My First and very own song...alternative rock

J

jerberson12

mucis procedure
Ok here is my first complete and very own song. written by me, mix by me, compose by me, played by me, sang by me! Title is Chillin!
Do you mind if ask the most famous question in this forum again?

Hows my mix? Tell me what you think :D

 
First thing first, very nice song!, excellent arrangements, good vocals. Great job! You have heaps to offer.

Not keen on the snare!, generally the drums seem to disappear a little in the mix, IMHO i'd give them more prominence, but i know how difficult it is to balance, there's always something that suffers. What's the story on the drums anyway?

[To be really really picky, I kinda feel that the track is almost a bit overdone, packed to the brim with stuff. It's all kewl, but to me it comes across as kinda try-hard, all tricks packed into one song....and it's a shame. But, that's being picky ;) ]

Thanks for sharing...



...
 
Typing my thoughts as I listen...

Nice clean tone, good recording quality. All around the board, the instruments sound good.
Song sounds poppy/catchy
Mix sounds good, can't hear anything wrong with it.
My recommenation would be to maybe get some lead guitar in there, or maybe have some kind of little riff in between choruses/verses or a guitar solo in there...IMO it does sound a bit redundant without that. Maybe that's just me though ;)
Yeah, nice start man... I should pull up my first mix many years ago just to show you what a great start you're off to
 
madmush said:
First thing first, very nice song!, excellent arrangements, good vocals. Great job! You have heaps to offer.

Not keen on the snare!, generally the drums seem to disappear a little in the mix, IMHO i'd give them more prominence, but i know how difficult it is to balance, there's always something that suffers. What's the story on the drums anyway?

[To be really really picky, I kinda feel that the track is almost a bit overdone, packed to the brim with stuff. It's all kewl, but to me it comes across as kinda try-hard, all tricks packed into one song....and it's a shame. But, that's being picky ;) ]


Thanks for sharing...

...
Click to expand...
yeah your right bro, im having hard time on the drums especially the snare, all drums are sampled by Battery, Thats the only kind of snare that I can think of, most of them are kind of electro. I still need to practice mixing snare and from this song, I over compressed it. Umm. overall drums sounds ok to me, I can hear everything.


yeah, its just me, putting all the tricks in one song, isnt that great?? :confused:
 
SnakeDog5050 said:
Typing my thoughts as I listen...

Nice clean tone, good recording quality. All around the board, the instruments sound good.
Song sounds poppy/catchy
Mix sounds good, can't hear anything wrong with it.
My recommenation would be to maybe get some lead guitar in there, or maybe have some kind of little riff in between choruses/verses or a guitar solo in there...IMO it does sound a bit redundant without that. Maybe that's just me though ;)
Yeah, nice start man... I should pull up my first mix many years ago just to show you what a great start you're off to
Click to expand...


hey, did you hear my lead at bridge (after the 2nd chorus) and the one at the finale?
I know, its boring... Im not a lead guitarist, will ya help me?
 
jerberson12 said:
hey, did you hear my lead at bridge (after the 2nd chorus) and the one at the finale?
I know, its boring... Im not a lead guitarist, will ya help me?
Click to expand...

I heard that lead and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but the tone's so similar to the rhythm it almost sounds to me as one guitar. I was thinking to maybe try using a different or distorted tone, something that sticks out as a lead.

As far as learning leads go... I'm not the best teacher... I've never had a guitar lesson or anything in my life... but what I developed just came from playing and having fun with stuff. I'd recommend learning a scale real well, recording a backing track in that key and then just keep jamming over it. Keep the recorder on and just keep trying different things within that scale, I've been suprised at how different "cool riffs" pop up the more you jam. Then your fingers get faster and more comfortable and you can expand your playing. Then there's like endless/keys/modes to mess around in... hope that helps some :)
 
I like your vocals a lot. You have a "warmth combined with hipster" thing that works well. The upfront hoice with the vocal sound works; I can never seem to get those to work right. Well done. The drums are a little kooky because they sound artificial. Yes, I know that ARE, but what I mean is that your pan placements are unnatural for a drum kit. There are two basic schools of thought on panning drums:

CHOICE ONE: You are the audience
Kick and snare essentially down the middle
Toms panned starting right to left from high to low
cymbals panned to both sides, but sorta close in
Hihat on the right side quite a bit.

Pretend you're standing in the audience, looking at the drums. where do the individual tones come at you from?

CHOICE TWO: You're the drummer
Kick down the middle
snare and tom1 just to the left of center
tom 2 just off the the right
lowest tom almost hard panned R
(if more toms, spread them evenly in this mix)
hihat panned pretty hard left
cymbals spread across the spectrum

Imagine you're sitting at the kit, close your eyes, where to the tones come at you from.

I mix mine like a drummer, because I am one.

As to cool riffs, I can tell you as another kindred spirit (I think I'm a legendarily horrible soloist) that the only way to get it where you want is to play all the time. And I don't, so do as I say, not as I do! :D :D :D

Nicely written piece, you have a good grasp of that per of the craft! Very solid hooks. That is the Holy Grail of pop songwriting. CHerish the gift and exercise it often!
 
Nice Song

Now that makes me think of Jesse McCartney (sp?). That is neither bad nor good. I just said the first thing that popped in my head when I played the song.

I like the tune. I like the enough instruments. I like the two guitars. I am not a drummer and I listen to a lot of genres of music. Some genres I come across have weak drums or fake drums, such as (pretty much all) country songs, many synth pop, electro pop, electro, techno, techno pop, techno rock, house music, maybe hiphop, and maybe rap, and so on. So my sense on what the drums should be is a little out of tune. I am not a brilliant lead player but I have been known to crank it up, reverb the crap out of it (to hide off time or off key notes) and to just "mix it in there".

Since I am not an all-in-all fast player, some other tricks I can offer are to:
1 - Try and change the sense of urgency but keep the same melodysuch as increase the tempo and keep the same base chord progression. Over this if you even hold one note in distorted tremolo'd or vibrated sound, it will give you a very nice solo. Many hit rock songs have done the one-note solo thing.
2 - Slow down the song in a editor, play along a solo at a comfortable speed. Then speed it up.
3 - Play the tune of the song, but throw in 3-4 note sequences that you can do really fast. Gives the overall fast but paced player sound.
4 - Screw the solo. Solos went out with the 80s. Now it's all about repeating chorus and fade and hope you didn't sound too different from Britney Spears.....
 
Llarion said:
I like your vocals a lot. You have a "warmth combined with hipster" thing that works well. The upfront hoice with the vocal sound works; I can never seem to get those to work right. Well done. The drums are a little kooky because they sound artificial. Yes, I know that ARE, but what I mean is that your pan placements are unnatural for a drum kit. There are two basic schools of thought on panning drums:

CHOICE ONE: You are the audience
Kick and snare essentially down the middle
Toms panned starting right to left from high to low
cymbals panned to both sides, but sorta close in
Hihat on the right side quite a bit.

Pretend you're standing in the audience, looking at the drums. where do the individual tones come at you from?

CHOICE TWO: You're the drummer
Kick down the middle
snare and tom1 just to the left of center
tom 2 just off the the right
lowest tom almost hard panned R
(if more toms, spread them evenly in this mix)
hihat panned pretty hard left
cymbals spread across the spectrum

Imagine you're sitting at the kit, close your eyes, where to the tones come at you from.

I mix mine like a drummer, because I am one.

As to cool riffs, I can tell you as another kindred spirit (I think I'm a legendarily horrible soloist) that the only way to get it where you want is to play all the time. And I don't, so do as I say, not as I do! :D :D :D

Nicely written piece, you have a good grasp of that per of the craft! Very solid hooks. That is the Holy Grail of pop songwriting. CHerish the gift and exercise it often!
Click to expand...


Yes thanks pal, I really dont have an idea on a typical drum panning. Maybe il do the audience panning.
 
bigbubba said:
Now that makes me think of Jesse McCartney (sp?). That is neither bad nor good. I just said the first thing that popped in my head when I played the song.

I like the tune. I like the enough instruments. I like the two guitars. I am not a drummer and I listen to a lot of genres of music. Some genres I come across have weak drums or fake drums, such as (pretty much all) country songs, many synth pop, electro pop, electro, techno, techno pop, techno rock, house music, maybe hiphop, and maybe rap, and so on. So my sense on what the drums should be is a little out of tune. I am not a brilliant lead player but I have been known to crank it up, reverb the crap out of it (to hide off time or off key notes) and to just "mix it in there".

Since I am not an all-in-all fast player, some other tricks I can offer are to:
1 - Try and change the sense of urgency but keep the same melodysuch as increase the tempo and keep the same base chord progression. Over this if you even hold one note in distorted tremolo'd or vibrated sound, it will give you a very nice solo. Many hit rock songs have done the one-note solo thing.
2 - Slow down the song in a editor, play along a solo at a comfortable speed. Then speed it up.
3 - Play the tune of the song, but throw in 3-4 note sequences that you can do really fast. Gives the overall fast but paced player sound.
4 - Screw the solo. Solos went out with the 80s. Now it's all about repeating chorus and fade and hope you didn't sound too different from Britney Spears.....
Click to expand...


Forget it, Il just find somebody to do the lead. I cant really grasp a good lead and im really bad at it. Or worst il just leave everything as is. besides i dont have really time to practice and i should have done it a long time ago.
 
i need to redo my vocal, i think i hit a bad tune in some part of the song. :o , its just me hurrying up to post this song without listening thoroughly for mistakes.
 
I like the song, arrangement and performance. The guitars sound really good to me - some interesting lines that set well with the vocal. More guitar please.

The recording quality of the vocal and drums sounds very in-your-face, which isn't a bad thing but it's to the point of harshness. I think the vocal has lots of edgy personality in the singing style that would be presented better with a smoother rounder tone in the mic'ing technique or processing. The drum sound gives me the same idea... that they're so edgy that they put the edginess out of balance and would support the song better with a more natural in-the-room sound.

The song has an appealing soaring quality.

Tim
 
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