Opinions/feedback - Metal (Metalcore) Track

amra

amra

Well-known member
Ok, this is a "quick" recording done for some friends of mine. They wanted to put a song concept down for their singer to work with while the idea was fresh in their minds. For me, it was a good excuse to practice tracking and mixing. Feedback and or opinions welcomed!

Link to track in MP3 format

Some notes on the recording:
1. The drummers kit left a lot to be desired. The toms just went "doink" when he hit them, so I replaced them using KtDrumtrigger.
2. The kick was also replaced, but now that I listen to the exported mix, the triggered kick seems to be missing, and the original (weak) kick seems to be there. Guess I must have accidentally muted the midi channel before I exported. Not sure.
3. What do you think of the actual song itself? Personally, although this is not my favorite style, I think they might have something here. The riffs seemed to stick in my head like glue.
 
Listening as I type....typing as I listen.....whatever.....

Drum intro is kinda long and boring, IMHO. There's a LOT of reverb there, if it were me, I'd cut down on the amount of reverb, especially on the kick. But I think that is more of a stylistic choice than anything. Kick kinda gets lost the more the song goes on. Oh wait, but you haven't replaced the kick yet. I'd be willing to bet that it will help once you replace it, and get a little punchier kick sound. I also want to hear the drums be a little punchier. Not bad, though, especially for just a quick rough recording and mix. Not how I would have done it, I don't think, but that's what makes these forums great, meeting people who do things completely different.

Oh, and the song is pretty catchy, I agree. You should post it again if you ever get vocals recorded so we can here the whole mix.

:D
 
Not sure how vocals would sit in this mix. The guitar is too high in the mix, compared to the other instruments. Reverb is a bit overdone, IMO. I won't comment on the kick as you said it wasn't replaced in the final mixdown. The guitar almost sounds like it was tweaked so it sounded good by itself, but it doesn't fit well with the bass/drums. Good song, although a bit cliche (I'm a fan of prog/art rock, so my opinion shouldn't matter too much regarding this style).
 
not bad. decent tones to work with. drums have way to much verb makes em get lost once the song gets going. i dont really mind the kick to much, could use a little more click to define it but personally im getting tired of that damn trigger click sound unless the drummer is a real bad ass blast beat player. guitar tones not bad, little nasal. could use some low mids to give it some balls. what i can really pick out is the bass. seems its in there but i cant tell what its up to. drive it a little hotter, boost some of the uppers to give it some attack.

as far as the song goes its not bad. the lifting of the classical piece is a bit strange.
 
I agree the drum intro gets kinda boring..also the timing is rather suspect here and there and that sort of draws your attention with it being unaccompanied like that.

I don't like all the reverb personally. It kinda sounds like everything was recorded with the room sound influencing it, but it's not a great room sound if you know what I mean. The intro guitar has sort of a funny sound. Like the reverb on the amp is cranked up, yet it sounds sort of mono rather than spacious like I would expect. Maybe some sort of stereo effect would make that sound cooler.

I would also try to get rid of the extraneous guitar noise where it shouldn't be heard. Unless the band in fact sees that somehow as adding "character" or something.

I hope the band plans on crediting Orff for the "O Fortuna" ripoff riff... :D haha.
 
Are the guitars panned? It sounds like the two takes are just layered on top of each other.
 
Not going to repeat the comments on the drums.

I like the guitars and amount of FX on them. I like how they're played. Like the arpeggios on the chords in the beginning on the clean guitars.

Cool squeals. You make sure and let the guitarist know that!

I changed picks lately and can't make the guitar squeal on demand. Been practicing.

On second thought, the guitars could afford to be just a tad bit crunchier. I'm referring to maybe adding a little EQ on the high end between 5 - 10kHz. :) But just a touch.

Good drummer, just the recording/kit is not all that clear.

5:53 is a pretty long song considering these days are the days of 2:53 minute hit singles. :)
 
Thanks for all the feedback guys, it was just the kind of stuff I was looking for.

To answer a couple of your questions - the guitar was one take, and is only one track (no panning). Ordinarily I would always do several takes to get at least 2 guitar tracks, and pan each them 70%, but this was a one take quicky recording, so they didn't do any extra takes.

Taking all the great feedback into account, I made a new mix taking making the following changes:

1. Trimmed out the long boring drum intro (it's their song, but this is just for the sake of making a more managable download here on the net for feedback purposes)
2. Brought down the reverb in the clean guitar in the intro and the drums throughout the track.
3. Replaced the kick with a triggered sample (it is kind of clicky, so some will not like it, but it is pretty consistent with this style of music)
4. Brought down the distorted guitar so it doesn't overpower the mix.
5. Brought up the mids on the guitar a tiny bit (scared to mess with it too much, because I can't really hear the lack of mids)
 
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