Something Worth Checking Out

A few buddies of ours recorded this, and had a couple guys come in and do a bit of editing for us. Tell us what you think.
I personally think the vocals are a little overcompressed.
 
Overall very good mix and performance. I do also hear a problem with the vocals. They have alot of high end hiss, which might have been brought about from the compression that you have already mentioned. But I also kind of hear the same his comming from the drum over head. This might then mean that it is a final master compression that is bringing this up. I don't know.

Jeff Patterson
 
Hmm, I think you may be right about the overhead, I'll have to pay closer attention to that next time. It sounded quite a bit better in wav format, as soon as it hit mp3, soundy a little wonky. Thanks for reply.
 
Hey I like the song. There is some good music up here! Couple things about the mix: the drums need some work. I think the snare is too low and the cymbals are very muddy. The vocal is good, I wish I had a voice like that! But there is a lot of sucking air breathing noises, and I agree with Kranak about the EQ and compression issue. Keep tweaking, its close.
 
No, I don’t hear the compressor breathing at all. I just hear slightly too much sibilance on the vocals and hi-hats. With vocals, I think it occurs when the effects overstate the high end just a little. It’s kind of like a ghostly hiss which hovers above each word. It’s noise made from breathing out each word but exaggerated by the effects. Some engineers like the effect so they leave it on there. I often hear it with female singers with lots of effects on their voices. Listen to a slow song by Faith Hill or Shania Twain up loud. You’ll hear it. I really didn’t have a problem with it.

With the hi-hats, they probably don’t have any effects on them so; that was just a matter of having a little too much high-end going on there. All of the other cymbals sound good though. I only hear it on the hi-hats.

It’s an overall good mix. I rather enjoyed it. I liked the way the drums sounded too. I would leave it all alone except for that hi-hat. That was the only thing that distracted my attention from the overall groove.

Sorry to disagree guys but hey, we all hear things differently and we each have different tastes. Just my two cents.
 
I think it sounds really good, excelent song. The singer has an awesome voice.

As for the mix, yeah the drums need some work and overall the song seemed slightly too loud (the spectrum analyser in winamp was going off the scale!). I dont think theres any major problems with the vocals, they sound really well placed and up the front of the mix, like your attention is drawn the them, but still not over shadowing the rest of the instruments.

As for the 'sucking air breathing noises'.....They should be there, they give the vocals more character, listen to any song by 'Muse', the singer does exactly the same thing, and they left it in there for a reason.
 
I liked it.
Thouhts: I think the vocals need to come up just a hair. I would also bring the guitars in a little, they are panned full over <too much imo> I agree with the hat comment too, after that the overall drums could come up just a bit.

I really really like the song though! keep up the good work!!

Ron
 
GREAT all-around.

Singer... very good voice.

The occasional breathing between words on the voice is fine for me... gives it character... plenty of commercial rock music has that.

It's amazing that there are so many "home-brew" groups out there that have the ability and technology to produce songs with such good production quality.

One little thing. Small nitpick.

The panning effect at time = 1:55 where it pans hard left with nothing on the right channel should be changed. I like occasional hard panning.... but when theres nothing on the other channel, it very rarely sounds proper. Just add a little signal bleed into the right channel... it'll sound quite a bit better I suspect.

Also, at the beginning of song where guitar leads in.... Personally, I'd prefer just a tinge of high frequency... to give a little more sparkle and punch...

The guitar at the beginning sounds very "flat" (likely from being compressed at a generous setting)... plus being EQ'ed likely... I'd compensate for the loss in dynamics due to the compressor by just adding a little high freq punch.

Vocals might have been a tad overcompressed... but I'd go either way... I hear plenty of music like that nowadays... the overcompression is an effect in itself which most comsuners nowadays have come to accept as being the "normal" music sound... Music listeners of today are used to less amplitude dynamics than listeners of 10 or 20 years ago.
 
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