First Mix!! Looking for some constructive feedback.

M

murphyd311

New member
This is my very first mix of my band. The drums and guitar did an initial take, with the intention that we were going to re-track both. I got the guitar re-recorded, but the drummer hasn't had time to come in and re-track. Hopefully we can get him in to get a better take, but I figured I would work with what I had and see how it came out. The gear used was pretty budget (1010lt and Audio Buddy Pre-Amps). I DI'ed the bass, (I'm the bass player) but it had a lot of thumb noise no matter how I tracked it (various mic's, DI). I guess that's active pickups for you...

Guitar was recorded with an SM57. Drums had an AKG D112 for the kick, MXL 990 for overhead and SM57 on the snare. The kick sounded (sounds) like mush when solo'ed.

Vocals were done with an MXL 990 and an SM58. The pre-amps were 2 Audio Buddies, and Two of the 1010lt's XLR pre-amps.

I tried my best to keep dynamics in mind and do what sounded good for the mix. Like I said it was my very first recording/mixing.

View attachment Get Up Shut Up.mp3
 
Sounds nice. See if you can make the reverb trail a little bit on the vocals. Or whatever effect you're using. Assuming you 'want' us to hear the effect which we do. I think a little extra trail will make them less separated from the rest.
 
Drums are your issue but I don't think it's the drumming, but the recording - they're lacking definition, sounding a bit cardboard.

How do they sound on their own? Are you doing much EQ/compressing on them?
 
I am EQ'ing the hell out of them and using a little compression. The mic setup was hasty because it was recorded on a whim and we thought it was going to be a scratch track. Hopefully this proves to be true and the drummer gets over here to re-track it. I've spent more time then I care to think about to try to get definition out of the snare and kick. The snare is just alright but that kick is not well defined at all, solo'ed it sounds very horrid. It's actually no where near as bad in the mix. I thought the cymbals came out decent, and the toms are 'meh'.
 
Agreed. The drums are definitely the biggest issue. Experiment with taking the distortion down a bit to get a little more definition. Guitar on the right needs some tone tweaking too - it's too weak.
 
Did anyone notice that AF is linking the mics in the OP to their reviews page???? What's up with that???? I'm sure the OP didn't do that?
Anyway back to the recording which is what I'm here to listen to...
Guitar - perfect
Drums - too far back in the mix and the snare is kinda boxy (hard to tell until you trun it up tho)
Vocals - a bit (and just a wee bit) too "back" for me and could be forward more at low volumes it's noticeable only.
Bass - nice presence and definition.
All the performances are great and the overall tone is pretty good. Nice variety on the vocals, supported by strong playing.
 
ido1957 said:
Did anyone notice that AF is linking the mics in the OP to their reviews page???? What's up with that???? I'm sure the OP didn't do that?
Anyway back to the recording which is what I'm here to listen to...
Guitar - perfect
Drums - too far back in the mix and the snare is kinda boxy (hard to tell until you trun it up tho)
Vocals - a bit (and just a wee bit) too "back" for me and could be forward more at low volumes it's noticeable only.
Bass - nice presence and definition.
All the performances are great and the overall tone is pretty good. Nice variety on the vocals, supported by strong playing.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the mic linking was not my doing. It was automatically added by the board.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll definitely tweak the vocals to bring them forward ever so slightly. The drums are going to get fixed when we re-track them.
 
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