Good Evening...

robgreen

robgreen

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Hi. Not much chance to come in here much recently with focus being more on playing with the band than recording, as well as some other rather less fun stuff to deal with. I'll try and catch up on recent offerings.

Anyway, here's something I pulled together over a few evenings last week in an attempt to write a Christmas song of sorts. Also an excuse to try out the new bass too.

I think I got pretty close to the idea I had in my head. How's it sounding if you don't mind checking it out?



Thanks :)
 
Hi Rob. Good to see you posting new tunes. Some very nice guitar and synth sounds.

I like the opening synth but there's a midrange frequency that is very pushy. It makes me wince to hear it. Same is true of that synth oooh aaah part in the later part of the song. Generally, the mix is very midrangy. I'm not sure the baseline quite harmonizes with some of the guitar and synth chords. You might solo the bass and the guitars and synths one by one and see if you hear something clashing. Otherwise, well done.
 
Robus said:
Hi Rob. Good to see you posting new tunes. Some very nice guitar and synth sounds.

I like the opening synth but there's a midrange frequency that is very pushy. It makes me wince to hear it. Same is true of that synth oooh aaah part in the later part of the song. Generally, the mix is very midrangy. I'm not sure the baseline quite harmonizes with some of the guitar and synth chords. You might solo the bass and the guitars and synths one by one and see if you hear something clashing. Otherwise, well done.
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Great, thanks for listening Robus and sharing your thoughts. One of the main things I was wondering was how that opening synth would sit on people’s systems and had a feeling it might come across a little wince inducing for some. I'm not near speakers now, but I know where you mean it’ll be pushing, so I’ll sort that out. Also, the clashing you mention may be a small tuning issue – I’ll take a look and see whether that’s the case.

I tend to overwork stuff so I deliberately kept this kind of loose and spontaneous, some of the parts are semi-improvised and I didn’t do a huge amount of processing or shaping after tracking. It was fun to go from initial idea to completion in a few days, but I was aware it might have left a few loose ends.

Re. being midrangey, I think that’s probably true. I’ve been listening to a lot of ambient, post rock and minimalist type records recently – I guess that came through in this and that music style tends to be very mid-range centric. I guess in the absence of vocals or prominent drums you’re naturally operating more in that frequency range. The mix seemed quite full sounding on my system and I was hoping the warm bass tone would keep it from sounding thin. I’ll see whether taming any of the harsher midrange frequencies makes any difference.

Cheers man, very helpful :)
 
That was actually quite pretty. I was leery upon seeing "christmas music", but it worked pretty well.

Nothing really stuck out as out-of-place.
 
Very nice atmosphere to the song. Very appropriate for a Christmas song.

Overheads/cymbals are a little too strong. I'd just back them off 2-3 dbs or so.

Clean guitars sound quite nice to my ear.

keyboard sounds are nice as well.
 
VomitHatSteve said:
That was actually quite pretty. I was leery upon seeing "christmas music", but it worked pretty well.

Nothing really stuck out as out-of-place.
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Yeah, me too VHS. I generally can't stand Christmas songs either, so this was an attempt to do one on my own terms.

Thanks a lot for checking it out and glad to hear nothing was standing out as needing much correction. Wasn't sure how some of the elements would translate, so that's good. Cheers man :cool:
 
TripleM said:
Very nice atmosphere to the song. Very appropriate for a Christmas song.

Overheads/cymbals are a little too strong. I'd just back them off 2-3 dbs or so.

Clean guitars sound quite nice to my ear.

keyboard sounds are nice as well.
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Great, thanks Trip. The challenge was how to give it a Christmas atmosphere that I could bear and how to do so without vocals.

Glad it worked and the tones sounded ok. I think you caught a quick update that I uploaded after Robus and VHS had commented, so seems like that might have improved things (or at least not made them worse). Always fun to see how much reverb I can get past you too :D

I'll take a look at the overheads - I guess I was conscious that they were one of the few elements that would be contributing much to the highs, so I may have over egged them. Cheers :)
 
Kick could come up some. I didn't hear anything sticking out. Nice little tune.
 
Hey Rob, the mix generally sounds great. Guitars especially sound great. I hear a few problems in the keys.

-Opening keys are a little piercing. This is probably the same thing robus is hearing.
-Keyboard at 1:19 is a little "bulbous" sounding, kinda like a very low bell.
-Someone mentioned raising the kick. I don't really agree. In an absolute sense maybe, but for this genre I don't think a driving kick would work.
-I agree the hat could lower a few db.
-I'd try to open the mix up. It has a "post-rock" feel that is begging for a little more space and sparseness. It reminds me a bit of Mogwai.

The only other thing I'd comment on is that, compositionally, there seems to be all consonance. For a Christmas song that does make sense, but personally I would have used some type of altered chord at some point (like a iv would fit well if this song has a IV) b/c it's pleasing and has the same root yet is also a little dissonant. I feel a little hook with some trick like that would have taken the composition to a new level.
 
DM60 said:
Kick could come up some. I didn't hear anything sticking out. Nice little tune.
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Great, thanks a lot DM. I'll take a look at the kick - I wanted the drums to accent rather than drive this tune, but I'll have a play around and see how it sounds. Appreciate you taking the time :)

andrushkiwt said:
I heard this too. Somewhere in 450-700? Pushy is a good descriptor. Rest sounds great to me, nice work
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Great, thanks a lot Taras. I must admit the update I made corrected areas that were bugging me, but didn't change the issue Robus picked up. I agree with his and your assessment about it being pushy, but it was a quick mix update and when I made a cut to that synth it changed the character of it too much, so I thought I'd leave it until I had more time to address it properly. Glad it's otherwise sounding good. Cheers :)
 
Nola said:
Hey Rob, the mix generally sounds great. Guitars especially sound great. I hear a few problems in the keys.

-Opening keys are a little piercing. This is probably the same thing robus is hearing.
-Keyboard at 1:19 is a little "bulbous" sounding, kinda like a very low bell.
-Someone mentioned raising the kick. I don't really agree. In an absolute sense maybe, but for this genre I don't think a driving kick would work.
-I agree the hat could lower a few db.
-I'd try to open the mix up. It has a "post-rock" feel that is begging for a little more space and sparseness. It reminds me a bit of Mogwai.

The only other thing I'd comment on is that, compositionally, there seems to be all consonance. For a Christmas song that does make sense, but personally I would have used some type of altered chord at some point (like a iv would fit well if this song has a IV) b/c it's pleasing and has the same root yet is also a little dissonant. I feel a little hook with some trick like that would have taken the composition to a new level.
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Thanks for the detailed feedback Nola. Always good to get your thoughts man. Fair point re. Mogwai I think. I never try and consciously ape a particular band, but Mogwai are certainly a long term personal favourite and I've listened to the record they released earlier this year a lot. Been a few other new albums this year in this vein that I've hammered hard like Hammock, Explosions in the Sky and the soundtrack album to the Stranger Things series, so I guess that's all contributed to the direction here.

The specific mix comments all sound reasonable, so I'll take a look at those - thanks a lot. The synth at 1.19 is actually the same synth as the opening one. Its sound and volume is wildly inconsistent according to whether you're playing higher or lower notes, so as you can tell it's a real pain to balance in a mix, but I like what it does so just need to get it to site nicely.

It was interesting to read your thoughts in terms of composition too. I tend to go off feel rather than consciously thinking about the structure and just jam out an idea until it works. Like for this one the main guitar part was the first thing written and recorded as a structure to build everything else around. I wasn't really sure where I was going with everything else until that was down and I started playing around. With the natural deadline that comes from deciding to write a Christmas song a couple of weeks before Christmas there wasn't much time to then go back to the initial framework and revise. Consonance sounds right though - the things I wanted to get from the song were something full sounding/aesthetically pleasing and a bit of a wall of sound. Realistically I'm unlikely to have time to try out any redesign of this song before Christmas, but I can certainly think of another song written but not yet recorded that you could make the same comment about, so there's an opportunity there to I'll try and think about that when I come to flesh that one out and record it.

Cheers, I appreciate it :)
 
Hey Rob. The opening did not sound shrill at all to me. In fact I thought it was like velvet hammers on bells. I think it needs some bottom end though. Sounds kind of thin like nothing below 200hz (a guess). You must have changed this since the early comments because the ride cymbal can come way up.
I would not pick this out of a Christmas Song line up. But it's nice all that same/
Merry Christmas brother.
 
I love the mellotron like synths at the end. There seems to be a bit a a halo around notes in the intro but other than that I think it's very cool. Well done ROb - I'd like to hear something from you that gives some space for the new bass to shine though.
 
Manslick said:
Hey Rob. The opening did not sound shrill at all to me. In fact I thought it was like velvet hammers on bells. I think it needs some bottom end though. Sounds kind of thin like nothing below 200hz (a guess). You must have changed this since the early comments because the ride cymbal can come way up.
I would not pick this out of a Christmas Song line up. But it's nice all that same/
Merry Christmas brother.
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Hi, great to hear from you Manslick. Thanks for listening and happy Christmas to you too. Yeah, I guess the Christmas flavouring is subtle, but I'm a bit bored of the usual Christmas tropes, so I'm ok with that.

Interesting that it sounds thin in the lows as I was hoping the bass and kick would have filled in there as well as some of the synths. Not at my recording PC now, but some of the EQ cuts I've made have been have been in the low areas I was getting some boominess like maybe around 120Hz I think. There are no high pass filters or anything anywhere.

I haven't touched the drums at all since posting the first mix, so interesting that some think they're too high and some too low. If I can get a few minutes to make some tweaks tonight I'll have a think about levels and take a judgement call. I see you've got a new tune in here too, I'll try and take a listen soon.

rayc said:
I love the mellotron like synths at the end. There seems to be a bit a a halo around notes in the intro but other than that I think it's very cool. Well done ROb - I'd like to hear something from you that gives some space for the new bass to shine though.
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Great, thanks Ray. Glad it's generally sounding cool. Yeah, I want to do something to bring out the new bass soon too - I initially had it higher in this mix, but it was way too dominant for the style. I actually really like the bass part, but yeah something more upbeat to show it off would be cool.

That synth you mention has just been tough to mix all the way through. I'm not sure how many options I have to sculpt the tone of it much more currently as I lost some of the editing capabilities for it in the Windows 10 upgrade. I'll see what I can do though.

Cheers mate, all the best.
 
Had a bit of time to remix this tonight and replaced the original file. Made a bunch of changes, but no idea now whether any of them amount to very much at all. Overheads are down a little for one. I've tried to tame the piercing synth too, but it's proving hard and making eq cuts is introducing some distortion for some reason. Limitations of the patch I think.

Not sure I'll have time to retrack or rework any more now before Christmas, so I think this will have to be as good as it gets for now. Thanks everyone for taking the time to listen :)
 
robgreen said:
Hi, great to hear from you Manslick. Thanks for listening and happy Christmas to you too. Yeah, I guess the Christmas flavouring is subtle, but I'm a bit bored of the usual Christmas tropes, so I'm ok with that.

Interesting that it sounds thin in the lows as I was hoping the bass and kick would have filled in there as well as some of the synths. Not at my recording PC now, but some of the EQ cuts I've made have been have been in the low areas I was getting some boominess like maybe around 120Hz I think. There are no high pass filters or anything anywhere.

I haven't touched the drums at all since posting the first mix, so interesting that some think they're too high and some too low. If I can get a few minutes to make some tweaks tonight I'll have a think about levels and take a judgement call. I see you've got a new tune in here too, I'll try and take a listen soon.
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Just now it sounds real good. I listened on the big open speakers. I am getting a nice balance all around. I thought the kick was right there. I'd probably bring the bass up some, being a low end guy.

You know I go thru a phase where I think the old Christmas songs as passe' as they say. But in times when I want to go home again, nothing brings that old feeling of nostalgia like an old Christmas tune from childhood.

I liked the swing this tune has. I got a mental impression of skaters.

Nice work.
 
The mix sounds much more open (from memory, you should have left the original up). Love how it sounds now.
I like the bit of hiss/noise during the opening notes (sounds like distortion on them or tape hiss -- was this in the original? Either way I like it!).

This is now a great mix, imo. It's a post-rock Christmas after all!
 
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Manslick said:
Just now it sounds real good. I listened on the big open speakers. I am getting a nice balance all around. I thought the kick was right there. I'd probably bring the bass up some, being a low end guy.

You know I go thru a phase where I think the old Christmas songs as passe' as they say. But in times when I want to go home again, nothing brings that old feeling of nostalgia like an old Christmas tune from childhood.

I liked the swing this tune has. I got a mental impression of skaters.

Nice work.
Click to expand...

Great, thanks for coming back in Manslick and good to hear it translated well on the big speakers. I hoped it would sound kinda full and enveloping - but tricky to get the balance right with all these synth parts that have the potential to jut out at odd angles on different systems.

The mental impression is cool. I can live with skaters. Or icy wastes.

Nola said:
The mix sounds much more open (from memory, you should have left the original up). Love how it sounds now.
I like the bit of hiss/noise during the opening notes (sounds like distortion on them or tape hiss -- was this in the original? Either way I like it!).

This is now a great mix, imo. It's a post-rock Christmas after all!
Click to expand...

Happy post-rock Christmas to you too! Really pleased the change seems to be a positive one - I kind of lost perspective a little as to whether I was actually changing much and didn't want to overwork this mix as it all fell into place so naturally in the first instance. I think I referred to the hiss on the notes in a previous post - for some reason they were artifacts that appeared with the EQ cuts. The synths are based on samples of vintage trons and so I wonder whether it's as the EQ cut out some of the dominant frequencies, some more of the noise floor from these old instruments that was previously masked came through. I had to strike a balance between cutting out some of the more piercing/boomy frequencies and allowing too much of that noise through. I hoped I'd struck an acceptable balance and actually quite liked the ambient feel of that which dd make it through.

Sorry about having not left the original mix up - I tend to just replace the original file and hadn't thought about that. Will do next time.

Thanks for coming back in Nola :)
 
And a Merry Christmas to you as well.

I like it. :)

I hear what others are saying about the frequencies on the opening synth.. My synth has a lot of patches that do that also, and it can be frustrating with so many available sounds that are otherwise exactly what I'm looking for, but have that weird plunky distorted attack. And the keyboard that comes in around 1.20 (same patch?) kind of has that quality too. It's something I probably wouldn't notice if the rest of the production wasn't so clear and open, and if I wasn't listening critically.

Everything else sounds really good. Very pretty. Who is that in the soundbite at the end?
 
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