I'm new here, need some input on the overall sound of my mixes.

M

Myr

New member
Hello!

I've been writing and recording my own material for about five years, and I have a little studio band that I work with, consisting of a drummer and myself.

Besides our regular 'band' I like to do a lot of other styles and genres, pretty much everything from metal to pop, hip-hop and some electro. Not everything is serious, but I try to put a lot of effort into it.

I have a few things that I know is lacking in my mixes, and that's uneven bass sounds. I can never control that, and I want to learn how to do it. I suspect I'm already messing up the tracking process, or have lousy bass gear.

Anyway, here are some tracks. They're all written and recorded by me. Most of them are instrumental versions of songs with vocals. Not all of them are 100% done, some are missing fills and build ups etc.


My main band: http://simenruud.com/div/sigilsep.rar - Our first EP
Electro-rock track:

Cowboy-rock / prog-pop thing:

Avant garde thing:

West-coast hip-hop attempt with east-coast vocals:
 
hey myr--i listened to three of the songs: on vulture (i like how the vocals and guitar solo come in on that) i didn't hear too much in the way of mix advice for the first acoustic guitar portion (once the 'rock' portion kicked in i felt like the guitar could go down 1-2 db). i did hear the uneven bass, there and on sinsmaster. but i think its really just an issue of eq. there seemed to be too much midrange.

i also listened to track 1 from the .rar but there again the issue didn't seem to be mixing (the instruments well spaced and seems to be sitting at good levels in relation to each other) but just the need to ween off some erroneous frequencies from things like the bass and drums.
 
listening to the west coast east coast. First thing I noticed was the emulated guitar playing out of key at the beginning. Not a big fan. Good overall mix after that. Vocals need more space in the mix, reverb. From a songwriting point of view, you need more lyrics. It doesn't sound like you have trouble coming up with some pretty good lyrics, put more in there. A lot more. I really enjoyed, the mix, and your words, but the vocal needs to sit better and there needs to be more vocal in general. Great job!

Love the guitar on the electro rock track. I love this track all around.
 
adamvelvetu said:
hey myr--i listened to three of the songs: on vulture (i like how the vocals and guitar solo come in on that) i didn't hear too much in the way of mix advice for the first acoustic guitar portion (once the 'rock' portion kicked in i felt like the guitar could go down 1-2 db). i did hear the uneven bass, there and on sinsmaster. but i think its really just an issue of eq. there seemed to be too much midrange.

i also listened to track 1 from the .rar but there again the issue didn't seem to be mixing (the instruments well spaced and seems to be sitting at good levels in relation to each other) but just the need to ween off some erroneous frequencies from things like the bass and drums.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I mixed some of those tracks on my old setup, in my old room. Will definitely do another EQ pass once I get everything set up in my new place!

onestu3 said:
listening to the west coast east coast. First thing I noticed was the emulated guitar playing out of key at the beginning. Not a big fan. Good overall mix after that. Vocals need more space in the mix, reverb. From a songwriting point of view, you need more lyrics. It doesn't sound like you have trouble coming up with some pretty good lyrics, put more in there. A lot more. I really enjoyed, the mix, and your words, but the vocal needs to sit better and there needs to be more vocal in general. Great job!

Love the guitar on the electro rock track. I love this track all around.
Click to expand...

I didn't write the lyrics for the hip-hop track, nor did I do the vocals. That was a friend of mine. We really need a singer, who can do that, as I already have a lot to do, writing bass, guitar, doing production and mixing. It was more of an experiment to come up with a nice hip-hop sound, not a very serious attempt at a good song, really.

Thanks listening!
 
Hi Myr,
You've got a really good sound going on there with plenty of variety. Really like the "Cowboy-rock/prog-pop thing" a lot and the others are all good in their own right. I was a little disappointed in the so-called "Avant garde thing" as it didn't sound avant-garde to me at all, but more jazz-rock-ish (great drumming too). Having said that, I did actually like it a lot, but I was hoping for, and expecting, something really very weird, so that's the only reason I was disappointed.

Greta stuff though and you should definitely finish some of these tracks off.
Dreamer ;)
 
Thanks!

Yeah, it's not really avant garde, but it was unusual for me, so I guess that's why I described it as such :)

I'm glad you listened!
 
Yeah! Listened to all the cuts.

You're a good composer and arranger....as evidenced in the Cowboy thing. Lots of good stuff.

Your recorded sounds are good. But some of the sounds chosen...like buzzing synth...aren't gelling with genre or instrument blend. Compositionally, on "Advant', I think you flew out of your range; organization in the rarified air of polychordalism, etc. was not there. Direction was lost, randomness and disjointedness, generally....grabbed be big time...at first. The drums needed a more organic 'jazz' sound, I think, to blend with the opening instruments....and then it drifted out of comfortable comprehension.

I think your best thing was 'Cowboy". But there's was one thing you seem to habitually do, that can easily be fixed: you tend to move featured stuff off-center....like the chording guitar in the middle, with the soloing guitar, right. And you level-down the feature parts so they refuse to stand out and be appreciated.."DIG ME" moments, lost. Level up...move center-stage.

You gots a good thing goin' on. I hope you record in 24/48, and put your stuff out there to some production music publishers. Definitely film-score quality recordings and ideas. Just stick with what you're good at, and build carefully and restrainedly when you reach for new compositional territory. Try to blend and fit to established genre pallettes...and go outside of them [buzzing synths, e.g.]...restrainedly....listen for sounds that compliment other instruments and add 'unique' without being 'strange'.

There y' go!
 
jeffmaher said:
Yeah! Listened to all the cuts.

You're a good composer and arranger....as evidenced in the Cowboy thing. Lots of good stuff.

Your recorded sounds are good. But some of the sounds chosen...like buzzing synth...aren't gelling with genre or instrument blend. Compositionally, on "Advant', I think you flew out of your range; organization in the rarified air of polychordalism, etc. was not there. Direction was lost, randomness and disjointedness, generally....grabbed be big time...at first. The drums needed a more organic 'jazz' sound, I think, to blend with the opening instruments....and then it drifted out of comfortable comprehension.

I think your best thing was 'Cowboy". But there's was one thing you seem to habitually do, that can easily be fixed: you tend to move featured stuff off-center....like the chording guitar in the middle, with the soloing guitar, right. And you level-down the feature parts so they refuse to stand out and be appreciated.."DIG ME" moments, lost. Level up...move center-stage.

You gots a good thing goin' on. I hope you record in 24/48, and put your stuff out there to some production music publishers. Definitely film-score quality recordings and ideas. Just stick with what you're good at, and build carefully and restrainedly when you reach for new compositional territory. Try to blend and fit to established genre pallettes...and go outside of them [buzzing synths, e.g.]...restrainedly....listen for sounds that compliment other instruments and add 'unique' without being 'strange'.

There y' go!
Click to expand...

Great stuff. Thanks for listening! Like I said, this is just a sample of what I've done. I have like fifty more tracks but I feel like I'm held back by the lack of vocals for the 'rock band' tracks. I've written vocal melodies that I think are fairly good, but my voice isn't really what the songs need.

I can post more tracks, if anyone wants to listen.
 
I listened to sinsmaster..... The bass sounds okay. It's holding down the bottom end nicley. You could turn it into a "lead" bass with distortion and treble - that's a production choice.
 
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