PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give me your advice

89gtsleeper

New member
The songs on my page are a few of my very first attempts at both recording, mixing, and composing. I am only 21 and very inexperienced. All was done with the most minimal of equipment. One microphone, one guitar, one amp, one effects pedal (a line 6 dl-4), no bass, the cheapest drum machine I know of (A Zoom MRT-3), and all done in a room that's like 8' x 10'. I am really trying to get my music out there and I am wanting everyone's opinion on everything from the music itself, to the quality of the mix. I've got a full equipment list and pictures on the site. These were all done prior to getting a condensor mic or DBX compressor.

http://www.myspace.com/2ndstorystudios
 
for the equipment you had, it's pretty great! everything sits together really well IMO. i especially like the counterpoint stuff on track 3!
 
listening as I type:

track 3:

1. good mix. everything balanced.
2. normally i won't listen if I see "drum machine", but you said please like 9 times. good job programming here though. now go find a drummer. ;)
3. tone sounds right. nice...
4. good job on the panning. nice tune. really really like the building throughout.

track 2:

1. good mix again.
2. good effects on the main rhythm at 11O'Clock.
3. good programming again on drums
4. good tone, although, for me, the distorted guitar on the left channel is tad harsh for me, but that's just me.

BBC2:

1. awesome intro. tone is spot on. playing is spot on as well.
2. diggin' the song man...
3. good change with the rockin out part...nice.
4. drums should have given you an aneurism to program. good job again
5. should I be high when listening to this? groovy man...

track 1:

1. mix good again.
2. good playing...you have several nice styles that you're playing on all of these songs...tones are different on each as well...good balance and variety
3. drums good again.


ok...talented guitarist! Definitely keep at it man, you've got talent. Go hook up with some talented individuals and make music! Keep posting, i look forward to your stuff.

Cholo
 
thanks for listening so far. As for the drum machine... none of it is programmed. It has like 7 pads that you can manually hit for each sound. So for instance, I would lay down the first guitar track, then go through the whole song and record nothing but the snare hits all the way through, then start a new track, play the kick all the way through, etc... I definitely did it this way also to simualate those quirky inconsistencies that are just a part of playing a real instrument. Nobody is perfect and even the most spot on drummers will be off by a few ms here and there. Lastly, I went through each track to balance out the EQ and levels, followed by some different reverb on each. With the verb and EQ I tried my hardest to inject some life into the overall drum track. To an extent I would say the kick is always up front a bit much, but since I don't use any basses or anything else on these recordings, I had to do something to compensate.

Funny also, on track 3, for the final mixdown, I had to manually slide the fader up and down for the snare to manually simulate that drum roll type sound. I don't use computers, and my 2488 doesn't have automation for even the simplest of things like volume, and though the drum machine I used does offer a small amount of dynamic range dependent upon how hard you hit the pad, it never had the range I was looking for... so I just recorded all the hits at full on volume, and manually moved the fader as I made the master.... then on top of that, during the "master" I had to have the reverb turned up a ton for those rolls, then drop the verb almost completely on the snare once everything else kicks in. At that point it's 6 guitars. Each of those were one track through, in fact honestly, I just was bored one day and just layered those six tracks on top of each other, then the next day I structured it a bit by cutting/pasting things around, then adding the drums last.
 
oh, and the BBC2 track is actually not the same as the other stuff. I posted a bulletin on myspace about that, but didn't mention it to you guys... That was a band I was in when I was 16 called Black Belt Charlie. I played bass on that, my now Berkelee grad friend Blaze McKenzie was on guitar, and another friend Max Gleason on drums. That was recorded at Studio 7 here in Oklahoma City by Dave. Blaze's dad prints T-shirts downtown and he made some shirts for the studio in exchange for a half day of time to record a demo. I think we were all very proud of ourselves after that demo. I'll post the other 3 tracks from that demo tomorrow. They're pretty damned good for a 3-piece comprised of 16 year old high schoolers in OKC!!

It's funny though how about 5 years later after that band split up, I most closely adopted my recent guitar stylings from Blaze how he played in that band.
 
Back
Top