Please critique recording of our song "The Quiet Hours"

D

Dream Parade

New member
:) Hello everyone, this is my first post to Home Recording dot com.
I'm looking for your advice ,and an honest critique of the recording quality
of our song "The Quiet Hours".Any tips on how i could make this better would
be much appreciated.The song was written for submission to a local tv series
who were looking for music for their show .I'm fairly new to recording ,and
we did this in my home studio.Thank again.

The song is posted on the Soundclick website at:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/gliemmusic.htm
 
Love the vocalist and acoustic guitar. The lead guitar sounds out of place in volume and tone. The vocals sound pro, so does the acoustic guitar. Nice song, a little slow. The only thing I can say about the song is that the chorus doesn't distinguish itself from the rest of the song. Kinda all flows together.
 
Is the acoustic guitar miced with a dynamic, or perhaps run directly into the console/pre? It doesn't sound very natural. Love the bass lines in the intro. Distorted guitar lines are cool, too.

The vocalist is outstanding but she's a bit too loud in the mix. It sort of sounds like karaoke. Like she's singing on top of a backing track. Carve out some room for her vocals. It's going to be tough because she has such a strong voice. Make use of the entire sonic spectrum. May have to really pan some stuff hard to get it to fit.

Great song. Outstanding vocals. Instrument performances are very good as well. I'd try to get some warmth in the acoustic guitar, and work on setting the vox in the mix a bit better.

Incredible potential on this one.
 
SilverSurfer-thanks i'm glad you liked it .I know the lead tone is
unorthodox i like it that way ,however i may experiment a
little.The song is more about mood and it was meant to
flow together it was written as background music for a tv
series who wanted slow atmospheric singer/songwritter stuff.thanks for listening. :)

axeman69-Actually the acoustic guitar was recorded with
a stereo pair of nt1's
,perhaps it is a little too bright.I agree the vocals
are a bit loud i'll try turning them down and placing them
in their own space frequency wise.thanks What do you think i should carve for vocals? :D
 
Something about the bass. Doesnt fit in well. You didnt use an amp on the electric guitar did you?
Nice tune.
Could do with multiband comressing the Bass as the higher notes sound louder than the lower ones.
 
Good ear, no i used the v-amp for the electric guitar how did you know?no
room sound? ya the bass is a little lumpy i'll work on that.
Glad you liked the tune.
 
Dream Parade said:
SilverSurfer-
axeman69-Actually the acoustic guitar was recorded with
a stereo pair of nt1's
,perhaps it is a little too bright.I agree the vocals
are a bit loud i'll try turning them down and placing them
in their own space frequency wise.thanks What do you think i should carve for vocals? :D
Click to expand...

I'd maybe double the acoustic guitar track, and pan them maybe 9:00 and 3:00. That may give the vocal track some space. The sound of the vocal track is actually really good. I don't think I'd touch it other than bringing it down a db or two. If there is still clashing with the vox and guitar track, I may cut a bit of 3-5k from the guitar track(s). It's a bit bright anyway.

I'm glad I listened again. Did you change something for the bass lines at the end of the song? The bass sounds sort of different than it does during the rest of the take.

This is a really good song. And this singer has a STRONG voice. I'd like to hear her wail on something a bit more heavy.
 
:cool: thanks i'll try that .No the Bass line was all one take ,I noticed that
as well .Maybe i cut too much low end on the bass and that's why it sounds lumpy.
I think i need too be more concervative in my eq.Ya we actually have some new stuff
we are working on for our next cd where she wails pretty good it sounds amazing. :D
 
Interesting sound to that bass, I like the 'personality' of it. It's very well defined on the high eq end characteristics, I agree maybe some of the lows seem missing but I think overall the bass part is strong just not perfect. I like the vox, kinda reminds me of an Alanis Tori hybrid with the writing done by someone who used to work with Pink Floyd. I like the guitar rhythm work but that one lead around the 1:50 mark sounded a little faded in the background.

The harmonies are sweet, I like the song very much. Welcome to the board this is a very good first submission. :)
 
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Thanks again you guys are great and it really makes me wan't to be a
contributing member of this forum.Our lead singer Melodie is a huge Tori
fan ,she was very flattered.I just love the unorthodox and the unexpected
most of our songs do seem to echo that. ;)
 
great tune.

i hear alot of tori at the end, especially. i also like the lead in the background; reminds me of iron maidens' sound, actually--even the way the licks are constructed, but maybe i've listened to too much maiden... anyhow. acoustic sounds ok, but i agree that the bass is 'chunky' for the vibe of the song... since i'm no mixer, i couldn't tell you what to do. :)

it would be cool if you put the lyrics up at soundclick--people like my wife like that kind of stuff. she really dug the song, too.

welcome aboard here--i'm a newbie too, and i hope you get the gig w/the song.

zim
 
Tori meets maiden i love em both .You can never listen to too much maiden(maybe).
Thanks ,I've just finished posting the lyrics at soundclick, glad your wife dug it
I'll keep the forum updated on what happens with the song ,for anyone interested.
I'm very happy to be apart of such a great and informative community. :)
 
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