Any advice on my bands first attempt at recording?

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dystortia64

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Hey, i have come across this site many times looking up recording techniques and ideas. I figured right now is the perfect time for my 1st post. The band that I play guitar in just recorded a demo at our bassists dads studio. For some reason we cant seem to really achieve a "studio quality mix". I kinda would like some constructive criticism from people with more experience than me. My biggest problem is that we cant seem to get a decent sound with vocals, I know the vocals definately aren't perfect yet. The second biggest is that the drums don't seem to have much "punch". I'm fairly happy with the guitar sounds. The right side is a Framus Cobra and the left side is a Marshall TSL. They were both played through a Marshall cab. The song isn't perfect and has some small mistakes, but i hope some criticism can give me some things to try. I didn't put this under the marketing music section because i don't want to market our music until it sounds exactly the way we want it to. Since I cant post URLs yet, just go to myspace / dystortia. You know what I mean.



Please tell me what you think we need to improve on.
 
sounds like the vocals were mic'd from pretty far away. there's a lot of room sound in them. Kick drum is a bit too clicky, and drums are a bit distant also.

It is possible that you just have a reverb slapped on there that doesn't work well.
 
what's the room like where you recorded the vocals?

what kind of treatment does it have and what are the dimensions?
 
The room the vocals were recorded in a room that was probably about 7 ft x 10 ft. It had typical acoustic foam lining the walls. The room was very air tight feeling when you shut the door behind you. It was the same room we used for the guitar tracks. I also really see what you mean by the drums sounding distant. One thing I really wish stood out more was the drums. I didnt really have much part in the vocal process, but when we heard how the vocals turned out, I thought there was some sort of reverb or something on the vocals.
 
hmm. It sounds like the mic was at one end of the room, and the singer was at the other.

In reality, unless the room has some amazingly good sounding natural reverb to it, you will want to avoid as much room sound as possible when tracking. And even if it does have a great natural sound to the room, you should use at minimum a distance mic and a close mic.

I'm not sure I've ever heard a room that was 7' by 10' that sounded good, but that's just me. The foam will help prevent some of the really odd boingy slap of a square room, but it won't make the room sound "good."

I think one of the biggest reason bedroom recordings sound like bedrooms, is because you can hear the acoustics of the bedroom. Pro recordings have either really good big rooms, or really dead rooms, or both. Considering the size of the room you used, I think you should go for the dead room sound, and add reverb after the fact. This is the sound of a dead room trying to record as if it were in a big room. It ends up not working so well, especially for the style of music.
 
I don't know about everything else.. but killer guitar tones!
 
Thanks for the comment on the guitar tracks. Thats the thing I was most happy with. I had faith that a Framus Cobra and a Marshall TSL could sound pretty decent panned left and right. Anyone that commented on this earlier is welcome to give it another listen. We put a new version of the song up in place of the old one. Apparently there was a reverb set up on the vocals. The vocals sound a little closer, but we are still unhappy with them. I'm considering the use of a program like Melodyne, i've tried a demo but it seems it has the ability to do more damage than good sometimes.
 
how are you micing the drum kit? is it just one mic or did you bounce all the tracks to one track? the whole drum kit is in the center it makes the sound very narrow. Also the bass is nonexistant. i can tell there is a bass player but it's drowned out. try turning up the mid eq on the vocals and maybe adding compression to get things louder. you're probably gonna have to re track everything except for maybe the guitars, but even they have moments of sloppiness. The guitars tone wise sound okay though.
 
I like the song, but here's what I think could improve the presentation:

Less click on the kick, just roll off some highs

Turn up that snare!

Are the OHs panned hard? Make sure of that, and once again, more highs.

It could be the lack of highs, but the vocals really lack presence. What mic did you guys use? Give him some high end, and also; it sounds like your singer is holding back a lot of the time. When he's on, he sounds great, but make sure he's monitoring himself through some compression and a nice pretty reverb during tracking to keep his confidence level up. He needs to let go a little more.
 
Alright guys, sorry if I bump this back to the top.

The mic we used for the vocals was an Audio-Technica AT4033/CL.

We are actually working on another one of our songs right now. Hopefully it will be up in the next week or so. I will post a link in this forum when it is done. As far as the first song is concerned, i think next time we record it we are going to try a different studio.
 
1. Balance
Your mix is sounding whaky. Drums are too explosive, guitars are buried in the mix and the vocals are caughting too much attention. My advice for you is to listen to bands in the genre you like. I assume this is called metalcore, right? Well, "As I lay dying" is a good reference for your prupouses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-lVX3UptpU&feature=related).

A/B your mix with the refernce band. You don;t have to be a genius to hear the difference (noot in recording quailty but in instrument balance) From loud to soft, this is my list on how you should hear the instruments:

Vocals
Guitars
Snare
Kick
Toms
Cymbals

2. Instruments
a. Guitars:
This instrument has a lot of presence in teh genre. Bring up the volume and compress/tame the peaks. You can also fatten up your sound by sing paralel compression: duplicate your track, apply comrpession to the copy track and then mix it to taste.

b. Bass
God, this instrument sounds horrible, simple horrible. I'm not sure you can improve it unless you record it again. Try to avoid recording with an stomp box. Add gain during the mixing process, it would be easier to handle it using and auxiliary channel. When effect is printed in the tracking, there's no much you can do to correct it.

c. Drums
-Kick.
Yeah, we all love that clicky kick a la Lamb of God but... in most cases is not a real kick but a sample layered along the original track. So, don't try to acheive that sound by EQing your kick/ I recommend you to finda free kick sample (there's a lot to find if you Google it) and then layer your unprocessed track with the sampled kick. And don't forget to bring down the volume, it's too high now.

-Snare
Doesnt sound bad to me. Maybe a little compression could bring up the volume without clipping.

-Space
I think your drums are soundng too dry. You need more ambience/room/reverb, whatever you call it. If you haven't recorded an stere ambient track you can still add some reverb digitally. Try not to overuse it. Add a general reverb to the kit and a little more to the snare.

-Vocals
First rule: tuning. I heard a lot of off-pitch notes but that's not my business but recording. Bring down the volume and apply some compression to make your performance more even.

Phew, a long post, uh? Hope this helps. Luck.
 
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