First song from our album - tentatively done?

Chris Tondreau

Chris Tondreau

Member
Okay.... here is what I've wound up with. I think it is a lot better than the first version which appears in the mp3 player on our site at www.now-here-this.com, which got some pretty honest criticisms.

I've used a lot of the suggestions given so far. Thanks for those.

It's still not perfect - not like it ever will be. My only gripe at the moment is there is a certain "hollowness" in a frequency range that I can't quite pinpoint.

Any other comments or suggestions?



Thanks!

Chris
 
I think it's sounding pretty good. I listened to some other versions over at RP. This is by far the best, and most full. I think it might have a pretty big emphasis on the mid highs, and they take over somewhat. That might be what you hear. For this type of music, I think that may not be bad. It does hide some of the lows at times. But it also gives it a great, upbeat feel. I just don't hear much kick. Seems the lows are missing.

But, that being said, I think it turned out pretty cool. A real fun listen, and it's not hard to listen to. Nothing stands out as wrong, just fun.
Ed
 
Found it a little fatiguing.Just so much mid range.

Also, when the chorus of people come in singing "I________" is rather harsh. I'm not sure if its distorting or if thats an effect you've got on.


Not a bad start, just needs a little more balance. I think if you work on the low end it will give the track a lot more energy.

Cheers
 
Fun track!
A good start here, sounds good. There just seems to be some frequency fighting, muddyness in there. I can't pinpoint what's doing what since it's a pretty busy song, but it sounds like nothing some EQ can't fix. My guess would be to start by lowering the 250-500hz range on the Bass and go from there, the bass seems to be taking up too much midrange.
Good luck man, good stuff :D
 
Chris Tondreau said:
Okay.... here is what I've wound up with. I think it is a lot better than the first version which appears in the mp3 player on our site at www.now-here-this.com, which got some pretty honest criticisms.

I've used a lot of the suggestions given so far. Thanks for those.

It's still not perfect - not like it ever will be. My only gripe at the moment is there is a certain "hollowness" in a frequency range that I can't quite pinpoint.

Any other comments or suggestions?



Thanks!

Chris
Click to expand...

That guitar looks very Paul Kantner-esqe from early 80s J. Starship. What is it?
 
Hey folks;

Thanks a lot for the listen and the input. I think my dillemma is becomming apparent. I've compressed the bass - not that much - and put a dip with modest bandwidth (Q=0.5-ish) right around 250. Nothing in the bass is boosted. My fear is that if I cut further, that my "somewhat light" bottom end will be compromised even further.

About the bottom end - listening on nearfields and on stereo speakers up fairly close - it seems pretty lacking. Standing back and listening to it from a distance where the bass frequencies have a chance to develop, and the bottom end wouldn't take too much to become too dominant. Argh!

I sort of hear the harshness in the backing vox. I originally compressed the bejeezus out of them and applied pretty heavy EQ to get close to that Def Leppard kind of sound. That is what you hear if you listen to the song on the flash player on our site. To remedy this, I took all 12 or so backing vocal tracks, re-mixed them and bounced them down with practically no EQ and a bit of compression. This gave me two stereo tracks to play with - each using the same backing vox tracks, but each one with a different mix of those same tracks. Panning one a bit to the left and the other a bit to the right made them sound more natural and less harsh. That said, I like elements of that Def Leppard sound, and by NOT keeping that track, they b-vox come across as kind of lifeless and dull. Ah, the compromises. Argh!

The guitar in the picture is my main axe - a BC Rich Bitch.

I'm wondering if part of my problem is in the guitars. This song is the one that seems to have the biggest problem with frequencies bunching up or whatever is happening, and ironically, this is the song that I spent the most time EQ-ing guitars for. Each of the four rhythm guitar tracks (a DI+amp-modelling plugin and a miked version of one guitar combined together on one take, a "V-amped" guitar on another take, and a miked third guitar on another take) have an EQ boost in a specific frequency range. (ie. one lower mid, one mid, one upper mid, etc.) The other songs, I (for the most part) went really lightly on EQ and got the sound more by mixing the different guitar sounds than anything else. ( a couple of examples of this would be
and
.)

I'm also considering adding an exciter to give the snare more "crack" but want to venture carefully when adding even more to the top end of the mix.

Chris
 
Chris Tondreau said:
Hey folks;



About the bottom end - listening on nearfields and on stereo speakers up fairly close - it seems pretty lacking. Standing back and listening to it from a distance where the bass frequencies have a chance to develop, and the bottom end wouldn't take too much to become too dominant. Argh!



Chris
Click to expand...


Fix your room! You need to work on speaker placement and acoustic treatment. If you can't hear accurately in your room, you'll never get your mixes to translate well for all systems.

My mixes improved a millions times over when I bought a acoustical kit for my room, and spent like 15 hours on speaker placement. Moving them like half an inche at a time till I had it perfect.

That made more difference than any gear I had bought. I was now able to totally hear what each piece of gears charater was.
 
I know what you're getting at, and my room could surely use some work. It's not bad, though.

AFAIK, though, nearfield monitors with 6" drivers (Yorkville YSM1's) will never reproduce lower frequencies as fully as conventional stereo speakers. Part of the solution there, too, is continuing to get used to how they do produce lower frequencies.

Also, the length of the wave of a low frequency is long, and if you're within a couple of feet of your nearfields, the lower frequencies will surely sound more present as you move away from the speakers and give those frequencies a chance to realize themselves fully.

In mastering suites, AFAIK, they make sure to allow for this by having fairly large rooms so they can listen a ways back from the speakers for that reason.

That said, we are looking at re-doing that room, and proper sound control will be one of the things I'll be going to bat for.

Chris
 
If you can't hear accurately your room is bad! Mastering suites (proper ones) are perfect acoustically. The engineers don't need to move around the room
 
Okay.... killed practically all the EQ that existed in the track and that really seemed to open up the guitars. Raised kick drum a bit and nudged up the lead vox a wee bit.

I *think* I solved it. Hopefully I haven't added to the harshness that was alluded to.

Thoughts?

Chris
 
Hey Chris,

I think it sounds pretty darned good, maybe a little scooped, deep bass and lots of top end. I'd fiddle with the reverb on the vocals to try and work some of the high mids out of the mix. Remember I have no clue what I'm talking about, but that's what I heear :)
 
Hey Doug;

Thanks for checking in and listening!! How've ya been?

I'll try out your suggestion.

I guess I resolved my "sort of thin" bottom end.

Chris
 
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