Hate Pill- Mix 2 (...7 months later)

SLuiCe

SLuiCe

New member
Hi folks. I've been toying around with this over the last couple of days, and I think it might go on the cd (someday...). Of course I'm open to any advice, but here are the main things I'm focused on:

Guitar: Since I recorded this last winter, I've learned a few things about my amp thanks to some friends here. In my ears these tracks aren't as bad as some of my others in terms of frequency, but do you think I should just go ahead and retrack them as I go back through the other tunes that need it? Or is it not broken so don't fix it, so to speak?

Low end: 80-170 Hz looks fairly hot right now in places, but sounds pretty good on the Studiophiles. What is the low end doing to your speakers? (This of course will be irrelevant if I need to retrack the guitars, but might still be good to know.)

Thank you for any time you give!

Tom


Hate Pill

[Disclaimer] Contains distorted guitars and the fuck word, so you may not want to play it around small children and grandparents. :)
 
Sluice.........

Exactly how close to Stephen King's place are you?
Must be some creative air floating thru that countryside.
As usual, I can only say this is quality, but I wouldn't know enough to comment on the technical end.

Dan
 
Awesome Sluice. It sound great on my speakers. (Klipsch with a sub). Man.... I'd like to know how long you mixed on that.

Vocal reminded me now and then of Pink Floyd.

That is just a well done song however you look at it.
 
Doug- Check your thread after... I left an idea for you.

HevyD47Ca- I'm about 2 hours from Stephen King. I drive by his house frequently on fly fishing trips! :) Don't worry about the tech stuff...if it didn't sound like shit to you, that's helpful to the information pool too. Thank you. I'm getting to your song by the way. Before I go to bed tonight...

Kjam22- I used to mix on Klipsch with a sub! I really don't know how long I've mixed this one. I'd guess about 12-14 hours total between when I wrote it and these last couple days. Most of it was back in winter, but I did a few tweaks this week, hopefully with a little more wisdom. Thanks man.
 
the heavy low notes are rumbling my pc speakers a bit.......the speakers aren't great, so who knows.........

great harmonies.........

your drums are always great....how long does it usually take you to program those so well?

getting som rumbly distortion around the 2:27-2:33 mark.....again, could be the speakers.......

good job........the acoustic sounds great.....
 
Sounds killer. This really sours. I think you've brought out the rythm kicking through the versus better. The vocals are excellent and are sitting perfectly. The guitar tone suits the song well, but it'd be interesting to hear it done different, especially if the tone was improved from a general point of view. The mix leans a bit on the bass, maybe that's because your looking for more bottom in the guitars?
I like the verb on the f bomb line. Hihat sit's kind of funny in the mix is my only negetive comment.

btw, I had been wondering, is the intro a take done, during say a lunch hour, directly following the songs inseption?
 
Powderfinger- Thank you man. Very helpful, especially the time codes. I can compare notes to that...thank you! I friggin' hate doing the drums. I like it when it's done usually, but it takes about 2-3 hours to program them, get velocities right, etc. Glad to hear the harmonies work too. Some were quite a stretch for my range! Thanks man.

Doug H- Thanks a lot Doug. I'll need to pay more attention to that hi hat I guess. Thanks for pointing it out. Also, yes there is quite a bit more bass in it this time around for the reasons you mentioned. I play a Marshall JCM 900. To get the best tone from that amp, you really have to crank it. I didn't, out of fear of imprisonment. But I've done some more "soundproofing" so if necessary, I'll retrack. The intro is the mini-recorder I used to record the initial idea. I felt like the line should stand alone before all the guitars start blaring. The whole song, guitars and all, was written around that one line. Thank you very much Doug!
 
Love that intro...

Hmm. The guitar issue is a tough one. If I just heard this by itself it probably wouldn't be a problem, but played side to side with some of your other stuff (as on, say... a record? - duh) I think it might be noticably less "defined".

I dunno if "defined" says what I'm trying to say. But your guitar tones the last few tunes have such prescence and clarity and bite and these are a little less so.

But part of this may be that the bass is really overpowering things to my ears. I'd like to hear this with less bass - then it might be easier to better assess the guitars.

Either way though this is a very cool tune. It didn't leap out at me the first couple listens but it's sinking in well, which is the sign of quality, I think.

Chris
 
This is great. I like your guitar tone, and the ballsy bottom end. A couple of really cool hooks in the chorus. The chorus reminded me a little of Queen's Prophet Song. Cool harmonies. Brilliant job
 
Holy shit, this is an excellent recording Sluice. These tracked drums? If so, EXCELLENT! Guitars sound great. Very clear vocals. Very thick mix. I like it a lot!
 
I like this tune so I had to do the old A/B comparison thing with every piece of audio gear I have in the house. But I have a question first - if you're going to put this on a CD is this analysis really relevant? We're listening to a compressed file. You would be doing a .cda file on a CD, right? No added compression means different sound, right? That's an honest question about a subject I don't fully understand.

Nonetheless here's what I hear here (Har!) [little joke there]
Bottom end - too much for me (Polk Audio for home referecnce). On my Sony mini system (mediocre speakers) the bass rolls out like thunder. I couldn't play it in my car - I'd lose door panels (because of the speakers, not your mix!!) Computer speakers actually rattled - the speakers suck but it's pointing to a lot of pressure. (In my Sennheisers it sounded absolutely perfect!)

BUT - I wouldn't want a whole lot less energy out of the bass - so is it just a frequency thing? OR is it the mp3 compression? See my point? The mix might be bang on and I'm analyzing the sound from a compressed file.

Guitars (acoustic, too) sounded wonderful to me - vocals were freeking outstanding. I'm so jealous of your rhythm programming prowess. So let's see, I'm left with - the bass.

Oh yeah - my grandma and kids have memorized this tune and you should hear how well their harmonies are coming along!

Hope this helps - I'll keep listening.
Milan
 
I've read a lot of your posts here on the bbs but, this was the first opportunity to check out your sound.

I was floored by the quality of your sound and very impressed with your song writing and arrangement skills.

Excellent work!

Regarding the fuzz guitar in question; I do hear it as being out classed, sound-wise by everything else in the music which is 100% first rate, professional sounding in tone and balance. I don't know if it's a subconscious thing because of what you asked us to listen for but, if you noticed it and a couple of us did as well, I think the song merits going the last mile and doing everything necessary to make the production something you could be completely satisfied with.

I have marked your page as a favourite and will return to listen to your other stuff at nwr.

Killer material, man!!:cool:
 
I think the dirty guitar is a HUGE improvement. It's warm and hollow. It's got depth and crunch. I've a/b'd this with the previous version and it is so much better.
That said, the previous one was a little crisper. When you go for the power tube sound you will lose some crispness. You might want to try layering a more pre amp oriented sound without a whole lot of sustain (turn the bass knob down low) on top. You could use that new eq pedal as a clean boost if you're learning to hate the Marshall pre knob as much as I do.

Personally, I love it! This is what I've been wanting to hear from you!

Oh, low end sounds fine to me in my stereo and in my, um, Studiophiles.
 
pretty sweet! everything sounds great..

as far as critical stuff goes, the guitars sound very thick in the heavy sections compared to the drums.. the drums, although excellent, almost lack the meat needed to support such thick sounding guitars.. maybe it's a little bassy sounding, but not too bad.. tough call, but I would maybe blame the drums, even though they sound great, maybe they're just a bit thin for such a meaty situation..

again, this is being extra critical.. in the choruses I hear some extra bass coming from the guitars, but I don't know if it would be better to retrack with the same amp.. I know you replaced the tubes, but as I was listening to the crawdad collab, the guitars still sound the same to me for the most part..
the remix sounds great for the most part and the song is quite good! maybe could use a little more sparkle, but not too much..


I'm not listening on monitors but I've learned these computer speakers..
 
I couldn't ask for more helpful feedback!

Seriously, that's quality help.

I've decided that today I'm going to put some 11's on the Les Paul and crank the master on the Marshall. While I was reading through the responses from overnight, I was listening to the MP3 on my girlfriend's PC downstairs. The electrics just don't have that tube warmth I so desparately need. So I'm going to try the new techniques today. I'll leave the file up on NWR, but I may be able to update it this afternoon sometime. I also may decide to use real bass on this, instead of the keyboard. Some of those string slides in the chorus might be cooler a real bass doubling them. Thank you guys so much.


groucho- I think I understand what you mean. I believe I may be using the bass to over-compensate for the lack of warmth in the guitars. It's time to stop the madness. Thanks a ton Chris.

kelly- thanks for trying!

Bulls Hit Thanks a lot for the song comments. I appreciate. I feel kinda dumb about it, but I don't think I know "Prophet song" by title, and I love Queen. I'm just not good with song titles. I just wrote it down to look up, though I've probably heard it. Thank you!

FattMusiek- I wish I had tracked drums. I think after I finish my first cd I'm going to look for a drummer. I may be working with my old bass player again soon, if he gets his head out of his ass, so I may as well go all the way. I'll probably write and record everything with the bassist using the canned drums, then have the real thing inserted in one phase, something like that. We'll see. I'm hoping these drums will be good enough sounding for the cd. I need to draw the line on these tunes at some point soon and get on to the next thing. The main thing is I'm trying to get my heavy guitars as warm as the rest of the mixes. Cheers man...sorry about the ramble! LOL

MC Gitarz- Milan, could you please PM a link to your music. I was told it was quite good and have been meaning to give it a ggood listen. I know what you mean about the file compression (assuming you mean the MP3 because I don't do ANY post-mix mastering). That bit is frustrating, but what I was trying to find out with this post is whether the guitars were warm enough with my old style of recording them, or should I add them to my "re-do" list. I'm going to re-do. It's worth a shot. Your question is certainly a legitimate one though. But the MP3 should suffice for what I'm usually asking. If the MP3 compression seems to make that big of a difference at 192k, then my recording/mix simply sucks. I can make all the excuses in the world about bad encoding or whatever, but that would do me no good. Regarding the low end, as I said to Groucho I think I used to bass to make up for my lack of warmth in the guitars. I figured I had nothing to lose trying, but it doesn't quite stand, does it? Dude, would your grandma and kids mind doing the harmonies for this? :) Thanks Milan...don't forget to send me that link!

Ghost- I am very glad you got to check out the song and that you like it too, even better! :) I agree with you 100%. The guitars just don't have the warmth of the cleaner tracks. But I've learned a few things since, so I think I can get it better without changing amps. At least I hope I can...I don't have money for a new amp! :) Also, I've seen your thread but I just haven't got to it yet. I'd like to hear where your own ideas take you.

Thanks a bunch guys...lots to do today!

Tom
 
Phil, Sam...just missed you guys

These are the original guitar tracks (though tracked with more master than usual). The choruses are layered with four takes. I'm going to re-do them with only two takes and see what that sounds like. But I'll hold on to the original tracks too. Thanks fellas!!!
 
Oh and Sam....I've been thinking about holding on to the head, but changing the cabinet. It's a Fender cab, and I'm wondering if that's part of the midrange problem.
 
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