Constructive criticisms on mixing

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laurence997

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Hi guys, :)
Firstly I suppose I better introduce myself, I've been a member here for a while now, I've been interested in recording and mixing but just haven't got the time. I'm a member of a band, we haven't been around all that long and we're finding our feet now. About a month ago, however, I just decided to dust off the interface and record one of our gigs live because some people were going to record some video at it, so I just ran all the channels through the interface (a tascam us1800) and clicked record. I made sure nothing was peaking, but because i only had a few hours to prepare at most I didn't have time for anything else really. I was honestly more concerned about how the audio sounded at the gig at the time, rather than how it would sound recorded.

Anyway, I have no experience in mixing, and I know there are lots of problems and mistakes in the audio I have but I just want to make the most of it, use it as an exercise in mixing, and hopefully end up something that sounds reasonably ok. I've spent hours on it, just messing around trying to make it sound as good as I can, reading up about techniques on the internet and trying to implement them, but I still cant manage to "clear up" the sound in the way I would like. One thing I really am unhappy with in it is the sound of the guitar, but that was my fault for not paying enough attention at the gig. I think the problem might have been mic placement or something, but it sounds harsh in the recording, and at the gig a nice portion of the guitar sound was coming from the actual amp, the gig was only in a bar after all, we only put a bit of guitar through the PA to make sure it carried to the far end of the bar.

What I was hoping was that if I uploaded it here then maybe you guys could give me some pointers. I'm not expecting any miracles, just maybe a few quick ideas on how to make it sound better. If it's not okay to post this here then maybe someone can delete it, but I figure it's a "newbie question" :o

Finally, I couldn't upload this here without saying that this song was at the end of a fairly long setlist and the female vocalist and the bass player must have been feeling it, they are far better than that usually. Excuses, excuses, excuses, I know :rolleyes:


If there's anything I've forgotten to mention here that I should have please point it out :) And any pointers and constructive criticisms would be really, really appreciated.

Thanks guys,
Laurence :)


EDIT: Proper file uploaded now. Also, I would just post a link but I cant, so I have to use uploads.
 

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Posting in the MP3 clinic section of this forum will work better for you
 
Well for one, yall kind of butchered that song. Lol. Lots of timing problems. Flubs everywhere. Bad vocals. I know that's not really a "mix" problem, but you might be surprised at how a bad performance can make even a good mix never quite seem right.

I think you captured everything fairly well....except for the drums. Did you get individual tracks for the kit? The drums sound like they're coming through the vocal mics. I don't know. They could be better but it depends on how you tracked them. If you have individual drum tracks they'll be easier to work with. The guitar sounds a little harsh as you described, but it sounds like a clean recording. You sure it's just not a bad tone from the source? What a mic hears right at the speaker is not the same as what you hear in the room. Big difference. Bass and keys seem good. If you can pan some space into the mix that would help I think.

Anyway, working with a mix like this really depends on the tracks you have. How many you got?
 
I liked the singers.

Some sloppy playing at the beginning. A bit less sloppy playing the rest of the way. Tempo seems to waver.

Everything seems distant. Guitars seem small.

Part of that problem might be the room. Part of the problem might be the micing. Didn't sound like you had that many mics.
 
Greg_L said:
Well for one, yall kind of butchered that song. Lol. Lots of timing problems. Flubs everywhere. Bad vocals. I know that's not really a "mix" problem, but you might be surprised at how a bad performance can make even a good mix never quite seem right.

I think you captured everything fairly well....except for the drums. Did you get individual tracks for the kit? The drums sound like they're coming through the vocal mics. I don't know. They could be better but it depends on how you tracked them. If you have individual drum tracks they'll be easier to work with. The guitar sounds a little harsh as you described, but it sounds like a clean recording. You sure it's just not a bad tone from the source? What a mic hears right at the speaker is not the same as what you hear in the room. Big difference. Bass and keys seem good. If you can pan some space into the mix that would help I think.

Anyway, working with a mix like this really depends on the tracks you have. How many you got?
Click to expand...

Fair enough :)
Well the drums were recorded with one overhead, one bass drum mic and then mics on the toms pre-mixed into one channel. I would have mic'ed the snare and stuck up another overhead but was running out of time. The rest of the tracks are all single, so I have one track for each singer, one for the guitar, one for the bass and one for the keys.
With the guitar it was probably just picking up bad tone at the source. I didn't have time to fix any problems like that really, the tone sounded good in the room but we had an idea that what was being recorded wasn't great.
Anyway, I'm gonna mix this track, mistakes and all(and some painfully bad ones at that), for me it's an exercise in mixing, trying to learn some of the tricks so I'll have a better idea of what to do with some of our good songs from that night and when we start recording our own songs properly.

Thanks for the reply.
 
Thanks TripleM :)
The male singer sounds like that pretty much all the time, the female was having a bad song, shes way better than that usually, but its not something I can fix now.
You're definitely right when you say that everything seems distant. That's the kind of thing I want to fix. If I could I'd like to free up some "space" so that I can bring out different parts of it, but I cant seem to shake that far away, disconnected feeling it has about it.
 
laurence997 said:
for me it's an exercise in mixing, trying to learn some of the tricks so I'll have a better idea of what to do with some of our good songs from that night and when we start recording our own songs properly.
Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with that. But, like Greg touched on, 80% of the battle of mixing is the tracking, which includes good source tones, the right mic placements, good/tight playing.

All these things that you didn't have time for are the things that will make a much bigger difference than anything you do after everything's recorded. In a sense they ARE part of mixing.
 
Yeah if you don't have good tracks to play with, you're not really gonna get much out of the practice. Nothing wrong with what you wan to do, but you'll learn more with better source material. Go to the "mix this" section of the site and get other people's tracks. That'll give you something complete to mix and play with.
 
Greg_L said:
Yeah if you don't have good tracks to play with, you're not really gonna get much out of the practice. Nothing wrong with what you wan to do, but you'll learn more with better source material. Go to the "mix this" section of the site and get other people's tracks. That'll give you something complete to mix and play with.
Click to expand...

But ONLY go to the "Mix This" section if you are prepared to get "Say No More" by RAMI stuck in your F'ING HEAD ALL WEEK. haha
 
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