Half an album

[Neeps]

Hi

We're halfway through recording our album if anyone has got 33 minutes and wants to give any feedback i'd be interested to hear their thoughts.

Up until now we've tracked demo versions. Our task now is to polish these songs into proper album tracks. We also need to write another couple while we are at it.

Cheers
Neeps

http://www.hubwebdesign.co.uk/player/player.html

 

[Neeps]

Oh... I forgot.

Electric guitar direct in to Wave GTR
Bass direct to Ampeg
All acoutic instruments recorded with MSH-1's
Vocal was an ADK hamburg
Preamp was mostly an FMR RNP used a DMP when extra mics were used for drums.
Drums were recorded with a couple of overheads only. (Learning to record drums is the next task)

This is the studio.

Cheers Neeps

 

[bigtom]

I really like the ideas you have here. I would not have spent so much time tracking everything just for a rough draft to follow, but it does give the listener a feel for what you are aiming for. Good luck and I would love to here these when they are finished.

 

[ido1957]

I listened to tune # 5.5.....

Nice mellow tune that I enjoyed, would be great to dance to.
Your accent is cool - usually singers try to avoid an accent so yours gives it a nice touch.

- I thought the mix was a little light on bottom end.
- the acoustic was too low compared to the vocals
- bit of feedback-type sound on the violin which is out of tune slightly at times
- everything seemed centered or mono; could use some spread
- the spoken part is too low, can't understand it very much...
- the vocals are dry-ish whereas everything else has room/reverb to it. Be nice to get a balance there.

 

[Matt885]

Hey Man,
The songs sound pretty good. I like the style you are going for. The only Thing is that the vocals seem to bit a bit too load in comparison to the rest of the mix. Also, it does seem to be missing some low end. Some bass would help. I cant tell if there is any. Keep on working things out and it will eventualy come together.

 

[Neeps]

I really like the ideas you have here. I would not have spent so much time tracking everything just for a rough draft to follow, but it does give the listener a feel for what you are aiming for. Good luck and I would love to here these when they are finished.

Thanks bigtom

I'm a firm believer that you don't know if you've got the part right until you track it and hear it played back to you. I've thought I've nailed a part too many times only to discover that it was really competing with other instruments. I think that while you are playing an instrument your attention gets wrapped up in the part that you are playing and it's hard to judge it from the songs perspective. Anyway... that's why we track everything asap. Everyone has their own methods though. Thanks for giving us a listen.

- the vocals are dry-ish whereas everything else has room/reverb to it. Be nice to get a balance there.

Interesting catch there. The acoustic intruments are all miked at distance but the vocal was always miked close to try to get a proximity boost. The result is a dryer vocal. So do I position the vocal mic further away to get the rooms natural reverb and eq it slightly or do I keep miking it close and try to add a little reverb... could I take an impulse response of my room and add it in so the reverbs match.... does it matter... i think I need to experiment a little.

Thanks for your comments.

Hey Man,
The songs sound pretty good. I like the style you are going for. The only Thing is that the vocals seem to bit a bit too loud in comparison to the rest of the mix. Also, it does seem to be missing some low end. Some bass would help. I cant tell if there is any. Keep on working things out and it will eventualy come together.

Thanks Matt. There is a bass on most tracks but not the first track. That's two coments about a lack of bass so it's something I'll keep my eye/ear on. The vocals are supposed to be up front but I admit that it's over cooked at times at the moment, particularly the first track.

I know this is the mix clinic but we've not really mixed this at all yet. I don't think we've panned anything yet cos if it doesn't work mono it's not going to work stereo. Up until this point we've focussed on song writing and arrangement. The comments so far will all be helpful to us when over the next few months as we attempt to re-record and mix everything you hear at the moment.

Thanks Again
Neeps

 

[mikeyhasnobones]

way cool! reminds me of the mountain goats a bit and i love your accent as well! everything's got a lot of good space and i'd definitely be interested in hearing these finished up!
good work!
mikey

 

[rayc]

Accent? What accent?
Track 2 have a very Neil Young electric intro balanced by the nice clean dry vocal.
The drums are a bit distant though.
Track 3 nice acoustic - the drums are the peoblem again they give the impression of a rehearsal recording.
Track 4 - TOP FLIGHT 1st 2 lines. The electric licks are a bit annoying - too far up front.
Really good songs!!!
Track 5 - a nice lilting tune & chords. Book, took & fluke sounding right as rhymes- now that's a dialect! And they do work in your very nice song. Needs a little mandolin - oh, is that one now?
Track 6 - a much more together ensemble sound but a bit boomy once the bohdran comes in. Nice tune - there're a few staggers on the fiddle.
I'll stop there.
You write lovely songs, the lyrics are a very fresh perspective.
Throughout the bass lack definition, the drums are distant and the electric has to be careful about nagging.
I look forward to hearing these songs well captured.

 

[Neeps]

way cool! reminds me of the mountain goats a bit and i love your accent as well! everything's got a lot of good space and i'd definitely be interested in hearing these finished up!
good work!
mikey

Thanks Mikey I'll need to check out the mountain goats now.

Accent? What accent?
Needs a little mandolin - oh, is that one now?

I'm Scottish but not particularly broad and it's a mandola but close enough

Track 6 - a much more together ensemble sound but a bit boomy once the bohdran comes in.

I think that's probably a badly tuned floor tom you can hear.

You write lovely songs, the lyrics are a very fresh perspective.
Throughout the bass lack definition, the drums are distant and the electric has to be careful about nagging.
I look forward to hearing these songs well captured.

Thanks Ray hopefully the drums can be sorted by some proper mic technique that's where we are now. We spent the last weekend putting on new heads, learning to tune a kit and messing around with the recorderman technique. Early indications were that the drums would be sounding much much better. We'll need to try and sort the bass somehow, not sure how yet but a boost in volume will be in order. The comment about the electric nagging is interesting... do you meant we should just let it shut up at times... take out a few phrases here and there. I'll pass that onto the guy that plays electric.

On a side note I've just noticed that with older versions of the flash player some tracks (3 and 5) are playing with a reduced pitch and speed. I sound like some kind of monster when I sing!! The lastest flash player is fine. It must be something to do with sample rates that I mixed down the mp3's.

 

[ksounds]

Love your recording space!

These songs sound nice. The mixes sound good for the most part, though on song 5, during the spoken word part, the vocal seems to get buried all of a sudden.

I love the diverse group of instruments you have goin. Now, only half an album left to go.

 

[rayc]

Neeps,
Sometimes the electric is too far up front - & with a slightly buzzy tone it gets distracting sometimes.
Yeah, have the gtr player think more in terms of punctuation rather than running commentary.
Recorderman is a good technique and there's a lot of discussion on it's fine tuning in the drum section - have a squiz!
One trick I use on bass - & it works for me but isn't a rule of thumb or anything that axiomatic - is to put a 3 to 6 dB peak on 3kHz with an Eq. It depends on what's going on in that freq amongst the other instruments too mind. If you listen to almost any of my stuff - except kennedy Avalon as I'm still brawling with it on there - you'll hear the results of that little tweak. Jangley thing has a reasonable example & it's currently in thte MP3 clinic.
As I said - lovely songs!