"Lifeless"

JohnnyAmato

JohnnyAmato

New member
New original of mine I recorded a little over a week ago. Had to put it on the shelf to finish other projects, but finally got a chance to work on the mix today. Lots going on, plenty of guitars, background vocals, etc.

Mix was done entirely on headphones, so I'm sure it's got a long way to go, but I've definitely reached the point of needing some input.

Dropbox - LifelessDemo4.wav

"Lifeless"

Night has fallen, all is callin'
There's nowhere I can turn
Dreamin's over, all is colder
But all I do is burn
Open feelings, hit the ceilings
Time was thrown away
Lifeless laughter, running after
The skies forever grey

Run away and hide alone...

There's no stars left in the sky
All I see is you and I
There's no time for tomorrow...

Freedom taken, all is makin'
Everything a blur
Finding spirit, I can feel it
Impossible to learn
Flyin' away, I just cant stay
The pain is in my eyes
Lifeless meaning, all is creeping
Under all the lies

Run away and hide alone...

There's no stars left in the sky
All I see is you and I
There's no time left for tomorrow

Run away and hide alone...

There's no stars left in the sky
All I see is you and I
There's no time left for tomorrow

There's no stars left in the sky
All I see is you and I
There's no time left for tomorrow
 
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I like the changes. Good guitar stuff. You realize the chugs at the end of the bar are way quieter? (0:24, for example).

I might round out that fill a little more at the end of the prechorus. I like the acoustic touch and the higher note chugging in the second verse, that's pretty cool. Kick/snare interaction seems a little stiff, still. Robotic-like, in a way. I'd look into reasons why it seems like that - are the blobs right smack on the front of the timlines? Are they the same velocity throughout? Something about the drums still seems machine-like. Needs more humanization.

Of course, melodies are wicked and guitar work too. Really like this tune.
 
I like the changes too. Guitar performances. The low end feels weak. Might want to look at the bass and kick drums. I'll listen again later.
 
andrushkiwt said:
I like the changes. Good guitar stuff. You realize the chugs at the end of the bar are way quieter? (0:24, for example).

I might round out that fill a little more at the end of the prechorus. I like the acoustic touch and the higher note chugging in the second verse, that's pretty cool.
Click to expand...

The chugs in the first half of the bar are just an open power chord on the low D (drop-D) and the second half they were on the A & D string (B-flat), so yea they came out a little weaker. There's 4 total rhythm guitars (3 different Rectifiers and a Legacy) I'll have to check if any of them played the B-flat on the low D up on the 8th fret, I don't recall. If I did I automate those up, otherwise I'll figure something out.

Not sure exactly which prechorus you're refering to, but I was so tempted to go all out with crazier fills, but was afraid to go overboard, so just left it for now. I think my ears are too used to how it sounds now... gotta get past that...

Thanks for the insight!
 
andrushkiwt said:
I might round out that fill a little more at the end of the prechorus. I like the acoustic touch and the higher note chugging in the second verse, that's pretty cool. Kick/snare interaction seems a little stiff, still. Robotic-like, in a way. I'd look into reasons why it seems like that - are the blobs right smack on the front of the timlines? Are they the same velocity throughout? Something about the drums still seems machine-like. Needs more humanization.
Click to expand...

Yea I was struggling with this, believe me I notice it too. Funny 'cuz it's definitely not snapped to the grid. I guess I should be less conservative when moving hits around. Velocities too are definitely different throughout, probably just not enough.
 
JohnnyAmato said:
Yea I was struggling with this, believe me I notice it too. Funny 'cuz it's definitely not snapped to the grid. I guess I should be less conservative when moving hits around. Velocities too are definitely different throughout, probably just not enough.
Click to expand...

Feel free to send me the MIDI file, I'd def take a look and see. Up to you.
 
Robus said:
I like the changes too. Guitar performances. The low end feels weak. Might want to look at the bass and kick drums. I'll listen again later.
Click to expand...

Thanks Robus, yea the low end could easily be off a little. I mixed it entirely on 'phones and was concentrating so much on making sure the vocal wasn't buried. This mix is still just in infant stages, so I'll look at it today, probably bring in a reference track...
 
andrushkiwt said:
You realize the chugs at the end of the bar are way quieter? (0:24, for example).
Click to expand...

At first I thought you meant the second half of the bars, but now, after listening, I think you're refering to the last double-chug that occurs at the end of every bar with the chord ringing out just after :-)24, etc) These were actually added later after-the-fact and hence are on another track altogether. They probably just need to come up a db or two. Thanks for pointing that out.
 
JohnnyAmato said:
At first I thought you meant the second half of the bars, but now, after listening, I think you're refering to the last double-chug that occurs at the end of every bar with the chord ringing out just after :-)24, etc) These were actually added later after-the-fact and hence are on another track altogether. They probably just need to come up a db or two. Thanks for pointing that out.
Click to expand...

Yup, that's it. Should've been clearer, sorry.
 
Guitar tones are fab, a nice mix of crunchy melodica. Bass is tucked in just right, and gives the guitars the right amount of balls. I like the vocals too. Top performances all round. I like this better than your other commercial tracks, but I guess you gotta eat :D
 
Giving another listen. Still mix 1?

The chorus is awesome! Really nice. You need the same energy in the verse. That stop and start rhythm on the guitars has got to be grounded in a powerful rhythm section that drives it. It's not there right now. The bass is AWOL and the drums sound lame. I'd do some more programming, see if you can get a pocket going. Then turn up the bass.

It's going to be good.
 
Robus said:
Giving another listen. Still mix 1?

The chorus is awesome! Really nice. You need the same energy in the verse. That stop and start rhythm on the guitars has got to be grounded in a powerful rhythm section that drives it. It's not there right now. The bass is AWOL and the drums sound lame. I'd do some more programming, see if you can get a pocket going. Then turn up the bass.

It's going to be good.
Click to expand...

Yea still mix 1.

I know what ya mean about the drums in the verses. When I put down the basic beat ideas so I could start laying down the guitars, the chorus and prechorus I kept tinkering with and adding things; the verses I didn't do much. I think more kick drum accents and maybe a few double snare hits might put me in the right direction. I'll experiment today.

The bass I'm not sure about. Might need to compress it harder, I'm only getting 2 or 3 db's of compression there. Are you refering to the bass being awol only in the verses, but is ok elsewhere?
 
Maybe AWOL is the wrong word. I do hear bass in the verse. It's just not connecting with the kick in the way adds energy from the bottom up, if that makes any sense.
 
I can't go to the end of the thread without losing the playback, so I hope I'm not repeating anything or missing a repost. Plenty of bottom-end on my system. Good mix. I see no problems with this, given my limited critiquing skills. Awesome freaking guitars. I'd be perfectly happy with this if it were my song. LOL!
 
New mix here and in the OP.

Trying mainly to give it more energy where it needs it, I tweaked the kick-in and kick-out mics a little bit, for more impact. Also added more kick hits for more groove and punch.

I re-did some of the bass during the verses, to line up better with the kick drum. Also compressed the bass a tad harder. (I'm wondering now if a 'picked' bass would've fit the song better, I use my fingers 90% of the time, and did here, but I'm not willing to re-do the whole bassline to find out lol)

Gave the toms more impact as well.

Tweaked the vocal a tiny bit, gave it a little more punch, but hardly noticeable.

Turned up a few random chords that were a little quiet.

I think that's it, well the main noticeable stuff anyway. There's still 2 or 3 spots that might need a better drum fill, I just haven't thought of anything I like yet, and don't want to force anything.

Hope it's getting closer.

Dropbox - LifelessDemo2.wav
 
The low end sounds fuller. The drums are improved. For my taste they are still a bit cymbally and washy rather than being low-down and groovy. I'm sure that made a ton of sense... ;) But it sounds pretty good overall.
 
Those guitar chugs I pointed out before are still too quiet. You can just edit the gain on the waveform to make them louder in those spots. They don't need to match the others volume exactly, but the point is, where you have them, they sound like they should be following the main guitars' chugging - like they're just continuing the last chugs from the louder ones. So when the quiet ones come in, it sounds funny. It's right at the end of that measure, so, naturally, you'd think they're just continuing the riff.

At 0:23-0:24, when the guitars chug one extra time before the first beat of the new measure, consider throwing either an open hat or a splash along with the kick - right before it goes into the first beat of the next measure. Does that make sense? I guess it'd be on the 4 beat of that measure. That way, it's like it's following the guitars' chugs and emphasizing the transition. You could do it just at the final bar before the prechorus, maybe. But it'd be splash on 4, crash on 1 (of next section). I was just listening to the drums in depth, and imagining how I'd play it, so disregard if you don't like it. Just some ideas. Yeah, you'll need a different fill though at 0:54.

If you don't have things exactly planned out, you have to be prepared for redoing the guitars and bass - you might come up with new ideas about how a fill or transition should go, but then you're gonna find that a lot of times it means that the guitars and bass will need to be redone there, to follow along appropriately. Writing chord progressions and melodies is the easy part - coming up with those transitions, like at 0:54, is where the real work comes in.

I like this mix a lot. It's definitely heading in the right direction.
 
Guitars sound very cool.

Bass is a little boomy and a bit loud. If you did a low end boost to it, I would reduce or eliminate it. Otherwise, I'd turn it down a little.

Vocals seem to be missing some high end. They sound a little muffled - both lead and backing. Too wet with reverb for me. The low harmony part is a bit too loud in the chorus.

Drums are so-so. You can tell they're programmed.

Like the gutiar solo. Good tone and good playing.
 
Thanks TripM! I actually was worried the bass might be a tad too loud, nobody else mentioned that, but I might take it down a db and see where I am. I didn't boost any lows on it, cut some actually, so that's not the issue, probably just overall volume.

I barely hi-shelfed the vocals at all, just 2db I think at 12k. Probably could go a little more. Maybe should try taking out a little more mud, like 300 or 400, I'll check it out.

The backgrounds in the choruses I was struggling with where to have them level-wise. I like where they're at now, but I could easily see someone saying they're a little too loud. So I'm still on the fence there...

I'm also still struggling a bit trying to humanize these drums more. Idealy, I'd love to have real drums on this one, just don't have the means to record my drummer right now.
 
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