First recording session! please could i get some feedback?

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TRNSTN

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https://soundcloud.com/askew-a/no-respect-more-high-end

I just recorded my first band I haven't got a studio so we recorded in a community center, there were some issues with reverb and we
recorded it in one large room, so checking all the levels and the sound of it was hard.

I still think there is some workable martial, just trying to mix it now to try and make it sound decent there were some learning curves.

Could i get some feedback please? on how you think its mixed and if there is anything you don't like about it. I've worked on it and now
it's hard to get an outside perspective on the track. I was really hoping some people on this website could help me out

But even a yes I liked the sound or no I didn't would be really helpful. I don't really know how to get it sounding like a professionally
produced song that you would hear that holds up

Thank you

Andrew
 
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hey sounds pretty good to me. how did you go about it. did you do the band all in one go? what equipment did you use?
 
I didn't record to a click, I recorded the drums with the guitarist Di'ed to make a ghost track. Then removed guitar audio file and had the guitarist and bassist play to the drum track through headphones separately. Then recorded the vocals over the top of that.

Used an audix D6 on the kick but the drummer had a new skin and I didn't want to ask him to cut a hole in it so its a bit weak. Used sm57 and heil pr20 on snare and mxl's on the overhead's, there was a load of reverby spill on the drums with recording in a reflective hall so had to cut a few drum room mikes. Used an SM7b on vocal and used the drums mikes to record the guitar's.

Just recorded in Logic with a focusrite sound card
 
so when the drummer was playing, could he hear the guitarist or was the drummer just playing and imagining the song in his head?
 
The guitar was plugged directly into the sound card so the drummer could hear it through his headphones and with the guitar being a direct input it wasn't being picked up on the microphones. Which gave the drummer the ability to play in time with the bands song. Then it was just keeping the drum audio files deleting the first guitar and then recording the guitar through an amp with the drums now going through the guitarist's headphones
 
Hey there, I'm new at all this recording stuff... but have been listening to music for as long as I can remember. My first impression was that it sounded good. I'm sure you've heard it so many times you can't tell if it's OK or total crap. I tried to be picky about the sound and the big thing I could pick out was the snare drum. It sounded too loud or something. Too strong for the rest of the mix. Aside from that it was good. Not my type of music, but it sounded like it should. (in my opinion at least)
 
The guitar was plugged directly into the sound card so the drummer could hear it through his headphones and with the guitar being a direct input it wasn't being picked up on the microphones. Which gave the drummer the ability to play in time with the bands song. Then it was just keeping the drum audio files deleting the first guitar and then recording the guitar through an amp with the drums now going through the guitarist's headphones
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I'm very intrigued by this. I only have 4 channels on my interface so they will all be taken up by drums. I guess I could do something similar except the guitairst could use my Line 6 Pod while the drummer hears it on headphones.

How many mics did you use on the drums and what kind were they?
 
To Jigfresh

https://soundcloud.com/askew-a/no-respect

Remixed it and changed the levels, yeah I've heard the song so many times I don't know how the song sounds and I can't figure out how to improve the sound.
Some things I liked about the mix other people hated, I guess I need a break from the track.

What I've learned is mix as quickly as possible, take a couple of day break. Then go back and critically analyze it and make the changes. It seems dedicated time constrained mixing sessions are the best. I've just been working on this for a couple of days and spent too much time mixing it and lost ant reference points.

To Ultrasound

If you have 4 inputs you have to make sure the drums will sound the way you want before recording. Tune the drums and get the right room with the right modes and reflection. But you could totally have one mike on the Kick Drum, Snare, One facing all the toms and then one as an overhead or a room mike. A mono overhead will be ok if you set your drums up right.

On the drums although this time they weren't set up right for the room and I had a lot of issues with reverb and spill, I mostly used Dynamics microphones and used 2 small condenser microphones for overheads.
 
That sounds good. I like it better. If there was any way to add treble to the snare that might be good as it sounds a little bassy. But that's all I can hear that's off. (from your perspective anyways... you didn't play the instruments)

Good stuff.
 
It's getting easier to listen to the more I mix it, but I recognize I made proximity mistakes in the recording and there are issues and constraints, I'll look into adding treble to the snare and see what I can do.

No i'm not not a musician it was a local band, I know a bit of music theory and enjoy playing through scales on the guitar from time to time and sometimes the piano, but I can't really play anything.

Here's a picture to give you guys a little more perspective.

https://soundcloud.com/askew-a/no-respect
imgur: the simple image sharer

I think I went for the right technique, but I kinda stuck to what I had read. The overhead for the snare in recorder man was 2 sticks from the snare and the same distance for the right shoulder mike and I used a dynamic and should have used a condenser. Plus the dynamics mikes are large capsule dynamics with let a lot of spill in.

I think its pretty clear from the pic where I went wrong now

1. Kick mike not in kick.
2. Dynamic mikes should be small capsule.
3. Microphones not positioned away from the sounds you don't want.
4. Some microphones not placed close enough, and wrong types of mikes for the wrong job.
5. No baffling or dampening.
 
TRNSTN said:
1. Kick mike not in kick.
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Not neccessarily, I usually mic right on the hole or even a little back if I use a condenser mic.

2. Dynamic mikes should be small capsule.
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Again, not necessarily. Most "bass" mics are large diaphragm, and who says you can't use a large dynamic like an SM7b on a snare?

5. No baffling or dampening.
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YES! Let the drums breathe. No pillows, tape, what have you. Let them roar! Learn how to tune! Although a tiny bit of moongel is handy to have for those issues you can't seem to get rid of. But only very little.
 
If you're trying to go for a professional sound then you've missed the mark. If you link me a song (from a band that you or the band likes) that you're trying to get the mix close to, I'll try to give some feedback.

Honestly, it sounds like there's a lot of issues in the way the instruments were tracked. That might be a bit of a problem.
 
Magnawolf said:
If you're trying to go for a professional sound then you've missed the mark. If you link me a song (from a band that you or the band likes) that you're trying to get the mix close to, I'll try to give some feedback.

Honestly, it sounds like there's a lot of issues in the way the instruments were tracked. That might be a bit of a problem.
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Yeh big issues here, dont worry it will just take time and practise for your ears to learn how to make it better. Id like to hear you properly recorded, that dudes voice is awesome! One of the biggest issues is the drums, they sound like youve totally cut out all the high end. Heres a really quick tip to help your overall drum sound - scoop out some of the 500hz region to remove that boxy sound. The snare also sounds reaaaaaally muffled. Read up on how to mike drums, and then how to EQ and compress drums. Have fun, with some prior research youll be making stuff that sounds about 1000% better in no time.
Multipart video series on drum micing: Recording Drums, Part I: Overhead Mic Placements Compared - YouTube
 
Hey thanks a lot I'll give that a read, yeah I'm sure I will record them again. I'm mean the bad are really happy with the sound. I don't think they
really pick up on the issues as an engineer would, but obviously I want to try and give them a decent product. Especially if they are putting it out there
and my name is on it.

But next time it will be a little better.
 
I realised I forgot to do some pre production work on the drums, so I fixed that they are a bit better.
Anyone fancy a listen and critiquing this version of this tune

https://soundcloud.com/askew-a/stereowithoutthis

and let me know how the drums compare to before?

I meant to post this in another thread but I don't know how you delete posts
 
Definiely an improvement. Drum have more clarity. The mix is still unbalanced though..vox way to forward, guitar muffled. Ifyou were to put the indivudual tracks online id be happy to do you a quick mix to show you how I think things could be improved. As someone said earlier though, it does sound like a lot of problems may have been in the actual tracking.
 
That would be pretty helpful to me to hear how someone would go about it, if you want to you want to private message me a google email address and
I'll send them over on Google drive?

Yeah not really mixed just was happy when I got it sounding a little better, yeah the problems are in the tracking
 
TRNSTN said:
That would be pretty helpful to me to hear how someone would go about it, if you want to you want to private message me a google email address and
I'll send them over on Google drive?

Yeah not really mixed just was happy when I got it sounding a little better, yeah the problems are in the tracking
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Heres my version (also emailed it to you)..
Cyanide - Output - Stereo Out by Chunder Mcgee on SoundCloud - Hear the world

I did it QUICK so its faaar from perfect but I think its a basic guide towards the right direction. The big problems were the way things were recorded, which really can't be fixed in the mix. Ive attached a screenshot of the EQing I did, this was by far the most important part. LOTS of scooping out around 250-500hx all that muddy buildup from the room noise. Also you can see my mixer to see how i roughly balanced levels (just note that this was AFTER I did some quick gain staging to each track get everything approximately the SAME level first, then adjusted my faders to suit).
View image: cyanide mix

Other than that, I chose to use LESS track than you gave me.. 2 overheads, a bit of room mic (which I compressed quite a bit), kick and snare close mics and thats all. Good work phase aligning your drums.. dont know if that was intention but it was all correct. I also created a double of the snare and added a little bit of high end distortion and blended it in ever so slightly to give it a little more crackle because it was a bad sounding thuddy snare. I also gated the kick and snare close mics to get rid of as much kit and room noise as possible and allow me to more dramatically EQ them. I sent all the drums to a drum bus and the drums were then parallel compressed with small amount of fairly intense, driven compression/saturation.

Each track has some mild compression, generally medium attack, fast release, but you should learn about compression if you dont know about it.


The vox were the strongest part, I compressed the bejesus out of them and cut a lot of the lower frequencies (see pic). Added some long delay and hall reverb.

In addition to using your miced guitar amp, I also took your Guitar DI, and ran it through a virtual amp simulator (Guitar Rig), effectively creating a double part, and then panned each hard left and right for a much bigger guitar sound.

I used the miced amp bass, but could have probably got better results running the bass di through guitar rig too.

Watch out for noises.. some of the tracks had wierd clicks n bumps.. mayb the mic stand getting knocked?

Watch out for your recording levels.. try to keep things even. Some things were really loud others were VERY soft. Just aim for a middle ground.

Finally I compressed the whole thing a bit and ran it through a mastering preset to make it sound bigger.. too much actually, i overemphasised the effect but you get the idea.


So anyway the moral of the story is that you just need to read up a bit more on micing technique and choosing good spaces to record in, and you're recordings will improve LOTS! Good luck!
 
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