Critique my Mix!

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captions87

captions87

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hey guys, i posted a thread on this forum to get some advice on recording my band live and how to go about micing the drums and accounting for too much bleed from the other instruments in the room. the thread can be seen here:

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=307809

anyways, after scouring over this whole thread looking on advice and research on different mixing techniques, i've arrived at what i think is a not too bad sounding mix that represents the vibe of the song/band accurately. but of course, i'm a newbie and there might be some frequency issues that i might not catch with my not-as-seasoned ears.

http://soundcloud.com/captions

any and all advice will be greatly appreciated, thanks.
 
Actually not too bad. The drums sound good to me for a live recording. The kick is a little weak IMO. Also the vocals are sitting back a little much, too subdued, and seem to have more reverb than anything else. Sounds a little weird to have drums that dry and vocals that wet, if you know what I mean. Whatever you're doing for the drums, I think you're on the right track.
 
Cool feel to the song. I liked the instrumentation.

The mix needs work though.

The guitars are missing high mid energy - like anything above 4k - 5K or so. That causes them to sound distant.

I would take the reverb off the vocal at least for now. It makes it tough to hear. not sure the pitch is spot on everywhere - couple of bum notes.

The snare doesn't have enough crack to it. The cymbals sound indistinct and splashy.
 
guitar zero said:
Actually not too bad. The drums sound good to me for a live recording. The kick is a little weak IMO. Also the vocals are sitting back a little much, too subdued, and seem to have more reverb than anything else. Sounds a little weird to have drums that dry and vocals that wet, if you know what I mean. Whatever you're doing for the drums, I think you're on the right track.
Click to expand...

TripleM said:
Cool feel to the song. I liked the instrumentation.

The mix needs work though.

The guitars are missing high mid energy - like anything above 4k - 5K or so. That causes them to sound distant.

I would take the reverb off the vocal at least for now. It makes it tough to hear. not sure the pitch is spot on everywhere - couple of bum notes.

The snare doesn't have enough crack to it. The cymbals sound indistinct and splashy.
Click to expand...

thanks for the input. the drums originally had more verb on them, especially on the snare, but then it started to get a ringing sound out of the tone that i wasn't feelin too much. triplem, by saying the snare doesn't have enough crack to it, do you mean that it's not loud enough in the mix, or is there some eq work i should do? as far as the guitars, i'll try to eq them a bit. they're actually the only instrument i didn't do too much eq work on them, as individually i like how they sound and don't wanna affect their tone too much, but i guess it's what's best for the song. thanks for the input guys, keep it comin'.
 
Your mix

I also liked the feel of the song but the mix was pretty bad. To sum it up in one word would be "mud".
If I where you I would sit down with the band and decide where in the mix each instrument should sit. Then get online and search for a break down of all your instruments frequency ranges and make each one stand out from the others by adding and subtracting freq's.
Then remix the song and make sure each instrument, including your voice fits "in the pocket" and contributes to the total sound.
Don't be afraid to pan left and right,keep the guitars spaced, the kick drum and bass in the center...you get the idea.
I would live to hear a remix of this song, It has a lot of potential and deserves a good clean mix.

Rick
http://www.soundclick.com/mothersbadson
 
i finally got to listen to the mix through a couple sets of monitors and basically, there was absolutely no bass, and it was very quiet, which was just me being overcautious about clipping. is there anything else i'm missing?
 
What kind of mic setup did you have on the drums? Were there mics on every drum?

Did you have all of the instruments miced and is everything available to have its own track?

I ask this because it all sounds very mono to me. If you have all of those tracks seperate then I think you can do well with this song. Pan them into the stereo spread and let them seperate themselves a little and then EQ as necessary. I hear the bass fine as it is, maybe when it is spread out a little better you can hear a difference. That is all I can think of here. I hope this helps you out.

Trump
 
trumpino1 said:
What kind of mic setup did you have on the drums? Were there mics on every drum?

Did you have all of the instruments miced and is everything available to have its own track?

I ask this because it all sounds very mono to me. If you have all of those tracks seperate then I think you can do well with this song. Pan them into the stereo spread and let them seperate themselves a little and then EQ as necessary. I hear the bass fine as it is, maybe when it is spread out a little better you can hear a difference. That is all I can think of here. I hope this helps you out.

Trump
Click to expand...

yes each instrument was miced individually. there were 4 mics on the drums: two overheads, and a kick and snare mic.
 
Well, first of all, I think it sounds really good. But the reason I asked is because it sounds a little like everything is in the center to me and if everything is miced mabye you can move some things out to the left and right to fill up the stereo spread a little more. Like you said, you have overheads on the drums, maybe you could pan them more left and right harder away from each other and go from there. You got one hell of a song going there so good luck with it. By the way the playing is pretty damned good by my book.
 
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