First 2 Mixes in New Studio

[LaceSensor]

I've just moved into a new space where I'm able to record my band. These are my first two mixes and I'm still learning a lot about the sound/room as I go. My room is pretty much a worst case scenario for band isolation but, I've found the sonic shortcomings to be a fun challenge. I believe this setup will be just fine for my needs and I'm looking forward to making more music.

The mic bleed and low end were the biggest challenges to solve. Having drum bleed in the vocal mic is just awful for vocal compression so I've had to be very creative and a bit unconventional with the mix. I've basically used the mono room mic and stereo drum over heads as the foundation of the mix and filled in the holes with a close mic on vocals, guitar and bass are DI but also being picked up by the ambient mics. The bass player used different basses on the 2 tracks and one of them sounded terrible which required some heavy processing and shaping.

Please feel free to tear the mix apart as I'm trying to learn more about this room. I'd just like to keep making improvements. Oh and there is very little consistency between the two mixes as I wanted to try separate mixes.

 

[Eric Malone]

I listened to the first song. I like it. Especially the 'Wait for me' melody. The high vocals during that
section (and others) are a bit grating in spots - to me. Obvious pitch issues as well, that I'm sure you are aware of.

The singer has a great voice, don't get me wrong, just needs some work.

Anyway, you wanted mix comments so I'll stop there.

Is this a really huge room, or did you add some 'room' type reverb to it?

If the reverb is added after the fact, great, you have some control. I think it needs to be dialed back quite a bit though.

If this is the sound of your room, then some treatment is required.

Do you plan on always tracking live, or is overdubbing an option (vocals in particular).

I like the liveness of it all, the drums sound good, bass is good. Curious as to how much
control you have over this mix, especially in regards to the 'ambience' / room sound level.

EL

 

[LaceSensor]

I listened to the first song. I like it. Especially the 'Wait for me' melody. The high vocals during that
section (and others) are a bit grating in spots - to me. Obvious pitch issues as well, that I'm sure you are aware of.

The singer has a great voice, don't get me wrong, just needs some work.

Anyway, you wanted mix comments so I'll stop there.

Is this a really huge room, or did you add some 'room' type reverb to it?

If the reverb is added after the fact, great, you have some control. I think it needs to be dialed back quite a bit though.

If this is the sound of your room, then some treatment is required.

Do you plan on always tracking live, or is overdubbing an option (vocals in particular).

I like the liveness of it all, the drums sound good, bass is good. Curious as to how much
control you have over this mix, especially in regards to the 'ambience' / room sound level.

EL

Thank you for the feedback. I chose to not use Melodyne so the singer can hear her performance and becomes aware of the pitch thing. Its very noticeable when you have a great singer who nails 99% of the notes because when they do hit a sour one, it really stands out.

I don't always plan to track live but for logistics, sanity, and time, it makes a lot of sense to record like this when its just cover songs for band rehearsal.

Reverb
The room is small but actually handles volume and bass well. I would not call the room dead or alive, it feels more balanced than other home studios I've worked in. I have not explored the construction/design of this house to know for sure but, I believe all(maybe some) of the houses on my street were built with sound dampening in mind. The houses are very close but not much sound is audible from outside when we rehearse and record. Night and day difference from the 1950's house I was living in previously.

I believe what you identified was a really poor execution and trashy sounding blend (short) reverb on the vocals. This was adding a piercing/metallic high mid thing to the vocals. I have removed this which calms the vocals down and got rid of some artifacts I was hearing. The longer reverb I used is Valhalla Vintage in the Wooden Room setting, This reverb sounds beautiful and I'm almost certain this is not the one you're pointing out as being overbearing.

All that to say, here is a no reverb (dry) mix so you can hear the room.

 

[LaceSensor]

 

[TalismanRich]

I definitely think you need to change the reverb. The first mix sounded far too hollow for my taste. It makes the mix sound like something you would get at bar with a live recording (which is fine if that's the sound you're trying to get). You can definitely hear the room the dry mix, especially on the drums. I hear it as well on the vocals, not as much on the other instruments.

On the second track, you can hear the hollowness on all of the instruments and the voice.

Have you done a simple "clap" test to see how much reflection you are getting and how long they are? Hard walls, hard floor and hard ceiling means a lot going on.

I'm just listening on 5" JBLs, so I really can't tell a lot about the bass right now.

 

[LaceSensor]

I definitely think you need to change the reverb. The first mix sounded far too hollow for my taste. It makes the mix sound like something you would get at bar with a live recording (which is fine if that's the sound you're trying to get). You can definitely hear the room the dry mix, especially on the drums. I hear it as well on the vocals, not as much on the other instruments.

On the second track, you can hear the hollowness on all of the instruments and the voice.

Have you done a simple "clap" test to see how much reflection you are getting and how long they are? Hard walls, hard floor and hard ceiling means a lot going on.

I'm just listening on 5" JBLs, so I really can't tell a lot about the bass right now.

I do hear what you mean about the hollowness of the instruments. Especially the guitar. I believe this is because I was recording direct but the mic’s were picking up my monitor signal. I don’t really have a way to fix this other than recording each instrument individually. I need to double check the phase of the mics as well. I may have missed something there.

I do have a calibrated microphone to measure the room but the only software I’ve used is TrueRTA which is only a frequency spectrum meter.

I am open to treating the room but I’d like to be more scientific and strategic about it so I want to identify the issues and go from there.

 

[RFR]

What I noticed is that all the instruments sound like they’re in different rooms as far as reverb.
I’d be curious how it would have sounded if the bass and guitar were recorded using amps

I don’t think your room sounds too bad at all. A bit of high end harshness in the drums, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with EQ.

You mentioned bleed. Personally I think a bit of bleed is your friend with a live band.

Years back I recorded a simple 3 piece blues/ rock band live onto tape.
When I dubbed the tracks onto protools recently, I edited out all the bleed I could.

It sounded sterile, and quite frankly sounded like shit. I had sucked all the ambience and life out of the song.
When I remixed it with all the original bleed back in, it sounded good again.

Anyway that’s my take on it. And overall, I liked it. (Your tune)

Not bad for a room you’re not familiar with yet.

 

[Eric Malone]

I think you have some great space to work in there, wish I had that much.

Listening to the dry track, I do think you need to do some basic room taming. The moving blankets on
the walls, or if you want to make it fancier, build or buy some wall mount absorbers. (I'd do the later, you have
a nice looking room). The wide open wall behind the drum kit, even a $20 4 x 8 moving blanket would reduce a bit of
the early reflections.

I'm not sure how you are recording the drums. You have a couple mics in what looks like ORTF, a kick mic but I can't
see anything else. Do you not intend to close mic any toms or the snare? That can work I guess, depending. If the majority of your sound
is coming from the overheads, then the short, small room sound is going to be quite prevalent
and a constant fixture to your 'sound' and recordings moving forward.

You do not need to go overboard on the science (unless you want to).
Just deaden it up a little by whatever means you can afford and keep on recording.

If you had the vocalist in a deader room (overdubbing, or live) when recording this, I think the mix options
would be interesting overtop of the live drums etc sound.

Is this a cover song?