Rock and Roll mix...please critique

A

ad0lescnts

New member
I'm tired of people not giving me a chance because I'm 15. Maybe you guys won't judge.... Tell me what you think. I'm the drummer and do the recording in the band. I know the vocals are off at some parts but this is just a rough mix. Just listen and tell me what you think!

Thanks in advance
Tyler
 
I like the tune

Constructive criticism:

-The lead vocal is way too far out in front. It sounds like the rest of the band is 20ft behind him.

-The guitar gets drowned out and is almost indistinguishable from the drum set through the entire song. Bring it forward so it sounds like it's supporting the singer.

-Do you have a bassist? It's muddy and gets lost with the guitar in with the drums. I sharper attack or using a pick would work. Can't tell if you use a DI or not, sounds like your mic'ing the bass cab though.

The drums sound really good probably due to the fact that you are used to hearing them from your point of view. If there is a way to play back the tracks of your drums and have the band play along with them with you standing in front of the lead singer, you'll kinda see what I'm talking about. Remember that you are mixing for the person that is not in your band, but is standing in the audience probably a good 10ft(3m) away. It's a different perspective.

This has potential, and I like the breaks. The song itself is a good one. Take comfort in the fact that your band can keep a good beat and maintain rythym. Hopefully more experienced people will reply also to provide you with exact adjustments that you can make. Sounds good for a garage mix, keep up the recording.

Dick
 
This isn't bad at all. As you say its only a rough mix some of my comments might not be relevent. The drums do sound good and you play them well. The bass is muddy I cant hear whats happening. I would'nt say the guitar was too quiet but a little more contrast would be good maybe using an acoustic is parts. The vocals are too loud and don't sit in the track. I'm not a big listener to this king of rock based material, one thing I do notice in commercial recording however is the current trend to compress the hell out of everything. This tecnique seems to work for guitar based stuff and would help you sit the vocals into the track more easily.
 
Not a bad recording, it just needs some mix tweeks. Evildick has some good points. What did you track this on?
 
Thanks a lot. I used an MXR D.I. pedal on the bass and it sounds really good alone, but how do I make it not sound so muddy? It was all recorded onto an Akai DPS16.. Using acoustic guitar mixed together with the electric sounds rad.. I'll do it on the next recording, this one is just for sending to sponsors. Is there any other way to make the guitars sound better (including bass!) AND... I realized I fucked up on the pitch correcting on the vocals I otta fix that. Thanks guys, I'll post it back with the changes..?

TYLER
 
hey, it kicks butt on sony mdr7506 headphones!! Alot of bass happining though... maybe roll off some of the low end....whatever.
 
bass

Hey Tyler,
I think that the bass may sound muddy because of old, dirty strings on the bass guitar. Maybe if new ones were put on it would sound much brighter and punchier. Also with a rickenbacker bass guitar its not supposed to sound too bassy, it may need a treble boost.

-Greg
 
Nice start -- sounds a lot better than some of the crap I was recording when I was a teenager. :)


The main problem with your mp3 is the levels are set WAY too low. Just playing the file in something like WinAmp you can see the the levels barely get into the yellow. That means that you're wasting a huge amount of spectrum -- and it's one of the reasons the instruments are all smashed together. I'm not sure if it's a function of your recording or your mp3 converter, but look into it. If you can boost up the levels you'll be able to pack a lot more sound in.

What did you record this with? It's really quite a nice start.
 
The bass is killing your levels. You have a lot of really low end but no meat. Try bringing down the bass guitar and kick up the drums. You may need to do a little EQ work to get the Bass and Kick to work well with eachother.

Once you do that the guitars should be able to come up louder and the mix should sound much more balanced. You seem to have some nice quality levels on the tracks so they will probably sound good once you can get the levels higher.

I'm guessing your monitoring on home stereo or computer speakers?
 
ad0lescnts,

I thought it sounded really great for a rough mix!
You guys have a lot of talent.
The vocals,drums and guitar work are excellent.

If you remix using the above comments,I think you'll have a first class recording.

quoted by xalien-
"sounds a lot better than some of the crap I was recording when I was a teenager"

Sounds better than some of the crap I'm recording now!

Great stuff

Best to you,
Pete
 
do you have any suggestions for how I should EQ the bass guitar/bass drum? I have little MIDS on the bass and more on the bass drum but nothing seems to get them separated. They seem kind of jumbled. I'm monitoring on tannoy proto J's ...i guess i need to get a lot better. But do you have any suggestions on EQ'ing?
 
I would cut most of the low mids out of the kick drum....and compress the snare, kick, and vocals a bit more....just a suggestion!

Darth
 
definately a wholllle lot of bass that i'm hearing...kind of random too - may need quite a bit of compression?

i'm only 16, and your stuff sounds almost JUST like mine did when i first started recording a year ago. Do you have anything else done? i'd love to hear some other stuff...

as for critiquing, most the guys already covered that. if you want to see where you'll be in a year - check out this thread
https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51519
(and listen to those songs there).....pretty much everything i've learned has been done through this forum actually...lol


anyway, sounds cool for a rough mix, i like the music definately.
 
Alright...
i'm kind of stuck. It's too late to add compression to the bass (the Akai's compression features dont seem to do anything..) and the bass drum doesn't seem to sound too good with the bass all the way down....but it does sound less jumbled from the bass guitar. what do i do?
 
I didn't look at the other replys, so here goes:

You've got that Oasis drumbeat in the beginning, which I despise, but that's ok. :) It can come subconciously. The drums are too muddy, and the mixing is overall quite garage-ish. Pay attention to playing a solid drumbeat. It kinda drags. The singing ain't that happening, but who am I to speak about that, since I'm horrible in that department.

Now, the song itself. The beginning sounds a bit like cliched 80's metal, but the song actually has its good moments. I can see this song having some potential. I like the changes in the song. Just focus on better mix and more solid playing at least on the drums.

Don't kill me! I'm just saying what I'm hearing. You're not hopeless, and I wasn't that good at that age. Maybe you shouldn't have told your age just yet, since it can distract the judging.
 
Thanks a lot everyone...
I did my best to make all the changes you guys said and here's the updated version:


And here's another song by my band if you anyone wants to hear more:
 
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