Instrumental guitar tune, looking for mix feedback

DrewPeterson7

DrewPeterson7

Sage of the Order
Ok, this is just a demo, the solo's a little shaky in places and the melody line isn't 100% perfectly articulated, but...

Click Me!

Thoughts? What's working, what's not? The drums aren't real, they're samples I put together in fruity loops, but I seperated the kick, snare, hihats, and cymbals out into separate tracks, so production decisions on levels, tone, and effects are fair game. Everything else was mic'd, recorded, and mixed by me.

Listening in my car on the drive into the office this morning, I'm thinking the snare may need to come up a touch... Also, I'm still not 100% happy with the bass tone, the very low end sounds a touch mushy to me... Thanks in advance for any commentary!
 
Great tune--as always. I really like your music (your guitar tone especially!)

For me, the drums sound a bit a lifeless--I usually bring mine to life with some Multi Band Compression (I've got some presets that are killer for a whole kit). And I agree with you on the bass--maybe just a tad mushy.

Last but not least: while I'm a big fan of wide spreads on drum kits, the cymbals are feeling a bit extreme to me--like maybe they're close to 100% left and right and could stand to be 75%? Just my thoughts...

Great job!
 
Thanks WS! Yeah, they're pretty hard L and R, I don't remember off the top of my head, but I think they're probably 80-90% or so. I'll tighten them up a little bit. This is just the crashes, and not the hi-hat, correct?

Also, what are you doing with the multiband compressor? I've just got a plain old run-of-the-mill compressor on the kit, but I'd love a few pointers on what you're doing... Thank!

This is a saved kit I put together in Fruity Loops before I'd ever played a real drum set, so my sense of how things should be panned was a little off, lol. I've made some tweaks since then, but the cymbals are one thing I hadn't thought to touch.

Any suggestions on the bass? The bass isn't the problem, it's a gorgeous custom Sherman job I picked up at a steal (a customer ordered it, couldn't pay when it was done, so Mike Sherman used it as a shop loaner for about five years before deciding to sell it at a price that was so absurdly reasonable I couldn't pass it up). I then ran it into a Sansamp pre, then sent an unaffected send into my Rectoverb combo's clean, dialed up pretty bright and a bit gritty, mic'd it, and layered the two in the mix.

The guitar is all my Rectoverb's Modern channel, BTW - the clean rhythm is my Strat's bridge pickup with the gain pretty low, through the combo's C90 speaker, the chromatic breakdown is a Schecter C7 Blackjack, through a Recto 2x12, and the leads are my Ibanez UV7PWH, again through the 2x12.
 
Nice gtr tone and playing!

Good mix, sounds a bit boomy around 85hz (bass gtr, not BD).Cutting it and adding something above the gtr frequencies (~8 k and up) makes the things better and well balanced (IMO, ears and monitoring):).


Ciro
 
CIRO said:
Nice gtr tone and playing!

Good mix, sounds a bit boomy around 85hz (bass gtr, not BD).Cutting it and adding something above the gtr frequencies (~8 k and up) makes the things better and well balanced (IMO, ears and monitoring):).


Ciro
Click to expand...

I'll try a bit of a cut around there, thanks!

"adding something above the gtr frequencies" - as in, another track (like maybe an acoustic or something), or boost the guitar there? Sorry, not sure I follow... Thanks!
 
Sorry, maybe my bad english:D

I tried to say highs on mix , not guitar (what means hihat, is a bit dark imo)

Ciro
 
Yer welcom,
Lets keep this genre alive bro. :D

I still remember the days when Joe Satriani was regular radio play.

Vinnie Moore also. Although poor Vinnie only had that cool sweep pick lick, he still was cool.
 
Good stuff, man.

Nice playing and tone. Things seem to bunch up a little at the single-line riff; the drums are a little further in the pocket than the guitars/bass.

I think your fake drums sound great.
 
EL34 said:
Yer welcom,
Lets keep this genre alive bro. :D

I still remember the days when Joe Satriani was regular radio play.

Vinnie Moore also. Although poor Vinnie only had that cool sweep pick lick, he still was cool.
Click to expand...

That was before my time, I was like 6 when surfing came out. :D I've only got "The Maze" by Moore, which is a little more proggy and diverse than his earlier stuff, I hear, but I do need to check it out...

Thanks SC! Yeah, there's a few bits here and there that need attention, but I'll clean them up when it comes time to re-record this for real, with a live drummer. For now, I just need to get my basic mixing chops tuned up...
 
I agree with the comments about the hi-hat and bass guitar. The hi-hat makes the whole thing sound dull. The solo guitar is nice.

I think you should work more on the drums, get into the mind of your imaginary drummer a bit. The hi-hat just goes through the whole piece relentlessly - a real drummer only has two hands and two feet. I think you should have a word with the bass player too. He and the drummer should have something to "say" musically.
 
I AM the bass player. :lol: It's not my primary instrument, but...

This is a demo for an album I'm working on, and one that when all's said and done will have live drums. I've got a drummer buddy who's a pretty damned good drummer who I'm going to more-or-less give free reign with this stuff, so the final version of this when I go back and re-record everything will be way more dynamic.

The bass? Who knows. I'm not much of a bassist (I play bass like a guitarist, can you tell?), so I don't know how much better it's going to get, but I'll work on becoming a more interesting bassist over the next couple months. :)

Really, though, it's less the performance on this stuff than it is how they sit in the mix. The general consensus is the cymbals and hats need to be brighter, then? Not louder, just brighter, correct?
 
I thought you were the bassist - I guess I should have put in a smiley :)

I guess where I was really coming from is that when you're doing it yourself, you have to try to get into the mindset of the drummer or bassist. Forget you're a guitarist and imagine some other guy did that.

The bassist and drummer are often more involved in what they are doing together than what the rest of the band is doing. The bassist is the guy that glues the rhythm to the harmony and needs to pay at least as much attention to working with the drummer rhythmically as working with the guitars harmonically.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top