Comments/Crit please. (My band, my recording)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve-0
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Not a bad song, but... The drums are too far away in the mix. The hi-hat? (sounds more like an egg shaker) is too loud and harsh. Needs bass. Take off a little about 7-10khz from the vox so it doesnt sound so thin. This is a good song, really, but needs to be remixed. Hope it helps.
 
ot bad...on the intro, lower the lead a bit...cuts into vocals.
 
Good song! I agree about the hat it kind of stands out and tends to get a little repetitive. Cool stuff though thanks for sharing!
 
Thanks for the pointers guys. I did not even notice the hat sound until you mentioned it, and from then on it was like a slap in the face. =)

For some reason I went back and checked and I had a hi pass at 350hz on the hats... and then they were faded about as loud as they could go without clipping.

I have no idea why I did that, or when I did that.

Anyway I think it sounds better now.

There's no real reverb or anything on the drums (other than a room mic). I'm not exactly sure how I might pull them forward short of simply making them louder, which might be what you meant, Marcadiablo.

And thanks for the compliments on the song... I'm the kind of guy that would have found a way to put a shred solo in a song like that... but creative restraint goes a long way for guitarists.
 
First...this could be very fucking cool.

Right now, I think the music bed is harsh and TOO dynamic...the vocal needs to be the center of this mix at all times, I think.

And there seem to be some timing issues with the drums, especially at the beginning. Was the whole thing done to a click?

I almost want to just take a C4 and compress the shit out of the music bed, but I'm pretty lazy.

I wish I could be more constructive. the timing issues between the drums and some of the guitar lines bug me.
 
This has the makings to a cool song, but right now the recording is hindering it a little bit - sounds very lo-fi. May I ask what your recording chain was?

There are some timing issues with the drums as well, I'd like to see less hi-hat.

Way cool guitar riffs in the intro and in the song. Good job.


Mike
 
Nightfire said:
This has the makings to a cool song, but right now the recording is hindering it a little bit - sounds very lo-fi. May I ask what your recording chain was?

There are some timing issues with the drums as well, I'd like to see less hi-hat.

Way cool guitar riffs in the intro and in the song. Good job.


Mike
Click to expand...

The recording chain is as follows:

Guitar - Jackson with EMGs through B-52 2/12" combo into SM-57, Line6 Toneport UX2, and thus into Cubase.
Drums - They're Drumkit from Hell 2, I can't come even close to decent sounding self-recorded drums yet.
Bass - Direct into Toneport
Vocals - AKG Perception 120 into Toneport. They'd probably sound worse, except our singer is really good.

Everything else (pseudo-mellotron, glockenspiel, etc etc) is all sampled.

It's for a demo, but it's really the "single" of the demo so far, so I'd really like to just do the best damn job of making it sound great that I can, even if it means re-tracking the song or whatever.

ChrisHarris: Thanks for the comments. It's definitely a dynamic song, and we have a dynamic singer (leveling out the vocals wasn't a nightmare, but it took some work, sometimes phrase by phrase with the volume) but at least I don't have to do any pitch correction or BS like that.

The worst part about the dynamics is that once it's on the shitty myspace streaming format (whatever that is) it sounds pretty gnarly when it gets loud, but it sounds much better in .wav format.

I don't really notice the timing issues, because I recorded that part a long time ago (to a click) and have listened to it so many times that I'm sure I've long since gotten used to any timing errors. I'll have to go back and listen analytically again to the timing and see if I can line some things up a little better.
 
In my opinion, its got potential. Your band has some good components (vocals are top notch).

This song need mixing again from the ground up. Start with everything mute, go through the drums (kick, snare, hats, toms, cym) then bass, then vocals, then guitars, then synthy things.

Find another hi-hat sample, or remove around 8k. Its poor as it is at the minute.

Saying all of that, it will sound excellent when its re-mixed :) keep working at it, its got potential.
 
The song is updated to my most recent mix. Should I just throw out what I have and remix from scratch? If this isn't a significant improvement I may do just that (as waffleness suggests).

Hopefully the hats sound better. Probably not though, it's the same sample without the massive hi-pass filter.

There's not really a lot of (real) room sound on the guitars, it's a reverb fx channel that all the clean guitars are sent to. I wonder at times if they are a little too wet, but it doesn't have the same feel without reverb there at all.

EDIT: Scratch that... I was listening and I began thinking the thing that made the hat stand out and sound so strange to me was just that it was so dry. It felt like the closest thing to the audience on my little imaginary stage. I sent it to my room reverb I had set up for the guitars and I think the improvement is immense and it sits a lot better in the mix. Take a listen and see if you agree. Updated on soundclick.
 
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Steve-0 said:
I don't really notice the timing issues,
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The very first bass drum hit is late and throws it off. Like everyone said, it's a pretty good tune. But the mix needs work. There's an overall "middy-ness" to it that makes it hard to listen to. Cool parts to it, though. She has a nice voice, which is the most important part of any tune.
 
RAMI said:
The very first bass drum hit is late and throws it off. Like everyone said, it's a pretty good tune. But the mix needs work. There's an overall "middy-ness" to it that makes it hard to listen to. Cool parts to it, though. She has a nice voice, which is the most important part of any tune.
Click to expand...

Would it maybe be a good idea to use a global eq to pull out some of the mids, or should I do that on a track by track basis?
 
totally diggin the glockenspiel. It adds a nice touch but will be much more dramatic once you get the mix dialed in. Definitely have to make more room for it and give it its own space. I'm thinking lots of compression on it and then tons of reverb to slow the decay down. Right now it just 'tinks' along.

The singer has a nice voice and you should bring it out more. The mix still has that mid-ish sound and it affects the vocals. Vocals are your lead instrument always. You need to get it great, then everything else is secondary. ( I should only listen to my own advice - ha ha ha)

Not crazy about the reverb on the guits in the intro. It works later in the song.


Cool song.
 
I'm really beginning to feel I need to go all the way back to re-mix everything, and use EQ a little more judiciously and be a little more concious of how I carve out space.

I tend to just cut out everything under 40hz overall, hi-pass the guitars at around 100, work a little to reduce muddiness track by track between 200-300 and then boost around 2k in the vocals, before going on to hunt down ugly frequencies and cut where needed.

That's pretty much all that went into this mix (besides a handfull of compression/limiting vsts and the effects and little odds and ends processors here and there), so it's easy for me to understand why it isn't all it could be.

It's not so much laziness (I've spent a LOT of time on this) as much as it is not knowing how to make it better, and not wanting to make it worse. The capabilities of my gear and software FAR exceed my ability to make the most of them, so I refuse to buy anything else until I can force what I have to sound as good as it can.

I'm booking some time in a local studio I'm very familiar with, and the two guys that run it make very fantastic mixes, but instead of having them mix it for me, I just want to take the tracks over there and watch them do it, bit by bit, to see how a pro might approach the song. It should be pretty educational and they seem interested in the idea of doing a mix from a teaching standpoint.

In the meantime I'm going to start over on my own and see what happens.

Suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks for the replies guys.

-Steve
 
Steve-0 said:
I'm really beginning to feel I need to go all the way back to re-mix everything, and use EQ a little more judiciously and be a little more concious of how I carve out space.

I tend to just cut out everything under 40hz overall, hi-pass the guitars at around 100, work a little to reduce muddiness track by track between 200-300 and then boost around 2k in the vocals, before going on to hunt down ugly frequencies and cut where needed.

That's pretty much all that went into this mix (besides a handfull of compression/limiting vsts and the effects and little odds and ends processors here and there), so it's easy for me to understand why it isn't all it could be.

It's not so much laziness (I've spent a LOT of time on this) as much as it is not knowing how to make it better, and not wanting to make it worse. The capabilities of my gear and software FAR exceed my ability to make the most of them, so I refuse to buy anything else until I can force what I have to sound as good as it can.

I'm booking some time in a local studio I'm very familiar with, and the two guys that run it make very fantastic mixes, but instead of having them mix it for me, I just want to take the tracks over there and watch them do it, bit by bit, to see how a pro might approach the song. It should be pretty educational and they seem interested in the idea of doing a mix from a teaching standpoint.

In the meantime I'm going to start over on my own and see what happens.

Suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks for the replies guys.

-Steve
Click to expand...

The current mix on sound click is good - the hit hats have been fixed which makes the whole thing sound so much better!

I would say it doesn't need to be totally remixed now - just a few touches here and there. I would add some verb to the toms, snare and vocals - the same verb thats on the guitar's if thats possible.

The only other thing I would mention here is the timing - the kick drum at the start could be shifted a little bit, just to fit it in. Sounds like you've got the EQ job under control. Try not to follow any rules when EQ'ing - don't remove 40Hz if you don't need to, for example, use your ears.

I really like this. Good job.
 
Quick thoughts:

1 Strong confident vocals. Harmonies are well done. I would consider spreading the backing vocals a bit wider. I wonder whether the lead vocal could come a bit forward.

2 Kit sounds okay. Highhat in latter part of song was okay, a bit loud earlier on. Someone said it sounded like an eggshaker, and it still does. But I can live with that.

3 Glock is a good idea, but needs to be tamed. It's like an icepick attacking y skull.

4 Song structure is interesting, and the dynamic bits have a lot of strength. I like the sound of the quieter guitars, and the playing, but during these sections they really need to be tight as. A bit of looseness creeeps in here and there which makes them sound jumbly. Others have commented on timing generally

5 There's a bit of hissy noise in the background which is distracting at the start. Possibly amp noise.

6 I'd liked to hear a bit more bass in the bass.

Plenty of potential here, and a very fine effort. Keep up the good work.
 
This song is just jammin'.

The guitar playing is pretty cool. The vox are definitely unique and very good.

The song sounds as if it's missing some mids. As if it's not full enough. To thin. The bells and keys sounded very thin and as if the song could have done without them. But mixed better might make some difference.

Oh, one more thing. This song is just JAMMIN'. :D
 
Waffle:

Thank you very much for the replies. I appreciate the help. I'm definitely noticing the kick timing at the start now, and I plan to rectify the situation with that. I also want to put reverb on the rest of the kit now, probably subtly.

Gecko:

Thanks for the reply. I'm trying to think of a way to spread the backup vocals wider... because we didn't double them. In fact I think we only recorded one take and then I just duplicated it under the other choruses.

I get into a bad habit when I record our singer of just punching record and letting her sing the whole song. We usually do one or two takes of her just singing start to finish and then I pick and choose parts from the two. She doesn't really miss her pitches (ever... it's kind of wierd) or anything like that so I haven't really had a need to record more than the first couple takes, which are usually the best from her emotion wise.

I should probably pay more attention to the backup vocals and having enough takes to spread them more. I kind of just turned to her and said "We should have a harmony for the chorus." and she made improvised for like 30 seconds and then we did one take of her trying it into the mic and that was it.

She's the kind of singer that is so used to her craft that there's not a lot of preparation or discussion needed. I write the songs and say "Hey, ready to write some vocals." and she just busts out 10 or so different melodies off the cuff with the song on repeat, and we stop when she's got something really good and then just spend a few days really going over it and adjusting little things, and working on the lyrics. When it comes time to track she does a warm up take which usually makes it into the track in one way or another and then she does a "real" take and that's it. No warmup exercises or breathing practice or anything like that.

It makes me lazy. So I only have one copy of the harmony.

The icepick glock is annoying to me, but I haven't found a better way to EQ it yet that still lets it be as present as it is... yet. I'll look into it.

Bubba:

Thanks for the reply and the compliment on the guitar playing. I'm a hardcore shred wank-idiocy guitarist, so it's nice to just play melodies and focus on real songwriting without trying to show off, much more fun in the long run.

I'm glad you dig the song. This is the first band I've been in where I'm not really trying to write in a particular style or anything, I'm just writing what feels good. It's not very "metal" or "prog" of me, especially since it comes out as pop-ish as it does, but I don't really care. I like the songs.

The bells and keys will probably sound a little better in time when I know what I'm doing. As it is they're either all highs, or they are buried in the mix, or burying other things in the mix. I can't seem to give them their own space unless I leave them all high end. I'll just have to experiment more.

Thanks again, I'm glad you like the song. :D
 
Not too bad. here is my opinions...

First, that center guitar on the intro is too loud. If you brought it down a bit it would settle into the mix and still sound good and not compete with the vocals.

The bass is not very present, it needs to be louder or something. Maybe just needs more bottom end?

Its a good song. Keep at it.
 
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