Be gentle with me, I cry easily...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phildo
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Phildo

I heart guitars!
Hi guys. A couple of months ago, I did a recording for a friend's band, and they've stuck a couple of MP3s up on their label's website. Anyone wanna have a listen and lay into me?

(I put this post up in the "Roland" forum, but thought it would be better here - sorry if this is cross-posting, but it seems relevant both to the question asked on thethat forum and also this one. I am NOT spamming...and even if I was, the record's sold out and the band have split, so it'd serve no purpose...).

The band are definitely "Alt.Rock", and I'd say there's a certain "XTC"-ness about them - maybe Blue Bear might enjoy it.

Two of the (but unfortunately not the best one - gaah!) tracks are on MP3 on the band's record label site - try http://www.monsieur-records.com and go to the "downloads" part. The band are called the Gregs.

The recording was all done on my VS1680, the kit was recorded with 6 mics (57 on snare, D12e on kick, wide overheads were AT4033 and Oktava MK219 and close overheads were a pair of ATPro31a's - I decided to really use the room's ambience instead of close-micing everything) in the most lovely ambient room I've ever worked in (now sadly gone).

The guitars are all done with the lead singer's lovely strat, DI'd through the POD.

The bass is a Westone Thunder 1 (!) through an ancient Orange guitar amp and 4x12" cab, but I also took a DI feed and ran it through the "SubDubBass" preset on my bass POD during mixdown - the bassist liked his thin & clanky sound, but I thought it needed more low-end kick. I didn't tell him what I was doing, of course...

The string quartet was recorded in my living room with the 4033 and MK219. I'd never done it before and thought the best thing was to assume they'd know their own internal balance. Seemed to work, luckily (I'mnot sure if either of the MP3's on the site feature the quartet, though...).

Violin and vocals were all with the 4033.

Any compression and FX were courtesy of the internal cards in the 1680.

Tell me what you think.

But be gentle.
 
Phildo, take this critique with a shaker full of salt because I'm a geezer.
The vocal was buried to me...I wanted to be able to understand the lyric.
Bass seemed to be laying in pretty good.
Drums were at the same time buried and way too busy for my tastes.
Guitars sounded pretty good, well-played, but a trifle muddy.
Maybe close-mic'ing would have worked better, dunno.
Lots of energy here, but to be honest maybe it needed some harnessing, more definition.
Like I said, these are old ears, so this song probably isn't really directed at me as an audience.

Mark
 
i agree with mkg that the vocal was rather buried, other than that, it sounded pretty good.....

do you do the recording that they released through their label? if so, was any mastering done or anything like that? just curious....
 
I agree about the vocals, you can't really hear them at all, and the drums, too, seem too soft, the snare and rolls, it's all pretty much guitars. Seems like with adjustments, though, it would be right in there, as it seems all well recorded and played, just the balance is off.

Macle
 
Thanks guys. It's nice to have a bit of sensible feedback. The drums were pretty much my attempt at a "Steve Albini" kind of sound, which is generally pretty ambient and open - "Surfer Rosa" by Pixies, for example...

It's always interesting to get others' opinions - for example one of my friends reckond the guitars wre too low!

I'll have another listen re the vocals. I've gotta admit that I do tend to mix them a little low for most tastes, but in this instance, I actually deferred to the band and mixed them a little lower than I would normally have done.

As far as I'm aware, there was no mastering done once the masters left my studio. I suggested it, but the band (and label, I'm pretty sure) couldn't afford it.
 
The intro faded me out of position. I cranked up my system thinking it was recorded low only to be thrown to the other side of the room when the "band" kicked in. Just my humble opinion but the guitars dominate the mix and don't leave any room for the vocals or the drums. I can barely hear the vocal peaking out of the mix. Good tune but it needs a re-mix.
 
Track Rat said:
The intro faded me out of position. I cranked up my system thinking it was recorded low only to be thrown to the other side of the room when the "band" kicked in. Just my humble opinion but the guitars dominate the mix and don't leave any room for the vocals or the drums. I can barely hear the vocal peaking out of the mix. Good tune but it needs a re-mix.
Click to expand...

you know...I typed the exact same words...but Track just posted them first...crazy how that is...eh?
 
holy smokes!! almost blew my shit apart!! This mix is screwed up badly.. damn! Don't get me wrong, I love dynamics, but that is down right speaker damaging!! What's the matter with you man! :D

The rest of the song wasn't mixed well either.. the bass and snare were too low, and the vocals were low.. I liked the song and the perfomances were good..


I should really start reading the other comments first.. I could have avoided blowing my speakers.. :rolleyes:
 
Glad I read Sam's post. I was listening on headphones and might have gone deaf otherwise.

The transition from the very quiet to the very loud at the begining was way too drastic.

The vocals were way back and I couldn't hear more than a word here and there.

As far as song structure... I started to get annoyed by the constant guitar leads being played. I would suggest to give the listener a little break. The two leads strayed off track from one another in a spot or two.
 
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