I'd love some feedback on my 3-track bedroom pop EP based on HCA's The Little Mermaid

WolfandWeather

New member
Link: soundcloud.com/magindara/sets/far-out-at-sea-demos/s-EIYfXuPSqbl

I've been working on this zero-budget labour of love for well over a year but I think I'm finally close to completion! At this stage I really need some feedback on the mixing and mastering from people with better gear and better ears than me, particularly the balance of the tracks in relation to each other, the tonal balance of the songs individually, and the balance of the vocals in relation to the instrumentals.

We're going for a warm, saturated 60s/70s vibe with lots of mojo (but still modern enough to stand up to current trends) and I tried very hard to make it sound old and degraded using emulations of vintage equipment and tape/vinyl effects. References are the latest Arctic Monkeys album, Alex Turner's Submarine EP, and early Tame Impala.
 
Prologue: I find the opening vocal mostly intelligible. It's beautiful to listen too, but.. could just be my ears. This gets better as it progresses.

Ten Thousand Lies: Composition sounds very much like Creep by Radiohead - to me, anyway. Also vocal is a bit hard to make out at times.

Still, it's a nice piece of work you have here.
 
Thanks for the feedback! Ten Thousand Lies is very much influenced by Radiohead so it's cool you noticed that.
What would you suggest to make the vocal clearer? More compression with makeup gain? Or is it an EQ problem?
 
First, I would suggest the singer enunciate more clearly. I'm not having a problem hearing the vocal so much as discerning the actual words as sung.
 
I would agree with Spantini that it's a bit hard to understand the lyrics at times. The overall balance on instruments sounds good to me. Nothing stuck out too much.

I will say that, after your description of your influences/inspiration, I was quite surprised by the vocalist. She tends to sing in more of a pop diva style (to me, anyway), which is not what I was expecting after you mentioned Artic Monkeys/Tame Impala/etc.
 
My influences in terms of composition and production are Arctic Monkeys/Tame Impala but the vocalist comes from a different musical background, which I think gives us a nice unique sound. Redoing vocals is not an option at this stage but it's something we can consider next time. I'm mostly interested in mixing/mastering feedback specifically but thanks for your comments!
 
I'm also thinking about adding some sidechain compression (perhaps focusing only on the mid range) to duck the synths and keyboards out of the way very slightly to let the vocal poke through. Also possibly mid/side EQ.
 
For the most part, I think it sounds pretty nice.

It might be the echo on the vocal starting to interfere with the next words, both being in the same tonal range. I could actually understand the vocal, but had to pay attention. I would try dropping the length of the reverb. It might be taking too long to tail off, which can make it difficult to distinguish speech. Maybe boost the vocal a dB or so in the initial portion to get over the waves.

The overall mix and content are really nice. Lovely songs, and the singer has a very nice voice.
 
My influences in terms of composition and production are Arctic Monkeys/Tame Impala but the vocalist comes from a different musical background, which I think gives us a nice unique sound. Redoing vocals is not an option at this stage but it's something we can consider next time. I'm mostly interested in mixing/mastering feedback specifically but thanks for your comments!

Yes, sorry ... I didn't mean to imply that it was a bad thing at all. I just meant it surprised me when I heard it. She has a nice voice, for sure. I think the tracks sound very nice and that you've done a great job.
 
Back
Top