Comments and Criticism (Track within..)

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Steve-0

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Sorry for two threads one after another, if anyone minds.

I haven't been mixing my own tracks for very long, and I'm REALLY new to mastering, so I thought I might post my most recent effort and see if anyone has any criticism or comments that might help a bit.

It's a track from my old band, and though I have a studio version of it already, I wanted to go back and re-record the whole thing myself and see if I could come close to the same quality. I haven't had a chance to get the singer to come out and lay down the vocals, but when I do I get to try my hand at mixing vocals into a track, which I've only done once before.

In the meantime, here's my track so far, and please let me know what you think.

Thanks.



-Steve
 
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My first thoughts on listening are that the guitars are very strong on the left and right hand sides, leaving a big space down the middle. That's okay, because you would expect bass and kit to take up this room. However, in this case, the kit, at least, is too far back for my taste, and that hole in the middle is still there.

The other consequence of having the guitars so far forward is that they dominate the overall sound (which is probably the intention), but in doing so, they reduce the impact of any dynamic change . . . it's all pretty much on the same level throughout.

A further consequence is that their richness robs the lead of some its strength. It comes in, mixed at a reasonable level, but doesn't command the attention you might expect.
 
gecko zzed said:
My first thoughts on listening are that the guitars are very strong on the left and right hand sides, leaving a big space down the middle. That's okay, because you would expect bass and kit to take up this room. However, in this case, the kit, at least, is too far back for my taste, and that hole in the middle is still there.

The other consequence of having the guitars so far forward is that they dominate the overall sound (which is probably the intention), but in doing so, they reduce the impact of any dynamic change . . . it's all pretty much on the same level throughout.

A further consequence is that their richness robs the lead of some its strength. It comes in, mixed at a reasonable level, but doesn't command the attention you might expect.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply.

My guitars are panned hard right and left, not very gain-y if you hear them by themselves, but I have a slightly more distorted amp model in the center with a bit of a mid cut because it really thickened things up to my ears.

I used one of those stereo widener plugs on it, and I'm not sure if I went to far, if it pulled the guitars too far out in the higher frequencies and didn't fill up the middle much with the lows, which is, I assume, how those plugins are supposed to work. That may be part of my problem.

My v-drums are practically dry other than the room ambiance they were sampled in, so I'm not really sure how to pull them forward other than making them louder and adding a tad of high end or something, but I think part of the problem is that I peak limited the song to -10dBRMS trying to match the loudness of the studio version my band did a while back, and I went to far. Turns out the studio version is at least 2dBFS less than that.

I'm gonna try remixing a bit and then pushing it no higher than -14dB and seeing how it sits with a little more work, and backing off the guitars a bit.

Thanks again for your reply.

-Steve

P.S. I should probably go back and write some more fills instead of just duplicating the rhythms so much. I didn't notice how repetitive they sounded until I just listened to it and it bothered me.


Edit: Upon further listening, the stereo expander sounds really cool, but it's fucking up the mix, so I'm doing away with it. Nobody escapes the Spanish Inquisition!
 
Steve-O. you should put this in the MP3 Clinic. That's where people go to listen. You'll get a lot more responses.
 
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