A recording for my Uni application. Advice needed

Antidote

New member
Hey guys :) im 17 years old and am hoping to study Music Technology next year at a highly acclaimed institution in Australia and need to provide a portfolio of my work to date. Here is a song that I recorded of my friend a few days ago and I was hoping that a few of you might have some constructive criticism for me :) I have never tried to record/mix this kind of music before so it may be a bit rough :) Here is the song.

The Same by AntidoteProduction on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Guitar was recorded with a Rode NT-5 and Vox with an Akg Perception on Bi-Directional setting.
 
The vocals sound cool. The guitar needs some EQ and maybe a LITTLE reverb to smooth it out. With NT5 I always boost 2-3 db around 250 and cut 2-3 db around 5-7K. I know a lot of people here won't like the idea, but I compress solo acoustics to smooth them out a bit, but not too much because I like the attack and kinda unfinished sound.

It sounds like you close miced it. Maybe a little bit of distance, or even stereo might give the guitar some more finished sound to it..basically some distance or reverb could help a lot. It's not boomy, or harsh, so I think it sounds cool. I like rough guitars for solo stuff.

Mixing something like this is purely preference when there are just two parts to worry about. Balance sounds good to me.
 
Thanks for the info, I placed the mic about 50cm away from the guitar to try to give the sound wave time to develop, do you think that further than this is necessary? I did the same 5-7k cut as you however i slightly boosted around the 350 to try to bring out the A string. I suppose that may have subtracted from the shimmer of the picking.

There is already some reverb on the guitar however I was being careful not to destroy the simplicity of the acoustic guitar but I will definitely have a fiddle with the reverb to see if I can make it sound a little more polished. I come from a small country town so it is very difficult to get help around here on specialist industries such as this and I really need to nail my portfolio :) thanks for your help.
 
Overall sounds quite good.

Just curious, why did you use bi-directional setting on the vox?

Not much to critique, sounds good, if I noticed anything it would be that the playing and singing is kinda quiet, so I would suggest to play and sing closer to the mic(s) for a more present sound, but only if you plan on adding a (very good quality) reverb.

Also I thought I heard one or two pops/clicks in the beginning, since its a recording audition demo you should clear that up.

Nice work.
 
Thanks for the help :) I used bi-directional because I wasn't happy with the results I was getting from the Omidirectional, It sounded thin and the singer was unable to utilise the proximity effect that he could when using the bi-directional settings.

Upon closer inspection the pops and clicks at the start were the result of cutting the track and I neglected to make sure it started on a Zero Crossing so thanks for picking up on that. The reverb that I was using was the Air Reverb on PT9 as I cant afford any expensive outboard gear :( Unfortunately the singer didnt understand what "Make sure you're singing into the mic" meant which is why the vocals are a bit quiet and airy. Thanks for the input anyway :)
 
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