A song, maybe needs help?

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lastdays

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Hi, nice to meet you ;)
perhaps you can help me figure out what this song needs


lastdays
 
Good guitar, but maybe tracked a bit hot for an acoustic sound, I'm hearing a little distortion on the lower notes.

The percussion is pretty buried, and it sounds like the vocals and the music are occupying the same space. Some panning and eq might help to separate them.

The vocals are nice, kind of an Eddie Vedder sound going on there.
 
It reminds me of one song by Antony and the Johnsons! Nice composition.

On the mix, guitars have some distortion going on, it's more noticeable when the strumming is harder.

There's something weird about the snare, it's like you haven't mixed any overheads or rooms, too dry for my taste. In a real situation, even if your snare is damped, some reverberation is going to be heard. I can't hear the kick, a little raise will help. The hi-hat can be more present too. As alanarbor said, your drum kit is kinda buried.

Vocals are great but... maybe running a de-esser (to take out sibilance) will help to clean it up a bit.

Planning to record a full-lenght album?
 
Hi there, nice vocals. The recording, arrangements are great. I like the piano. Agree with alanarbor about the low notes, the bass is killing the kick and is a little distorted, i think is clipping. I would put down around 100 hz to kill those low frequencies, i think this will give you a clearer sound.

I like the rest, no problems with anything else. I didn't like the autotune at the end, but that's just a taste thing, i really hate that effect, but again, that's me.

The end is too hard mate, try a slow fade out.

Regards.
 
wow, was kinda thinking somebody would tear it apart, instead I get specific things to work on, you guys rock!

And yes, many more songs will follow, I will most likely be posting another song soon since you guys are so helpful.

thanks much,
lastdays

btw, the autotune at the end was mostly just for fun :D
 
i found it a little muddy....wasnt sure of the timing at the beginning and the vocals seems too dry and muffled...I think theres a bit of sibilance in there but that could be an effect you have running on top of it

Id suggest have a look at some of the low mids, maybe make some room in there and give the vocals some delay and a bit of sparkle..again either make some cuts in the low mids or boost the HFs carefully, you may make the sibilance/distortion/effect sound worse

I think the drums are buried in there a bit...especially the kick but I wouldnt change the volume until you address some of the EQing...that may give them more room anyway

The right hand side piano seemed to dry as well and a little thin...a fraction of chorus would maybe give it more body

Please take into account I dont record or mix this kind of stuff so im just typing what I hear and that it deserves a good critique as the overall performances sound very good..its the mixing that doesnt match its level...not without some tweaking


dump the autotune..I quite like the effect but your ruining this tune with it imho


welcome to the site btw and good first post :)
 
Thank you for the welcome! I am ashamed to admit that it was quite recently that the concept of of "making room" for anything in the mix came onto my radar, but this sort of specific help is what I desperately need to figure this stuff out.

We all have to start somewhere I am told, although if I had a choice I would start somewhere towards the end!

Hopefully in the next week or so I will have time to employ some or all of these suggestions and repost, have alot of work to do.

thanks much,
lastdays
 
lastdays said:
Thank you for the welcome! I am ashamed to admit that it was quite recently that the concept of of "making room" for anything in the mix came onto my radar, but this sort of specific help is what I desperately need to figure this stuff out.

We all have to start somewhere I am told, although if I had a choice I would start somewhere towards the end!

Hopefully in the next week or so I will have time to employ some or all of these suggestions and repost, have alot of work to do.

thanks much,
lastdays
Click to expand...

well you're quite a bit there already...its the tweaking etc that takes practice more than anything...and having fresh ears in here always helps

just remember the soundstage thing that a band is seldom crammed in the middle of the stage all playing at the same level..use delay and verb to give yourself some depth, just dont overdo it

you can learn mixing, having talent is a bit more difficult so Id be quite happy if I were you ;)
 
thanks again for the input, working on a new mix now, hope to post later today. Unfortunately I am all out of glitter, but I will do my best to put some "sparkle" on the vocal as well ;)
 
Many thanks to kcearl, killthepixelnow, zero00, and alanarbor for the mixing insight. Here we have my first remix attempt!! Oh the excitement. Well I am sure you fine gentlemen can let me know if I am any closer to where I need to be with this one, I worked on it for several hours but since I wasnt exactly sure what I was going for, I am not sure what I have! I did not retrack the guitar, so the percieved timing issue (real or imagined) remains, but hopefully I dealt with most everything else suggested.

Here it is!!!!
 
Would really like some input on the remix I just posted, not trying to abuse any goodwill of course, but any brutal and specific feedback would be greatly appreciated!
 
I guess I should be able to listen myself and learn from what I hear... hmm what would you say about this....

something like....

vocals a bit buried by organ/piano, need to bring them up a bit, balance it out better...

ok guys, another mix attempt forthcoming! maybe if I would spend more time listening to my mixes first I would have to do this less...
 
Once again, hope you will comment this time as it is a significantly different mix than the original, whether good or bad...

here it is:


This is my third and probably not final attempt at remixing this song, I think this is definately better than the second in a few subtle ways, do you think its better than the first? let me know!

once again, brutal and specific comments are greatly appreciated!

Still waiting for somebody to REALLY tear me apart, I can take it, promise! ;)
 
i just wrote a long critique and it disappeared damn :(


anyway Ill try again


Mix wise I think this is a big improvement...there seems to be more room in there, the vocals are sitting better...i think a little delay (or more delay) would help even more as some of the emotional parts are a little muffled on single words (I see someone mentioned mic technique in your other thread..I think thats the problem with plosives) the piano sounds a tiny bit too loud and I may be mistaken but a couple of notes are off time..dont know if this was intentional, or if this is midi Id look at the quantization..
Guitars and drums sounded good to me for this kind of song...
Vocals sounded wrong at the end at parts...mainly the extra nasally backing, I get the sound you're going for but Im not sure you pull it off in one of the layers

Feel free to completely ignore this as its an arrangement suggestion and this is your vision...I get this is intentionally emotional but you reach that emotion way too early leaving the listener with little to get excited about...also the only main introduction after that is the piano...then a long fade out

I think you need to play it straight for longer then introduce the vocal emotion with something else backing it, another guitar part or ideally string..I think this should be all building to a crescendo then drop, the fade out end...I think at the moment its closer to one emotion all the way through

I may be totally off, im not a traditional musician, but I do know the importance of energy in my own stuff and Im sure it translates to most genres of music
 
Well I am pleased that I have seen what I believe to be a 100% improvement in the two mixes I have posted! That is amazing, if I could swing it I would send you all Mcdonalds gift cards for Christmas, since you all seem to like $1 sandwiches so much ;) My few days here at HR have been extremely helpful, and as I mentioned somewhere else, have helped me get "unstuck" as I had no clue where to go. Hey, one thing about me is that if you point me in the right direction I am going to get there... eventually :)

The ending I designed to be done with autotune, which is why the vocals are so weird, without the autotune its just strange... of course WITH the autotune it brings the haters out ;)

I have heard the energy thing before, its just difficult to control that emotion and still have it be genuine for me. Something else to work on WOOHOO!

I only have about a week before I go to Seattle, but its nice that I have something a little better to offer my family.

kcearl, I am going to post a more electronic song for you, probably wont be up your standards though :D
 
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