Critique Punk Rock Cover

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ShanPeyton

ShanPeyton

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Hey there.

This is a cover of a song called 'Disconnected' by a band called Face to Face. I would like to have someone break down my mix. I have got it to this point and feel really good about it but I know it can be better! I referenced it in my car earlier and it sounds kinda muddy in the low ends? But i could be wrong? I think i am right but my uncertainty is what brought me here.



Vocals are in the works, I know I chose a pretty un-original song by the band to cover but it wasn't so much a tribute as it was to pick an easy to play song I couldn't get bored of for the purpose of setting up my templates in Reaper.

I did add my own little twists to the song. For anyone who knows the original I'd like to hear your thoughts about those as well?? But that is not important really. The Pete Parada era of Face to Face was my favorite and I tried to capture that.

thanks.
 
Tough to comment without vocals, but I'll do what I can.

I thought the energy on the song was real good. Everything was very tight. Good work there.

Both the guitars and bass have a little "cloudiness" to them - but moreso the guitars. They could use just a little more crispiness to my ear. I'm thinking you could cut a real thin notch somewhere between 300hz and 500hz and give a little (very little) boost somewhere around 2000hz or a little above.

I think the drums are real low in the mix. It's a bit dominated by the guitars.

There is a little pop around :18 or :19.
 
Love that song! I hears it on the radio yesterday and it took me back.

Guitars are kinda muffled and the drums are low. I think there's a low mids build up. High pass the guitars and get the bass more distinct and it may sound better.
 
Not bad for a face to face cover. I know the song, like what you did with the second chorus. Should be pretty cool with vocals.

I hear nothing glaring other then the guitars may be a little loud? Fantastic guitar tones though. Wish mine sounded that good. :(

You may want to have a look at the toms and stuff in that bridge part around the 2 Min mark. I am not a drumber so i can really comment on the playing or whatever. Nive energy though.

The bass may be a little low to! However the bass itself as i hear sounds pretty awesome. I love that nice woody sound. You almost got the Face to Face sound down as far as bass goes.

Also not sure if anyone else can hear it but what i assume is the first verse, the guitars have this weird harmonic resonating in between the chugging strum style??? Call me crazy ? But, yea i just went and gave it asecond listen there is something going on there there. Not sure how you'd mix that one out?

But yea, awesome tones on the ending ring out notes brah!

All around ok job. Vocals!!???
 
Thanks firstly for the compliments all around. Wish i could say it was truly mine.

I can probably eliminate the alot of the muddyness. I think most of that issue stems from some limiting and the EQ I have applied to the master channel. I will definitely make that adjustment. I listened to some other references i have on my phone/mp3 player and there is some huge differences in clarity between this mix and the one prior to it which had a threshold on the limiting and no EQ.

Atom Bomb: I hear that noise you are talking about. It is probably my crappy playing it is in a lot of takes i thought i could squeak it through. I think the bass is not at all how I want it to sound so retracking that may be an option. It does have a great sound. But it just doesn't seem thick enough.

AaronColeman: What do you mean high pass? I know i have heard of high pass filters? Is that what you mean? What is a high pass filter doing and how do i apply it here?

TripleM: What do you mean cut a thin notch out? Would I use something like a parametric EQ and turn that freq range down?

Thanks Again. I'll put up another mix soon if that isn't to obnoxious!
 
I think it sounds quite clean. The drums could be a bit louder in my opinion.
 
Ok here is another mix.

Turned the guits down, snare and hi hats up, kick up toms down. I eq'd the bass a little to give it a bit more clarity. I think it may have done more damage then good. Changed the settings of my limiter from -10.5 to -5. I noticed that i rendered that with the wrong EQ altogether in the first mix it was on a pretty low end heavy pre-set (oops) so i put it on my own and tweaked it a bit.

Thanks again for the suggestions. Hopefully i am getting there.

http://soundcloud.com/smpeytone/check-check-mix-2
 
Sounds good, but isn't that some kind of pop and not so much punk?
 
FoulPhil said:
Sounds good, but isn't that some kind of pop and not so much punk?
Click to expand...

I don't care much for the term myself. I'd call it something other then punk but definitely not pop either. I just used the term punk to generalize and try to attract ears that know what i am aiming for is all. If you wish to label it polka go ahead I'm not gonna stop you.

Looking for more input if possible. Have had a few non forum members tell me to boost the bottom end on it. Which i may do. I am going to maybe go back and do some of this over again. That little resonating 'tink / chink' in the verse's really grates at me the more i listen to this.

I also had a comment from a friend that says this sounds not "glued together" like each piece is sitting by itself with nothing bringing it all together? But didn't really offer up any solutions? Anyone else want to take a stab at what that fix might be? One other comment was it sounded good but needs to be smoothed out? Any ideas?

Thanks again for the kind words.
 
I like the second mix. A bit more clarity.

ShanPeyton said:
That little resonating 'tink / chink' in the verse's really grates at me the more i listen to this.
Click to expand...

Good idea. That noise is really ugly, and i am at a loss of how you might edit that out? It is barely present after the first verse. So it may just be how you are strumming? Maybe you just kind of got into the the flow by the time the other verse rolled around and you had the sweet spot on your strumming?

ShanPeyton said:
I also had a comment from a friend that says this sounds not "glued together" like each piece is sitting by itself with nothing bringing it all together?
Click to expand...

I can see that. In the second mix especially. Everything is clear and sitting in it's own space I too have little to offer in the way of suggestions as i struggle with this myself. I would say some reverb or something? But when it gets down to the polishing i am at a loss.

The bass could also use some more balls too. It seems to have thinned out a little. Keep at it. AND ADD SOME VOCALS!!!!
 
Atom Bomb said:
Good idea. That noise is really ugly, and i am at a loss of how you might edit that out?
Click to expand...

So I have to retrack. Too many complaints about that stupid noise. This isn't a bummer. I want to beef up my guitar tones anyways. I may also be adding a Gibson to my quiver as well. So i may just wait and see how that works out. They could use a bit more guts and teeth for sure.

Back to the drawing board.
 
I think the guitars and bass sound fairly well glued together. The drums do sound a bit isolated, especially the cymbals. There's some string noise around 3:20 just before the last chord, and the timing seems slightly off between the two guitars on that chord.

Overall it's sounding pretty good, and I hope to hear it with vocals!
 
It's not too bad, but it sounds really canned. It sounds like modellers and fake drums. I'm not against people using that stuff, but you gotta make it sound like real stuff. The drums sound especially fake and compressed. There's no life there. Every snare hit sounds exactly the same, the toms pop in and out of nowhere, etc. Real drums with real players don't act like that. There's no "glue" holding the kit together, as people like to say. Just humanize the drums and try to find a more natural guitar tone. The guitars aren't bad, but they sound very "direct". They have all the tell-tale signs of a modeller - no chunk, no meat, no air, kind of sizzly. I'd like the guitars with more gain but be careful of the fizz if you're using a modeller. Maybe you used all real stuff and it just ended up this way? I don't know. It just sounds to me like nothing was actually miked.
 
I didn't want to say it but the drums did sound to perfect. On the other hand the snare is the one thing that made me rethink that they could be canned. I hear inconsistencies in the hits?!
 
The bass is almost anonymous - give it some more level and some bottom end. It could synch in a bit tighter with the drums too.
I'm no much on pop punk (I'm old & was jumping up & down to the 1st UK & NU punk diaspora).
 
Greg_L said:
There's no "glue" holding the kit together, as people like to say.
Click to expand...

There is that glue term again? I guess the question that needs to be asked now is how does a guy "glue" it together?

You are pretty spot on with your ears. I am using ezdrummer. Outside of the toms and hats I actually spent a lot of time humanizing the kick, snare and crashes. I physically randomized each hits timing and velocity's? Maybe i didn't do as good a job as i thought? I am going back to the drawing board altogether so i will try something different. I have also been told the stock drum kit that comes with EZD is polished to a flaw. I have considered that this kit has no place in the music I make and have pondered getting another kit to play around with or upgrading to Superior Drummer. I am sure the right answer is to learn to play drums myself or find a session drummer right? Probably.

I am happy with the guitars for the most part. Each time i listen to them i like them a little more. They just are a tad dry, lack a bit of punch and aren't as thick / bottom heavy as i would like. I am going back to square one on better luck this time maybe. I may boost the gain a little, but not much.

Thanks Greg.

RayC, you are absolutely right! The bass was a little lazy sounding. And for good reason. I discovered that after changing my strings to work on something else i came back to this cover song and wanted to re-track with the new strings. When I did, I didn't turn off the effects on the track so i am pretty sure they got applied to the input signals??

Thanks again everyone. I'll post another version up as soon as i can.
 
Good. Do it. And make haste. With gerg banned there will be a severe shortage of punk rock on these message boards.
 
I will see what i can do. I finally got some stuff for my recording 'space' haha. Got some monitors stands a some organizing stuff. What a huge difference already.

I have my monitors now set up in that equilateral triangle pattern and it's such a huge difference. I can almost see stuff passing left to right in front of my eyes. IF you can visualize a sound moving around. In any case. I'll be picking away at getting that squared away. I am not opposed to bringing in more rock if need be.
 
Ok, it's been a while and i am just getting back to this.

So here is the original version:



And after taking some sound advice re: the mix and re-tracking with new guitars, strings tones etc, I ended up with this. Still no vocals but that should be fixed soon this week-ish.



After referencing in my car it does seem to have a bit more life blown into it and sounds a little more "together", yet, it seems to be wearing a blanket of low end somewhere?? Maybe it is just me and my ears being tired of hearing it? :thumbs up: Please let me know what you think. Pick it apart, I got thick skin.

Thanks.
 
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