Acoustic Mix

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DouglasRichmond

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I'm new here, but this seems like a great place to get some honest opinions about my mixes.

I welcome all opinions / suggestions. I just want this to sound as good as possible. (Of course, right?)

http://soundcloud.com/douglasallenrichmond/good-friday-song-mix1 <-This is now gone. I did a dumb. New link below.

This mix is three tracks.

Vocal
Condenser mic at 12th fret of Acoustic
Line in from jack on Acoustic

For the mix I am going for an old "dated" sound hence what I'm trying to do with the Reverb / EQ

I have a limiter set to "just" touch 0 at the mixes highest point.


Thank you for your suggestions / experience.
Douglas
 

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A couple of things I noticed with a quick listen...

I think you should find a better room to record in. The vocal has a very 'boxy' sound that I don't believe you want part of your 'dated' feel. If you don't have a better room available, then add a lot of treatment to tame the mid freqs in your current room.

I hear a lot of guitar pick and I feel it is not flattering to an otherwise good guitar recording. I don't mind a little pick sound, but only so it's subtle. This is a persoanl taste thing, others might like it. :)

Also, there are a lot of string squeaks. :eek: So, maybe the pick sounds and string squeaks mean you might have a too much compression on the guitar tracks. I'm not sure about that, though.

Cool and welcome to the site.
 
Chili said:
A couple of things I noticed with a quick listen...

I think you should find a better room to record in. The vocal has a very 'boxy' sound that I don't believe you want part of your 'dated' feel. If you don't have a better room available, then add a lot of treatment to tame the mid freqs in your current room.

I hear a lot of guitar pick and I feel it is not flattering to an otherwise good guitar recording. I don't mind a little pick sound, but only so it's subtle. This is a persoanl taste thing, others might like it. :)

Also, there are a lot of string squeaks. :eek: So, maybe the pick sounds and string squeaks mean you might have a too much compression on the guitar tracks. I'm not sure about that, though.

Cool and welcome to the site.
Click to expand...

Yeah, vocal has a room sound to it that is not complementing, but man can you sing. Upper mid sounds a little hot in the vox as well.
As for the acoustic, I would ditch the direct signal. I have never found that to be helpful with acoustic based recordings. Maybe point the mic a little toward to body, to try it down by the bridge.
 
Mix 2

Thanks for your insights. The vocal did sound a little wonky to me. Most of the room sound was due to the reverb settings I was using. (I think) Here is my second mix, trying out some different verb settings.

Good Friday Song (Mix2) by douglasallenrichmond on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

There are still some issues, but I need to get some automation for the levels, because I don't want to overcompress it.

Is the boxiness better? I still have to play with the vocal eq a bit.

Thanks

P.S.
Is there a preffered way to post my mixes here?
 
The boxiness is a little better. But it's still a bit "cheap" sounding. I might suggest leaving out all the reverb for for a while and let people comment on how it sounds without it.

I'm also hearing some "clicking" artifacts here and there. I think they're on the vocal. Most of them anyway.

The guitar is lacking some low end. It's a little thin sounding.

The performance is pretty good.
 
This is the last version I'll put up for awhile, I want to listen around this site and I don't want to get lost in my studio again.

This version is as raw as I can reasonably make it. Two tracks.

Vocal: Compressor 3.7:1 Threshold set to catch the whole vocal. Expander set for noise control (which I probably don't need as I go through and erase all of the vocal artifacts before fianlizing usually, oh well habits...) EQ shelved -2dB at 3k HPF at 40Hz 3dB peak at 200Hz Q=~1.2

Guitar: recorded with close mic at 12th fret small diaphragm condensor. Barely compressed, just taking care of a couple stray peaks. EQ fairly flat, with a bit taken out shelved at 10k

I took all the reverbs out along with the direct line from the guitar. I'm going to let this simmer in the firing line for awhile.

Good Friday Song Mix3 by douglasallenrichmond on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

Thank you,
Douglas
 
I think it sounds better without the reverb. It still needs some, but to me the reverb needs to go in a different direction. Maybe a small room reverb, and much less of it than what you had put in earlier.

Pay attention to "clicks" when tracking. I'm hearing a few of them.

The vocal level in this last mix is a bit loud relative to the guitar. There is still some boxiness to the tracks themselves. For that you might want to try some small cuts somewhere in the 1Khz range - I'd start there and then play around with it. Although I thought there was some boxiness to the vocal, there was still some good detail there.
 
I would lose the reverb some. Sounds like maybe a phaser is there too. Give your vocals some credit here. to much effects cheapens the song.
 
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