Honest reviews

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Tizzo

Gunslinger
I'm an audio engineer who has been working a year or two now and would like some feedback from total strangers, not friends and family. If you would, listen to these songs and give your honest opinion. They are mp3s so quality is marginal at best.

Thanks
 
Tizzo said:
I'm an audio engineer who has been working a year or two now ...


Cool. Where have you been working and what kind of training?

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Ahhh the 'ole "I'm an <insert professional sounding title here>" thread.....and Chessy beat me to the setup.... :(




Link doesn't have anything to listen to....


Just a note to the wise, in saying that you are an Engineer you'd better be sure to post some damn good stuff or people will rip you apart. Just a heads up, not trying to stir the pot. I've seen it, we've all seen it, we've all partaken, it's just how it is. :cool:
 
Audio Engineers are suppose to produce the highest quality sound possible...something we home studio enthusiasts cannot.
 
whoa guys, careful bashing on the new guy....we don't want to scare him off too quickly. ;)

Tizzo, head on over to the MP3 mixing clinic and post over there. You'll get some feedback on your mixes. The link you put up doesn't work though.
Just wanted to comment 'cause I saw that you worked over at Black Lodge Recording. I don't live too far from there and just wanted to see what you thought of the facilities while you were there (haven't had a chance to check it out)
 
bennychico11 said:
whoa guys, careful bashing on the new guy....we don't want to scare him off too quickly. ;)



Not bashing, just trying to steer him away from what's about to happen lol
 
chessrock said:
Cool. Where have you been working and what kind of training?

.

I went to McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was an intern at Black Lodge Recording, then did a couple of gigs there and now am back in MN.

The Black Lodge is a cool place, Ed Rose is great to work with. All the other engineers are fun to work with too. They have a great live room for percussion and anything else you'd want a spacious sound for. As I was leaving they were remodeling their B-room to something much better than what it was.

Does anyone know of a place to post wav files as opposed to mp3s?
myspace is shitty, try this link: http://www.myspace.com/tamrec

I also think that if someone makes money engineering music/audio they are considered an audio engineer.
 
I Hate You
I think all the levels are there but something seems to missing as far as depth and dimension. Maybe a little farther apart on the rythmn guitars? The bass mix is smokin!

Burrito Remix
Loved it ! And I don't even like this kinda stuff. one thing that I think would have spiced it up a bit would have been panning the secondary people talking either left or right when they came in to maybe give them their own space. Freakin buritto, great tune!

Green Lake
Sounded real nice. The guitar and bass are nicely cohesive with the watery tremelo of the keys. The bizarro background sounds are very nicely placed. Nothing overdone at all.

Ross Clark Trio
Everything sounded even and in the pocket. Sounded great.

Well there's my opinion. This stranger says "good stuff man".
 
Who wrote those lyrics for "I hate you" - "Everyone hates you, I f***ing hate you too". OK :rolleyes:

Oh well, I know that's not what you were asking about. The recording sounded well balanced and all, kind of lo-fi sounding but that's probably just the mp3. The burrito song is cool! Great work on that one, and whoever the artist is on that one has some very original ideas. Listening to Green Lake now, very pleasant and nicely done. Oops, it's over...too short, but that's not what you're asking about either. OK, the Ross Clark Trio now, mmm, nice...

OK, my advice. Put yourself together a real website - it'll look more professional and allow you to represent yourself with higher quality sound files than what you can put on myspace. I like the way you used four different styles of music for your examples as it shows off your versatility. However if the first song that folks listen to is "I Hate You", some of them might get offended and not give you a second chance. Try to come up with a recording in that genre with no f words in it. You're on the right track, and seem to know what you're doing. Try to promote yourself as best as you can.
 
Tizzo said:
I went to McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was an intern at Black Lodge Recording, then did a couple of gigs there and now am back in MN.

The Black Lodge is a cool place, Ed Rose is great to work with. All the other engineers are fun to work with too. They have a great live room for percussion and anything else you'd want a spacious sound for. As I was leaving they were remodeling their B-room to something much better than what it was.

Does anyone know of a place to post wav files as opposed to mp3s?
myspace is shitty, try this link: http://www.myspace.com/tamrec

I also think that if someone makes money engineering music/audio they are considered an audio engineer.


Hey that's cool.

If you want my honest opinion, I wouldn't pay a lot of money for your engineering. Frankly, your stuff sounds pretty rough ... and at times, it sounds like you're using samples and/or drum machines, and I would think a professional audio engineer would know how to set up drum mics by now.

Your recordings sound like someone fooling around with their sound blaster card, a copy of cake walk, fruity loops, etc. recording their buddy's band in their basement for free beer and pizza. Sorry to be so harsh, but you did ask for an honest opinion. I think you need to work harder and get more experience at this stuff if you're really serious about it.

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what's wrong with drum samples? I don't consider myself an engineer, just a musician... but sometimes I will write songs with drum samples on purpose.

aren't they also good for home studios that can't achieve great clarity with drums? hmm I will post some stuff in the mp3 mixing clinic soon.
 
grn said:
what's wrong with drum samples? I don't consider myself an engineer, just a musician... but sometimes I will write songs with drum samples on purpose.

aren't they also good for home studios that can't achieve great clarity with drums? hmm I will post some stuff in the mp3 mixing clinic soon.

I agree. Both 'Burrito' and 'Green Lake' have drum samples/loops for the electronic feel and were recorded at my home. 'I Hate You' and 'The Ross Clark Trio' were recorded at McNally Smith but mostly edited and mixed at home. Some great songs are made totally in the box and that's OK, sometimes it sounds better too.
 
I was just thinking of Of Montreal's latest album, the Sunlandic Twins, almost all composed in Reason I have heard. Almost all drum samples. Great music - now I haven't listened to Tizzo's stuff, so it might be good, it might not be, but I believe it's how you use it.
 
i'll be honest, the ross clark trio recording is the only one that sounded pretty descent. the rest i agree with chessrock on. to give you the benefit of the doubt, i am not on my studio monitors and these are streamed mp3.
 
what's wrong with drum samples? I don't consider myself an engineer, just a musician... but sometimes I will write songs with drum samples on purpose.

aren't they also good for home studios that can't achieve great clarity with drums? hmm I will post some stuff in the mp3 mixing clinic soon.
I would think drum samples should work ok soundwise, but the problem is the mechanical sounding loops in drum machines. However, by using a real drum performance on an electronic kit to trigger the samples (provided you have very high quality samples) I think you should be able to get a convincing performance. For someone like me, a solo composer working in a small home studio, it's pretty tough to be able to use real drums. And although I've had some reasonable results using midi loops and samples, I still want to get more "feel" into the tracks. Which is why I'm building a compact e-drum set to trigger my sampler with (of course next will be the small matter of learning to play the thing :rolleyes: :D )

Of course, I'm sure Chessrock could give a better opinion on this subject. He's got links to some great sounding stuff on his studio site. Listening to a few tracks one thing I noticed was how sharp and clear those drum tracks sounded.
 
I happen to think the NS kit is pretty good (especially since it's free)... http://www.naturalstudio.co.uk/ns_kit7.html - even if you don't have triggers, you can use a sequencer to program the drums and if you add a bit of cleverness, you can make it sound human - then mix that with real guitars and such.
 
grn said:
what's wrong with drum samples? I don't consider myself an engineer ...

Exactly.

You're not an engineer. This other guy supposedly is. No offense, but your work is probably on par with his. And it shouldn't be, if you catch my drift.

.
 
grn said:
I happen to think the NS kit is pretty good (especially since it's free)... http://www.naturalstudio.co.uk/ns_kit7.html - even if you don't have triggers, you can use a sequencer to program the drums and if you add a bit of cleverness, you can make it sound human - then mix that with real guitars and such.

Or you could just use real drums.

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Welcome, fellow Minnesotian (Minneapolis for me).

After listening to a few tracks, I noticed that a lot of the tracks sounded thin, or "weak". Try concentrating on getting as full of a sound as possible when tracking over trying to do that in the mix.
 
well chessrock, I'll post some samples from our new EP soon. I think they'll be a lot better than the songs I've posted from our last CD and they don't have any drum samples. again, I'm not an engineer and I don't intend on ever being one. also, listen to some recent songs from Of Montreal... sampled drums. it does work.

disconnect the dots

lysergic bliss


this is the style I would use sampled drums for. you'd probably hate recording me as a musician because I get all perfectionist when it comes to the performance. especially since I hate my voice. I'm not with the philosophy that the 'band' should be captured in the performance... I'm in it with the idea that you put everything else aside so that the song is as best as it can be on record... if that means calling in another musician or whatever the song calls for, so be it, but I don't try to capture the essence of the band, just the song.

am I totally off base here?
 
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