Demo for a song- comments welcomed

F

Frenchc

New member
Ok, here we go...........I recorded a little five song demo for a band that I know and here is what I had to work with.

1 peavey small condenser mic
1 AKG D112
1 shitty handheld AKG mic
1 wireless shure mic (58 i think)

Tascam DP-01 (only 2 channels to record with)

heres how I hooked stuff up

for the drums I used the d112 for bass drum obviously and that went straight to the pre amp on the DP-01

then i used the small condenser and the shitty handheld AKG for the toms and to pick up the cymbals, and the wireless for the snare, all of these are ran into a powered mixer to use the pre amps and then i use the Rec out of the mixer to go into the DP-01.

I know this is quite the shitty set up but its all I got and i feel i got a decent sound out of it.

for the guitars I used the small condeser close miced, bass i miced it with the D112 and i thought it sounded pretty cool.

I was jsut wondering if anyone had any comments and suggestions because I'm pretty new with this.

The room we recorded in was pretty shitty sounding

I mixed everything in Cakewalk Home Studio with free plugins and you'll probably notice that hte song is pretty squished as the band wanted it loud :rolleyes: go figure

any comments are greatly appreciated

Baltic in the Mediterranean
 
For your set up I was thinking this would be a lot worse sound. Very Emo from what I can here and I hate that, but this is about the mix right...? haha. The entire thing like you pointed out is definatly clipping. Surprisingly the drums actually sound pretty good, especially the bells and toms. I'd work on the snare drum and bass drum, making the bass drum punchier. Make room for the bass drum in the mix by taking away from the bass and low guitar EQ and boosting that in the bass drum. I don't know how much spacing you have done so far, but think about doing a lot, thats the only way I really see this mix sounding better right now. The distorted guitar isn't as loud as the clean guitar on the right. Thats all I can say for now.

Ben
 
Well if the band wanted loud, I guess I don't have much to say, only that it's unbalanced and loud. Really the distortion on many of the snare hits and the hat is just unnecessary. I feel for you if they wanted that.

Why don't you post a clip of the way you thought it should sound?
 
You can hear everything because it's all panned into its own space which is good but I must agree it needs some better balance to even it out. And it's too loud but you're right what can you do? The loudness factor rulez nowadays..... But you got a good start with the tools you had to work with....
 
I noticed that the panning and balance was pretty awkward and horrible and I re-mixed it so its not so loud so I will repost it soon, Thanks
 
Here is my attempt at a quieter, more balanced mix. I turned up the electric guitar on the left side and evened out some of the pans because you all were right that it was way unbalanced. I didn't do much eq because I mix on computer speakers right now until I've saved up enough for the monitors I'm looking at and I didn't want to completely ruin anything. There are still parts that I'm very unsure of so any and every suggestion would be greatly appreciated. This is basically only my second time recording a full band and you can imagine how the first time sounded. Thanks to everyone.

Oh and I think that one of the toms might have clipped the pre amp during recording so sorry for that in advance.

New version of Baltic
 
Ok its good you took it down, because now its clean enough to actually mix it right... you can actually hear the tracks and problems with them. Now you can actually hear the bass drum in the mix, maybe a little loud now though, but not sure I have the crappiest headphones in the world that I'm listening to now, I'll take a listen at work now. What do you have on each track now? Sounds very dry and untouched. Bring up the snare more in the mix and im not sure where to boost it because I don't know where the push frequencies are down low. Mess around with it 'til you actually hear the snare drive. How about telling us whats already on the tracks?

Ben
 
I'll work with the snare a little bit thanks, well the tracks are definitly dry, all effects were added during tracking and I think there was just a little delay in some of the guitar parts. I did add a little reverb to the vocals but other than that theres nothing. I compressed the vocals too during tracking, and the drums just a little bit.

What would you suggest to make the tracks less dry, are you thinking the guitars are dry?

Thanks a bunch

Chris
 
Maybe bring the vocals up a touch for clarity. Nice bass, nice guitars panned nice and easy to distinguish. Heavy guitar brings in a nice dynamic to the song. Drums are "roomy" especially snare. This is not a bad thing - kind of seventies vibe. I would like more "up front" snare myself, maybe up the snare slightly in the mix. This mix is better than the first. Good job.....
 
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