Demo mixing advice

[VotaIdiota]

hey heylow (whoa)......

thanks for the comment. I guess I mentioned death cab before somewhere, but I'm not sure (I kind of forget which threads I post to here, and which ones I post at Harmony Central).... but yeah, I wouldn't say they're a big influence, but I've been listening to them a lot for about the last year or so and I guess some of it might have rubbed off.... although this song was written well before I got into them... this was actually more my weezer phase.

I know you can't really give any specific tips on the drums, since you weren't there and don't know what happened, but here's what I can tell you.... there are three tracks.... #1 is kick drum, a 58 on the front head (there was no hole, so we just put it in the center and hoped for the best); #2 is a snare mic (57) and ride cymbal/floor tom mic summed from a behringer eurorack and compressed FAR TOO MUCH with an RNC; and track three is a C1 hung over the middle of the kit and ran through a VC6Q with a tad too much compression on it as well.
if there's anything you can discern from this that would help the sound, it'd be greatly appreciated...... of course, next time we record the drum micing is going to be drastically different, anyways, but....
I messed around with the bass' eq today, and it started sounding quite a bit better..... hopefully I can get a redone version up this weekend.

oh, and I just want to say, for those complimenting on the song itself, thanks a bunch.... I mean, if the song itself sucks, who cares how it's recorded. it means a lot that you guys actually like the song for the song, and not just cause I applied some nice sheen to this track or this other part, etc..... thanks again.

 

[minusone]

Death Cab

Heylow / VotaIdiota,
man, Death Cab... heh, i didn't hear that the first time, but now... its there... which to me is almost as good as it can get

I may be wrong... but didn't they tour with Jimmy Eat World at one point? That would have been a cool show (I'm a sucker for the pop-sensibilities of JEW).

 

[VotaIdiota]

man, you guys heard death cab in our song?

wow....
I'm surprised.
AND flattered.

 

[heylow]

Ok......

I listened to it again today....and I still really like it!

Look...I'm no expert and a dude like Bruce can tell you way more than I can but things I would try:

Try putting the kick mic more towards the shell....like 2-3 inches out off the side. With something like a 58, try to get in there close because the proximity effect will help get that low end up. Just make sure that the head isn't hitting the mic. Also...and most importantly.....kick tuning!!! If the front head is too flabby, you won't get a nice tone off of it. This seems especially important with no hole in the front. I myself don't like holes in the front anyway. I think you can get a cooler and more interesting tone with no hole but it's harder.

The overhead might have been a tad loud.....maybe it was due to the compression. This will sound dumb but when you say hanging, you don't mean "hanging"do you? I mean the C1 is a SIDE address mic so it should be more horizontal. That said, with one overhead, I've had good luck placing it maybe 3 or 4 feet off the snare directly over the kick pedal. I get better overall kit that way. If you use 1 OH placed too high and no tom mics, you get more cymbals and less kit. I don't know where yours was but that's my experience.

I think that's it!



heylow



BTW....After listening the first time, I heard lots of stuff inthat song and when I read your page it listed Death Cab as an influence. I wasn't trying to say the song sounded "LIKE" Deathe Cab but it would certainly be right at home on their newest record, in my opinion.....................it's in there!

 

[VotaIdiota]

heylow....

thanks man, you are seriously TOO kind.

and yeah, when I said "hanging", I meant putting it on a mic stand leaning over the drum kit, with the front capsule of the mic facing down just a bit to the drummer's right of the snare.

oh, and me and the bassist (who was also the singer on that song) are making a new band with these two guitarists and a drummer... so we'll be a five-piece, so I think our music will start to drift more to radiohead and atmospheric stuff......
although we'll never forget our pop roots!

oh, and don't worry about the death cab thing, I didn't take offense to it or anything. I guess I'm just too involved to look from the outside at what we sound like.