First mix with monitors - please have a listen and critique!

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schismatic

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Hi guys,

I've just got myself my first pair of half-decent monitors (Event ALP5's), and I decided to record a little tune and churn out a mix with them. I've never properly mixed before, so this is my first proper go at it!

Please be critical of it, I'm the perfectionist sort and I really really want to learn how to become a great sound producer/mixer, even if it is only for my own pleasure. I'm only going to learn if you I find out where I'm going wrong from more experienced people like those on this board.

The track itself is not very long, it's just an intro to a track I'm writing and it can be found on my purevolume.com page - My Purevolume Page.
The track is the one called "Slow Intro".

An mp3 version of the track (192kbs) is available to download on the page if you would like to hear it in more clarity than purevolume's own player.

I'd really appreciate it if you had a listen! :)

Cheers!
 
The MP3 conversion is shocking.
I would upload it to soundclick or lightningmp3.com

Seems a little unbalanced, to much in the right speaker.
Overall sounds good, but with better MP3 conversion it would be easier to critique.

Eck
 
ecktronic said:
The MP3 conversion is shocking.
I would upload it to soundclick or lightningmp3.com

Seems a little unbalanced, to much in the right speaker.
Overall sounds good, but with better MP3 conversion it would be easier to critique.

Eck
Click to expand...

I'm with him on this one. Plus, that big goofy head of yours and those ears make you look like an elf. I'm not quite sure if this is relevant but I thought I'd just throw it out there.
 
ok I have made a soundclick account and posted it on that. It can be found here. Hopefully that will sound a bit better!
 
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I didn't listen to your soundclick version yet..though I did enjoy the Nirvana Cover on purevolume...until the weird hi-hat sound came in. I'll listen to your soundclick mix asap.
 
The MP3 conversion is ALOT better.
The guitars sound nice. THere is a bit too much in the low mids, could be fixed at mastering, or you could cut some of the low mids in the guitars, around 200-300Hz. Sounds like some compression in that area might work good rather than using EQ, but I would try both options.
There is something about the drums, They sound like they are draging a bit. I would lower the OHs a tad IMO. Did you compres the drums alot? Sounds like something isnt quite right with the drums. Almost sounds like samples.

Good stuff though,
Eck
 
lol yeah, it's just EZDrummer, not great but i'm in a bedroom recording this, and I just do the guitars and the bass so i have to make do with sampled drums. that's not to say that I can't make them sound half alright though. i will definitely take on board what you said and try and post a re-mix of it up soon, maybe tomorrow. thanks for taking a look at it.
 
Sounds good on headphones. Drums sound like they're mostly on the right side. Maybe that's how you got the panning setup in EZ.

It was obvious to me that you used EZDrummer because I use it. Maybe try doing something to change the velocity of some of the hits to make it sound more natural.

Guitar tone sounds real good.

Makes for a good intro.
 
schismatic said:
lol yeah, it's just EZDrummer, not great but i'm in a bedroom recording this, and I just do the guitars and the bass so i have to make do with sampled drums. that's not to say that I can't make them sound half alright though. i will definitely take on board what you said and try and post a re-mix of it up soon, maybe tomorrow. thanks for taking a look at it.
Click to expand...

No probs, glad to help out when I can. :)
Take a listen to my mix and critique if you get a chance please.
If your into heavy(ish) music you just might like it.

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=226541

Eck
 
i've definitely noticed how unbalanced to the right-hand side the mix is upon you guys mentioning it, but unfortunately I seem to have hit a problem with it. I used a stereo image analyser to see the extent of the unbalancing and sure enough, showed up as very much to the right. But problem was then, I started making adjustments to the panning of my guitars and bass and I could not for the life of me get the overall mix back into the middle. I thought something was up so I hard panned everything minus the drums to the left, which I thought would definitely over-balance it to the left. However, the stereo image analyser still came up as having the mix over to the right a bit which matched what I could hear. Therefore, the drums in this mix must be really overwhelming the general balance of things towards the right. My question is whether anybody who uses EZDrummer has any tips on panning and balancing the spread of the drums. I'm aware that you can output each type of drum to a seperate midi channel (i.e. kick to ch 1., snare to ch2. etc) but there are some panning controls in EZDrummer's own mixer that I'm not really sure of what they do. Anybody have any suggestions?

Just so you have an idea of where this intro is going - think Metallica - To Live Is To Die.......
 
I would put the kick and snare and bass bang in the middle. Then with the other tracks pan them so they are balanced. Sometimes if you ahve 2 guitars with different tones then whe you pan them it sounds a bit odd.
To solve this I copy and paste a guitar track and then pan them equally each side, then nudge 1 of the tracks forward a bit to create a stereo spread with the guitar. You could do this with all the guitar tracks.

Eck
 
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