in that genre that can keep my attention... How would you get it get it to sound tighter?

I'm just listening on my cheap stereo here. Oh boy... This really is a good reference. Sounds worse than anything I ever played it on. :eek: Maybe the vocal on this one might've been a little louder....

The attitude you are talking about might be the power everyone is missing in it... Oh, and don't mind talking about the music not being your style. I'm mainly a classical/jazz fan, and some zappa, Mr Bungle, and John Zorn's stuff.... This isn't my music really, but I grew up in it, and know how it should sound, and what the band wants. (I don't really know how to get it, but I get rather close. Better than most standard PA-dudes, and I know the songs so I guess for live I'm ok.... :) )
Thanks for your comments!
 
Well I listened at home on my nice K240
and though I heard the bass gtr now I still think the guitars are too loud. I want to hear those drums. Like at 1:42 it's a great change there but there is nothing but guitars. Now againg may be it was ment that way I dunno. I just though if the guitars are a little down and compressed (eq'ed??) you could get drums out more clear but the dynamics will still be there me thinks. I understand that guitars in this style suppposed to be somewhat mushy though.

There are real cool rithm changes in there very good stuff and these guys seem pretty tight together. Now if they could only ditch the singer. :D (kidding)

Sorry I can't give you specific settings to try. And if it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about well ... you guesed it :D. May be someone else will chime in with more concrete suggestions.
I think the way it is now is great so I'm realy being picky here (and out of my league :D).

cheers
 
I'm just as picky as you are.... hehe. But when you it there with all those buttons in front of you, it's not all that easy. (The desk had nice 4 band parametric API equalizers and Neve dynamics processors for each channel... ALOT of buttons....)

Didn't have alot of time either. We mixed 7 songs in one day, from 10 am all the way thru a little before midnight. Mixing the hard way. Oh my...

They are pretty tight. Drummer is VERY tight. First take was the one for all songs. The lead guitarist is also awesome. Rocking hard. Second guitarplayer lacks a little experience, but he'll get by... Singer has worked hard in the meanwhile (this was recorded last year november) and learned alot, gained more control over his voice, but the style is still the same. hehe. But I kinda like it...
 
just listened to sandcastles. i'm on headphones at work so keep that in mind. all i can hear is guitars and cymbals. the guitar sounds great, good performance, but it's definitley crowding the mix. the cymbals sound real smooth as well.

when i can hear the rest of the drum kit it sounds nice in a spacial way but lacks punch.

can't really tell what the bass is doing, but i am on headphones.

vocals. hmmm? what is he singing? does it have to do with sandcastles? does anyone care really? i can't hear him anyway. maybe it's just not my style. he sounds like he's just yelling at me. don't get me wrong, i like a good scream every once in a while but it's not really my idea of a tune or a melody. maybe i'm just not getting it. don't listen to much of this style.

so it sounds like you probably have some good individual tracks that you can work with. just have a lot of work ahead of you. oh, this is a cd already? can you convince them to remix?
 
I'm listening to the full length mp3 right now on my ns10ms and it still sounds good.

It does not have the overall polish of a megabuck production but its quite good. Very powerful sound.

Funk on!
 
Not bad. I'd agree a bit more compression would have helped tighten up the groove a bit. It has a very live feel which can be cool but it may be a little too raw IMHO. I know how it is when your pressed for time though. You did a pretty good job overall.
 
Sounds pretty good to me. i thought the guitar was a little too there on Sandcastles. Kinda covered everything else. The bass was nice and tight and it was loud enough....had to bump the bass up just a little but all in all it was nice and a pretty good mix. Bet you wish you could do it over now that you've had 6-months to think about it huh?
 
erichenryus: no remix... hehe... But I can still learn from what I did there. We really nailed this together with 6 more songs in 4 days. 2 Weekends actually. Compared to other budget recordings in the same genre in Belgium it's rather good. The individual tracks were very good, the console was awesome. I was really working on pro material there. The only advantage I had over the engineer was that I knew the style and the songs. We didn't have alot of time to fiddle around on the songs. The engineer set up a mix for bass and drums, and then he left us alone for half an hour, so we (me and band) could mix the rest of the song. Then he'd come back, setup the VCA automation, record it to dat, and we were off to the next song.

CyanJaguar, TexRoadkill; thanks! Where would you have put the compression? On the guitars? I've never had the chance to experiment with that alot. At home I run out of compressors with drums mostly...

Lt Bob: I agree on the guitar. Listening back on my evil stereo just 2 days ago made me aware of it. Actually, it's great to put it aside for half a year, and listen back. You hear ALOT more. But I'm still pretty happy with it. Compared to other same budget recordings here, it sound very good. But I'm starting to think that the band has got something to do with it too. A band sounding awesome on it's own is alot easier to mix.... Oh well... It's sounding pretty ok, and it's got my name on it. TWICE. :cool: :D
 
Downloaded that "Sandcastles" song, and it won't play :( (Probably need Windows Media Player 7, or something).

Heard that piece of "Gathering Rocks". That rocks pretty hard:) Since it was at a lower fidelity, the 16 kHz octave was missing. Vocal seemed to clash with the guitar, but what do I know? nothing :D The music is really tight... something I would probably buy. :cool:

Still Life - Vocal seems a bit buried again, but the music sounds pretty darned good. Bass sounds huge. Thumbs up again :cool:


As a side note, I *gots* to get me some of them 70's era pimp sunglasses ;) Your mixes/music sound better than mine :) Maybe if I had the sunglasses... ;) Keep workin'.


Chad
 
I would have used more compression on the bass and drums. If you can get the rythm section very stable then the guitars and vocals can be a little more dynamic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top