feedback on my recording

agiledood

New member
I did a couple of practice songs, but this is the first real thing I've recorded since the last thing I recorded 20-or-so years ago on a Tascam 4 track!

Equipment:
- Pro Logic X
- Steinberg UR 22 MK II
- bluebird microphone
- Roland FP 130R piano (in hindsight I would have mic'd it, but just recorded it as a midi track since it was easier to fix the notes!)
- strings and Erhu played using my mac keyboard

This is a cover of a Deadline song, which is band I used to follow around in highschool. Any feedback about the production quality would be great, I'm one of those people that does not like the sound of my voice, but I am pretty happy with the performance.

Nothing Left to Lose by Socially Awkward | Free Listening on SoundCloud
 
Agree you have a nice. Nice tone. I don't care much for the vibrato on the long notes, but that's just a personal taste thing. Watch for a pitch issue or two e.g., 1:10.

I sort of like the sparse arrangement. The piano is a little midi sounding. I didn't detect cheapness in the strings. But they were a bit soft and dominated in most spots.

Double tracking the lead vocal during the chorus might sound nice.

Overall it was nice.
 
Thanks for FB! The Roland piano sounds nice live, I used the stock Steinberg grand piano sound but will try to re-record it live. I tried to get my 12 year old to play and record since he's really good but it's 'a lame song dad'!

I'm going to try another mix as well to see if I can make it sound a bit more full, and less hollow. I couldn't figure out how to fix a couple of pitchy spots without it sounding like a robot!
 
The recording itself sounds good. Very crisp and clean, need to work a little bit on the tonality of your voice though I feel like you could hit those high notes better. Nice little classical song though.
 
Nice.

Only listening on cans this morning but the vocal sounds just a tiny bit distant. Don't know if you're back from the mic a lot in an untreated room, but if it's FX, I'd bring it forward by putting some pre-delay on the verb to start with with and probably add up to a dB to the vocal and possibly duck the piano at least a half dB.
 
Nice.

Only listening on cans this morning but the vocal sounds just a tiny bit distant. Don't know if you're back from the mic a lot in an untreated room

Correct. I was about a foot from the mic, gain at 50% on the UR22 and the room is not treated, other than a wall of thick curtains covering a glass sliding closet door. I'm thinking of trying a version recored inside my closet to see what the difference sounds like on the other extreme end.

I'm going to treat the room at some point, but ended up getting overwhelmed with the amount of conflicting info about how to do it so I decided to just record and worry about it later.

This is what my studio looks like:

IMG_0218.jpg
 
Nice rendition of this song. I believe that I agree that the piano sounds a little too robotic. Either more emotion should be put into it, or changing the velocity of the notes should do the trick.
 
progress...one year later!

Hard to believe it's been just over a year since I posted that song.

Short version, joined a, all-original band last March, started recording their (our?) songs in my home studio in May and after many many lessons, irritations, frustrations, hundreds of hours watching tutorials and dollars spent, I decided to re-mix and re-master the original song I posted here:

Nothing Left to Lose (2019) by Socially Awkward | Free Listening on SoundCloud

What's new:

- bought KRK Rokit 6 monitors, Scarlett 18i20 Gen 2 (to record with my Alesis Strike Pro kit)
- upgraded to Logic Pro X
- subscribed to Steven Slate Everything Bundle
- got Waves Audio Gold bundle on a WICKED boxing day deal
- bought the Audio Issues mix/master tutorial set

We'll be releasing our first EP soon, all recorded, mixed and mastered by me and I might even take on some side projects to practise. Anyway, would love any feedback!
 
Nice - but frankly I hate the piano sound. It's your Roland again I think, but did you mic it up this time? I don't have many rules, but the few I have include a ban on recording any piano that has loudspeakers. They always sound to me just about OK in real life in the room, but just record with a strange hollowness and quite strident tone. You can do much better with a proper plugin piano - I've got quite a few now, and still prefer the Pianoteq pianos which are amazingly realistic. Other than the piano - I really like it, but a real sounding piano would make it even better.
 
Nice - but frankly I hate the piano sound. It's your Roland again I think, but did you mic it up this time? I don't have many rules, but the few I have include a ban on recording any piano that has loudspeakers. They always sound to me just about OK in real life in the room, but just record with a strange hollowness and quite strident tone. You can do much better with a proper plugin piano - I've got quite a few now, and still prefer the Pianoteq pianos which are amazingly realistic. Other than the piano - I really like it, but a real sounding piano would make it even better.

I didn't mic it, or re-record any parts. I just wanted to see how much better I could make it with what I learned mixing. I connected the Roland piano via USB, didn't mic it up. Mostly because I don't play piano so I needed to be able to tweak some flubs!

I used all 'concert hall' presets and did minor tweaking in the VMR and Verbsuite to remove the boomyness, but yeah, it does sound kind of hollow now that I'm listening for that.
 
I think it's better than the sound off the original - I just have a pet hate of Roland and Yamaha electric pianos - they always sound exactly like they are - an instrument of their own.
 
I like it better - but maybe we could try a few things - can you send me the MIDI file for the piano part - just that, and I'll try it on the different pianos I have and I'll send you them back as audio files so you can see what difference there is in the mix? That could be quite interesting. I might be able to do it Sunday - working tomorrow. won't be offended if you think it pointless but I have. Steinway in one of mine - plus some Kontakt nice pianos too.
 
nice performance! first thing i hear is the levels on the vocals. should do some manual editing to make smooth transitions to keep vocals more even. i would try a room reverb plugin on the vocals.
 
like the voice and yes vocal seems a bit distant...how did you mix it? if not already try doubling the take "copy and paste" pan one side slight left 7-10% and one right 7-10% then add your verb on one side and dry on the other...fattens up nicely... either i need to check my mackie monitors outputs or it sounded a bit hotter on the right channel here... but like the fact you are on a MAC and using LOGIC ...there is a great pluggin by EVENTIDE called "ULtra-Channel" it is amazing on your main stereo out and also has some nice stuff for individual channel voicings...it isn't cheap but it is a great pluggin...i got mine free from a trial through my sweetwater rep to do some testing with it and got to keep it... but it is AWESOME!!! will give your mix a very nice fat shine! :listeningmusic::guitar:
 
I like it better - but maybe we could try a few things - can you send me the MIDI file for the piano part - just that, and I'll try it on the different pianos I have and I'll send you them back as audio files so you can see what difference there is in the mix? That could be quite interesting. I might be able to do it Sunday - working tomorrow. won't be offended if you think it pointless but I have. Steinway in one of mine - plus some Kontakt nice pianos too.

cool, that'd be awesome! here you go...http://rawk.ca/NLTL-Piano.mid
 
nice performance! first thing i hear is the levels on the vocals. should do some manual editing to make smooth transitions to keep vocals more even. i would try a room reverb plugin on the vocals.

I'm using Vocal Rider from Waves to try an even out the vocals, I am going to try to do this with automation instead since I can't seem to get it right with that plugin.
 
like the voice and yes vocal seems a bit distant...how did you mix it? if not already try doubling the take "copy and paste" pan one side slight left 7-10% and one right 7-10% then add your verb on one side and dry on the other...fattens up nicely... either i need to check my mackie monitors outputs or it sounded a bit hotter on the right channel here... but like the fact you are on a MAC and using LOGIC ...there is a great pluggin by EVENTIDE called "ULtra-Channel" it is amazing on your main stereo out and also has some nice stuff for individual channel voicings...it isn't cheap but it is a great pluggin...i got mine free from a trial through my sweetwater rep to do some testing with it and got to keep it... but it is AWESOME!!! will give your mix a very nice fat shine! :listeningmusic::guitar:

I'm using a single vocal track and this is the order of the plugins:

logic channel EQ to clear out noise ('negative eq')
Waves Q10 for EQ
Vocal Rider
Siblance de-esser
Eiosis Air EQ for final touches

Aux bus out to Verbsuite classics for reverb.
 
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