I.O.A.A.'s New Song! Tell Us What You Think PLease

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surfingcheckers

New member
Hey guys,

I recorded this song in my basement with my band over the past week and I put a ton of effort into it. So if you guys could help me out and give me any info about what I could do to improve it or anything I'd really appreciate it!

Thanks in advance,

Nick

By the way the song is about The Wizard of Oz :)

Fixed URL: http://www.mediafire.com/?dinfzlicm3x
 
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Hmmmmm, not too good, but not awful. The drums sound ridiculous. I understand the typewriter-like kick drum in this genre, but it sounds like a underinflated basketball. The cymbals, snare, everything sounds really canned and fake. Look for more realistic samples and/or use better processing techniques. Actually, the drum programming overall is very lifeless and robotic. I'm not a drum programmer, but I know they can be "humanized". Or maybe this is a real drummer on a bad sounding E-Kit with heavy quantization? I dunno. The bass guitar is completely missing. What is it with this kind of music and the lack of bass guitars? The rhythm guitars are close to being good, but there's a hint of cheapness to the sound. PODs? They lack meat and power. They have good crunch, just no balls. If these are real amps, work on your mic placement. The vocals are what they are. The growly parts sit in the mix well. The "melodic" part is a little quiet and seems to be way off pitch. The harmonies are pretty brutal too. That part was not good. Your mix levels all seem to be pretty good except for the bass gtr. Everything else is audible. The kick and snare is there in full force like they should be, which is usually a problem with many home recordings. So the mix is mostly good, the actual sounds are pretty bad.
 
Guitars are ass.

They are lacking in brutality and thickness....


Also sounds like one of my headphone mixes. that i don't wsh on anyone. haha.

I would retrack.


And i am not a drummer but i do a fair amount of drum programming and this needs work.

I don't have an issue with the samples so much asi have issues with the space. more over the lack there of you've given them.

your assy guitars are eating them. With out condiments. Just devouring them.

Which i think would be liveable if your guitars weren't assy.

But they are assy.

So i would spend some more time tweaking them guit fiddles and their amplification devices.
 
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Guitar and lead signer performances were pretty good.

Guitar tone is way too thin for this genre. It might be that there's not enough bass supporting it. But I really think they're suffering from "solid-state-itis." Or "amp modeler itis." Just way too fizzy and digitally.

Drums have been covered.

Vocals fall apart performance wise when the second vocal comes in around 1:10 or so.
 
hey guys thanks for all the feedback.

i have been taking all your comments and trying to fix the mix with what you're saying and i have a couple questions:

1. everyone keeps saying the guitars are too thin, but i'm not sure if you mean there's just not enough low frequencies because i did a cut at like 300hz to give room for the bass (which i turned up). or do you mean that the guitars aren't like crunchy enough because i recorded them with a condensor mic and a dynamic mic at the cone, which is different than i normally do.

2. the singing was awful looking back on it now but at the time our drummer was set on keeping his vocals how they were, but we rerecorded a new set of vocals with our guitarist singing and it definitely sounds better.

3. i think i fixed the drum samples a bit by taking off some of the weird eq i did with them and i think they sound better now. but i also would like to know what you guys mean when you say the actual programming of the drums is bad? like you mean the velocity of each hit or the timing of each hit? the only reason i ask is because in this type of music it seems like every drummer is playing perfect because every hit is the same velocity, the same volume, and exactly on time.
4. with all the things you guys have told me i'm gonna repost a new mix in a little bit; hopefully after someone answers the few questions i have.

thanks a lot! :D
 
surfingcheckers said:
hey guys thanks for all the feedback.

i have been taking all your comments and trying to fix the mix with what you're saying and i have a couple questions:

1. everyone keeps saying the guitars are too thin, but i'm not sure if you mean there's just not enough low frequencies because i did a cut at like 300hz to give room for the bass (which i turned up). or do you mean that the guitars aren't like crunchy enough because i recorded them with a condensor mic and a dynamic mic at the cone, which is different than i normally do.

2. the singing was awful looking back on it now but at the time our drummer was set on keeping his vocals how they were, but we rerecorded a new set of vocals with our guitarist singing and it definitely sounds better.

3. i think i fixed the drum samples a bit by taking off some of the weird eq i did with them and i think they sound better now. but i also would like to know what you guys mean when you say the actual programming of the drums is bad? like you mean the velocity of each hit or the timing of each hit? the only reason i ask is because in this type of music it seems like every drummer is playing perfect because every hit is the same velocity, the same volume, and exactly on time.
4. with all the things you guys have told me i'm gonna repost a new mix in a little bit; hopefully after someone answers the few questions i have.

thanks a lot! :D
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1) The guitars didn't bother me personally that much. They don't sound great by any means, but I've heard (and recorded) worse. The problem is they don't really sound they came from an amp. Get rid of whatever EQ'ing you did to them, and start over. They lack the beefy punch that well recorded high-gain guitars have.

2) Wait, your drummer is the singer but you use programmed drums? WTF is going on here? :laughings: :laughings:

3) Regardless of what drummers in XXXXX genre do, typewriter drums sound stupid. The key to programming success is to humanize the kit. From what I remember of your song, the drums not only sounded bad, but they were also lifeless and robotic. That's half bad sampling, half bad programming. You say you un-EQ'd everything, and that's probably a good start. Now get in there and do something with the velocities and do whatever it is you do to programmed drums to "glue" them together and make them sound like an actual kit and not a bunch of random samples bouncing all over the stereo field.
 
What make/model of amp did you use? I'm thinking the source sounds might be a bigger culprit than the processing. It just sounds to me like it was a cheap solid-state amp. Some people can get some pretty good sounds from them. But most don't.
 
The sung vocals sound better, but they're still not great. You want to get the pitch of that spot on. Plus it kind of sounds like he's singing in a small can.

I think the guitar tone on the second mix sounds fine.

I think the problem with the drums is that you have the same hit a bunch of times in a row, and it sounds exactly the same each time. That makes it sound robotic.

I like the phasing effect around 3:00.
 
Getting there. . . .

Guitars are better.

The dynamics or space are better.

Still some fizz in the mix somewheres ? Something high endy is making my ears do that funny thing.

The second non-growl set of vocals are still kind of pitchy.

Performances wise i think its pretty much those clean vocals bogging this tune down. Everything else is on point.

IS there any bass guitar in this.
 
alright thanks guys. i think the eq i had on the guitars was ruining them but they sound much more real now. and we're gonna retrack the vocals today because no one likes them still, and hopefully we can get them spot on. and yes there is bass in the song we just don't want it to be too bass heavy so it's not standing out in the mix, but if you listen it is in there. i'm also gonna try to fix the drums tonight too. and when you say that they sound robotic are you referring to the bass drum and the snare or the cymbals?


thanks a lot for the help
 
I don't usually listen to this kind of music, but I enjoyed making an exception and now feel a certain liberation from the drudgery of everyday life.

Cool lyrics! Although I couldn't hear them, I am just happy to know that Oz could inspire someone to sing like that.

Thank you,

J
ps. good for your neighbors that you have a basement
pps. that not meant as a criticism of the music. I just know what neighbors are like.
 
surfingcheckers said:
i'm also gonna try to fix the drums tonight too. and when you say that they sound robotic are you referring to the bass drum and the snare or the cymbals?


thanks a lot for the help
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I think it was mostly the snare. Specifically on the passages where it's all quarter notes.
The kick was probably a culprit too.
 
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