Angels Fall-the mastered version!

  • Thread starter Thread starter joeym
  • Start date Start date
Sounds freakin' GREAT, Joey! I'm curious, though. Did you have him (or did he want to) master for that unGodly volume that everyone hates so much? ;)
 
7string said:
Sounds freakin' GREAT, Joey! I'm curious, though. Did you have him (or did he want to) master for that unGodly volume that everyone hates so much? ;)
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:DHa,ha,...it's actually not as loud as a commercial CD, we wanted to retain a bit of dynamic. In fact if you load it in your DAW, you'll still see a bit of feather duster...
Thanx for listening, Jeff!
 
I did actually load Angels & Hills into a wave editor to look at the results of the mastering & you're right, plenty of dynamics in the image. It didn't sound squished & doesn't look it - I should've trusted my ears.
Good choice Joe.
 
Hey that's pretty solid stuff Joey. You've got a great power/prog voice (wouldn't mind having someone like that singing on my music!), and the playing is amazing. Some of the instrument tones are really the only thing that hurt it in any way, but not enough to ruin my thorough enjoyment of it. Though, prog metallers seem to have some kind of fetish for falling angels don't they? ;) (I recall Angra for one)

Success with the cd.
 
Mistral said:
Hey that's pretty solid stuff Joey. You've got a great power/prog voice (wouldn't mind having someone like that singing on my music!), and the playing is amazing. Some of the instrument tones are really the only thing that hurt it in any way, but not enough to ruin my thorough enjoyment of it. Though, prog metallers seem to have some kind of fetish for falling angels don't they? ;) (I recall Angra for one)

Success with the cd.
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Thanx Mistral!
Yeah I guess this does go in the direction of prog/metal, but that wasn't intentional, it just turned out that way. Fallen angels are a great theme to write about and the lyrics to this one were written together with Rayc. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.
 
Bravo, man. Sounds pro. Stuff like this gives me a slice of humble pie - and a great reference for A/B'ing my own stuff.

Please count me in on your list of people to notify when you have a release.

Also - and I hesitate quite a bit to mention this, because it's already done, but, for future reference if anything - the hat sound @ approx 3:00 sounds quite brittle, and contrasts a lot against the rest of the kit during the rest of the song. If there's anything to change for my ears, that'd be it.

Guitars / bass / sweet ripping vocals... Dude... It doesn't get better than this.

Mega-kudos, man.
 
PoeticIntensity said:
Bravo, man. Sounds pro. Stuff like this gives me a slice of humble pie - and a great reference for A/B'ing my own stuff.

Please count me in on your list of people to notify when you have a release.

Also - and I hesitate quite a bit to mention this, because it's already done, but, for future reference if anything - the hat sound @ approx 3:00 sounds quite brittle, and contrasts a lot against the rest of the kit during the rest of the song. If there's anything to change for my ears, that'd be it.

Guitars / bass / sweet ripping vocals... Dude... It doesn't get better than this.

Mega-kudos, man.
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Thanx Jason, always appreciate your comments! Release is January 2011, but in the meantime, you can check this out:
https://homerecording.com/bbs/gener...ublicity/first-single-off-angels-fall-315340/
 
Very well played. Liked the sound of the distorted rhythm guitars. Got a little fizzy here and there, but overall they sounded good. Very strong singing voice.

Lot's of squeaks in the acoustic intro. A bit of that can sound cool, but this was a little too much for me.

Drums get a bit machine-gunny in some of the fills.

Something strange sounding on the word "the" at 2:19.

I liked the reverb you used in the intro.

Great lead guitar work.
 
TripleM said:
Very well played. Liked the sound of the distorted rhythm guitars. Got a little fizzy here and there, but overall they sounded good. Very strong singing voice.

Lot's of squeaks in the acoustic intro. A bit of that can sound cool, but this was a little too much for me.

Drums get a bit machine-gunny in some of the fills.

Something strange sounding on the word "the" at 2:19.

I liked the reverb you used in the intro.

Great lead guitar work.
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Thanx Triple!
Main solo was played by Chris Frehse, a guitarrist I love to work with. Yeah, those squeeks...the ME had a hard time suppressing them, they were louder before mastering. It's probably made worse by the fact that those are 3 acoustic tracks, each with its own squeeks! But anyway, the intro's pretty short....
I programmed the drums for this about a year and a half ago, I think in the meantime I've become a bit better. So I'll keep your observations in mind for future songs.;)
 
Sounds pretty huge man. Guitars and vocals sound great. Drums are a little robotic, as already mentioned. But whatever. Some zit-faced metal dweeb in his mom's basement doesn't know the difference. :D

A master is only as good as the raw mix, so give yourself a pat on the back for making good mixes.
 
Greg_L said:
Sounds pretty huge man. Guitars and vocals sound great. Drums are a little robotic, as already mentioned. But whatever. Some zit-faced metal dweeb in his mom's basement doesn't know the difference. :D

A master is only as good as the raw mix, so give yourself a pat on the back for making good mixes.
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Thanx Greg, that's a real up-lift!;)
Yeah, that zit-faced dweeb and my other 10 fans don't seem to mind.....:laughings:
 
dewhitt said:
Congrats, Joey. This sounds fantastic. I'm hearing almost a pumping and breathing kind of thing with the rhythm, which gives it a cool feel. Was that intentional, or am I just imagining it? :)

I absolutely love your vocals.

Best Regards,

Dave
SoundClick artist: Dave DeWhitt - page with MP3 music downloads
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I guess it was intentional, Dave, 'cos most of today's metal albums seem to be mastered that way. I didn't ask the ME for it, though, I just gave him some examples of favourite bands.
Thanx for the nice comments!:)
 
Joe - I haven't read all the replies, just enough to get the original mix downloaded and the 'stem' mastering idea. Two snaps up for stem mastering!!! :);) It took my awhile, but I wanted to give a good listen to the original version since I never got to hear it when you first posted it for review. I love to just listen and see where you 'go' during a song. Your writing and arranging is so engaging for me - I feel so amateurish by comparison. It's inspiring.
anywhoo....the mastering.... There was this cymbal that was driving me nuts in the original! I wanted to kill it! :mad: There was an odd mic/room sound to your vocal that I was not accustomed to when working with you lately (You did say this was done over a year ago, so that makes sense). Also, the guitar tone got a little weird in some spots.
The mastered version dealt with that cymbal :D:D. The vocal sat much better and I didn't notice that odd room sound anymore. The guitars sounded more focused and natural too.
This was quite eye-opening for me :eek:. I see the need for having someone else master the songs. I'm sure I'll still try to do it myself, but man, what a difference.

:D

Brad
 
maximusbs said:
Joe - I haven't read all the replies, just enough to get the original mix downloaded and the 'stem' mastering idea. Two snaps up for stem mastering!!! :);) It took my awhile, but I wanted to give a good listen to the original version since I never got to hear it when you first posted it for review. I love to just listen and see where you 'go' during a song. Your writing and arranging is so engaging for me - I feel so amateurish by comparison. It's inspiring.
anywhoo....the mastering.... There was this cymbal that was driving me nuts in the original! I wanted to kill it! :mad: There was an odd mic/room sound to your vocal that I was not accustomed to when working with you lately (You did say this was done over a year ago, so that makes sense). Also, the guitar tone got a little weird in some spots.
The mastered version dealt with that cymbal :D:D. The vocal sat much better and I didn't notice that odd room sound anymore. The guitars sounded more focused and natural too.
This was quite eye-opening for me :eek:. I see the need for having someone else master the songs. I'm sure I'll still try to do it myself, but man, what a difference.

:D

Brad
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Those are some great observations, Brad!
Glad you took your time to check it out. I've played the tracks now on different systems and they sound good to me everywhere. I have to agree with the experts here, to master properly, you need experience, the right environment and good equipment and in most cases, we home-recordists don't have one or the other. This has been a good experience for me. Thanx for commenting!:)
 
hey guys,

i'm jan, the ME how did the mastering of joes album. he kindly pointed me to this thread and i'm glad to get so much cool feedback. thank you! :-)

i have to say, that i enjoyed the mastering very much - its an fantastic album, its currently on heavy rotation in my car. joe has really great songwriting skills, a fat guitar sound & i like his voice very much. :)

there were some questions regarding the mastering i would like to answer:
as joe already mentioned, i normally listen to the stereo-bus mixes to get an impression. then i decide if i can achieve a solid sound on that or if stems are needed to go into more detail. joes mixes were ok, but i wanted to have stems to get the most out of it, so i could e.g. do de-essing on the vox, fatten it up by saturation or smooth out the drums (esp. the metal-section) a little bit & glue it with the bass. on guitars i mostly made small modifications, just to get the tone which i felt supports the track most.

on stereobus there are mostly a lot and very small optimizations. the processing-chain is never the same, e.g.
- rough EQing
- very little multiband
- smaller EQing to prepare for compression
- singleband compression
- some tape-style saturation to make the sound more "organic"
- further EQing
- again singleband-compression (which is sometimes a little bit pumping/breathing to support the groove)
- M/S EQing and/or comression &
- finally limiting

all in all i roughly used maybe 30 plug-instances per track. maybe 20 for the stems & 10 for the stereobus. no magic polish, just ears, an acoustically optimized room that translates, the right tools (i'm mastering completely ITB) & knowing which direction (soundwise) makes sense.

regarding levels, we decided not go beyond 10-11dB RMS, which is "on the lower bound" of current rock/metal releases, of course not too low, but sound is more important & we all have volume-knobs :-)

if you have further questions, pls let me know :-)

ciao,
jan
 
karumba said:
hey guys,

i'm jan, the ME how did the mastering of joes album. he kindly pointed me to this thread and i'm glad to get so much cool feedback. thank you! :-)

i have to say, that i enjoyed the mastering very much - its an fantastic album, its currently on heavy rotation in my car. joe has really great songwriting skills, a fat guitar sound & i like his voice very much. :)

there were some questions regarding the mastering i would like to answer:
as joe already mentioned, i normally listen to the stereo-bus mixes to get an impression. then i decide if i can achieve a solid sound on that or if stems are needed to go into more detail. joes mixes were ok, but i wanted to have stems to get the most out of it, so i could e.g. do de-essing on the vox, fatten it up by saturation or smooth out the drums (esp. the metal-section) a little bit & glue it with the bass. on guitars i mostly made small modifications, just to get the tone which i felt supports the track most.

on stereobus there are mostly a lot and very small optimizations. the processing-chain is never the same, e.g.
- rough EQing
- very little multiband
- smaller EQing to prepare for compression
- singleband compression
- some tape-style saturation to make the sound more "organic"
- further EQing
- again singleband-compression (which is sometimes a little bit pumping/breathing to support the groove)
- M/S EQing and/or comression &
- finally limiting

all in all i roughly used maybe 30 plug-instances per track. maybe 20 for the stems & 10 for the stereobus. no magic polish, just ears, an acoustically optimized room that translates, the right tools (i'm mastering completely ITB) & knowing which direction (soundwise) makes sense.

regarding levels, we decided not go beyond 10-11dB RMS, which is "on the lower bound" of current rock/metal releases, of course not too low, but sound is more important & we all have volume-knobs :-)

if you have further questions, pls let me know :-)

ciao,
jan
Click to expand...

Aha, so those are your secrets......:D
Welcome to the site Jan, there are some great people here, and thanx for the great job!:)
 
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