Is this a crappy mix?

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tubedude

tubedude

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I've been up and at it for 15 hours, and I totally cant hear anymore, so the mix probably sucks. This is from that night I got punched in the face, but we just did the vocals last night.
Figured you guys might like this tune from these guys, though, locals called Transpire.
What I am guessing, because its usually the case after long hours of loud stuff, is I have the snare and the vocals way too loud. Thats almost always the case after a long loud day, I'll be better to judge when I wake back up. But right now they sound right, which means they are too loud.

www.nowhereradio.com/transpire/singles

Enjoy... I hope the mix isnt TOO far off base, but its a good song I think... hopefully have this one mixed and another one tomorrow night...
 
I think your levels are good Paul. The guitars sound good. I know it has nothing to do with the tracking but on the chorus' the vocal is way out of tune. Through the verses he sounds pretty decent though. Is that three mics on the drums?
 
No, its a pair overhead (probably not very in phase at that) a Soundelux u195 left and an AKG c451b right, e602 in the kick, e604 snare... his cymbals and hats sounded like ass in the room, and the snare had no dead ringer on it and really rang out bad. Its kind of weird working with two different overheads, but my other AKG c451b deal never came through, so I gotta make it work for now.
MD441 on guitar cab, Mesa Dual REC, crappy old cabinet full of Eminence speakers...
Bass via RNP
RNP on everything.
U195 on vocals

Question: I have a hacked copy of autotune that I've never used since I never heard much good about it. Would that help the chorus out any? All of this dudes verses sound great and then the chorus' just sound flat to me. I could dig a fixer-up... would Auto-tune help any?
Sure the vocs and snare arent too loud?
Thanks...
 
I'm gonna go try auto-tune anyway instead of going to bed, like I should.
Fricking addict.
 
My experince to surgical strikes with Autotune are hit and miss. Sometimes it's like magic and sometimes it munchkinizes the vox. It depends on how far out they are. I'd definately try it as the tune sounds great till the chorus comes by. I was going to mention the room around the drums. It's not very flattering but that's a small matter. I still think overall it's a pretty good sound.
 
Hey Paul, I'll give this a listen after work.

Peace.

Oh and...fuck the AT...go to bed.
 
Tube, that snare is bla sounding, maybe lower it a bit in the mix. And bring that guitar solo up a bit. I agree, the chours part is weird sounding.
 
hey paul

haha i was about to post on here, and see what people thought about it. haha
id do think the guitar solo needs to be up a tad and the snare down a tad. maybe the soft guitar in the verse up slightly too, but theat may just be me.
but i like the snare sound on it man.
 
yeah..the drum kit sounds like it was pretty crappy to begin with... so you can only do so much. The cymbals/HH sound really bad in particular...like those old cheapie ones that came with your Dad's Apollo drum set.

Gtrs have a nice crunch to them...and good clean picked sound too.
the bass verges on being a little too much on the "jack bruce" sound of things and kinda low endish, splatty sounding.

volume relationships between the mix sound ok to me, for the most part...except the bass kinda sticks thru, rather than contributes to the sound.
and.....the lead (not the playing..so much) was anti climatic for a solo. Not nearly the volume as the lead vocals as it should be imo. And kinda 'thin' sounding. Just couldn't compete with the crunch guitars.

I liked the rhy gtrs by far the best out of this production... then the vocal sound... those were by far much better than the other elements in the production/mix.

I'd think a new drum kit, a nice cleaner DI bass sound, and a kick ass lead on top of this would elevate this song up many levels.
 
I REALLY REALLY like the guitar sounds.....

drums I guess are the best they are gonna get with what you had to work with...they dont suck.....maybe use Drumagogg to replace some sounds......

the bass was good......

those bg vocals in the chorus, the ones panned out, just are plain bad........

you did your job here as an engineer/mixer....everything that fell short was performance/instrument quality......

btw, I couldnt tell that you used 2 different mics as overheads, but then my ears suck.....

good stuff.....


MIKE
 
First of all, STAY AWAY FROM AUTOTUNE.

Oops, my prejudices leaking through...

Yeah, I'd lower the drums all around by a little. I could use a little more 800hz (or therabouts) on the bass too - give it a little more growl.

I'd also like the background vox up a little (those *are* background vox right? I'm not hearing things?). And for tunes like this, I always like it when there's a little dynamic fluctuation around the chorus. I often accomplish this in a totally primitave way: by simply amplifying the chorus by 1 db (or maybe compressing it a little). Helps it smack you in the face a little.

Just ideas.

Cool song.

Chris
 
i'm the drummer and yes my drums are pretty crappy (old peral export). in the process now of buying a new kit and new cymbals. then i think we're gonna record around 4 more songs. we're just 2 18 y/o and 2 17 y/o just wanting to get our music out. this is the 1st time we've ever recorded, and we're only going to get better IMO.

i do like to see honest feedback tho. alot of people like it, but are pointing out faults, that's what we want/need to make us better.
 
Damn Andy! Glad I didnt say anything BAD about you guys, heh.. :)
First time I've seen a band member just show up here, kinda cool... hope I didnt offend you about the drums, but they did sound pretty crappy in that room. Weird thing is, they could sound better or worse, depending on where they were at. Drums are weird like that. Its one of the drawbacks of recording anywhere and everywhere. Sometimes I get lucky and walk into a great room, but most of the time I dont.
Hope you dont mind me running things past these guys, though, I've been running around here for years (as you can see by my post count, jeez, get a life Paul) and they can be VERy honest and critical to the point of hurting your feelings almost sometimes, but thats exactly what we want to know.
I'll try to upload the other one tonight, but I'd rather be busy mixing on the last 3 and twaeking the 1st two... :)
Groucho- I'll give that bass boost a try and see how it does...
Gonna bring the snare down a little (already did actually, and reset the vocals, and bring the solo up a tad, then.)
I tried the auto-tune and it sounded like he was singing through a fan. Fuck that. It either sounded like that , or didnt do shit. Useless program to me.
Peace.
 
you may have better luck going into the graphic mode with your autotune software. I've had very good success in fixing small vocal problems using this method....even with the singer sitting right next to me and getting their approval!

(or...you may be seeing the results of using "hacked" software!!):eek:


seriously, the graphic mode is where it is at for that program.










(so...is there a discount rate for recording using "budget priced" software??;) )
 
no prob with you asking these guys stuff. we need the feedback, and you do too. nothing anyone says will ever hurt my feelings, cuz as long as i'm happy with the finished product, i'm happy. nobody will make me feel unhappy about it. and i know this isnt gonna be perfect, that's not what we want now, we just wanna have something we can listen to, and anything after that is a bonus in my eyes. if people like it, great, i'll be flattered, if people don't, screw it, i like it. we're young, we'll get better, get more acquainted with the recording process and such. i only get offended when people actaully dont take the time to actually listento the song, but dogg it anyways.

this song was made up 2 days before we recorded. the vocals werent learned until day of recording, but it ened up being one of the better songs IMO. i think the light, and end of times will be the other good ones, the other 2, will be ok, but not like what they could have been. oh well.

and my drums are crappy so that didnt bother me, cymbals are crappy too, but i happened to like the HH sound on this one.

see what it sounds like if you turn the solo parts up some too.

oh yeah, get a life paul....haha
 
yeah... put the other two songs up.

and welcome to the boards, transpire.

we're always looking for 'fresh meat' around here!!


keep up the good work. You've got the right attitude.

we're all glued to our computer monitors anywazzz while you are out recording...so what the fuck do we know!!??:eek:

feed us some more home-brew... mmmmm, gooooood!
 
oh...and transpire...

<------you see my dogs over there......?


they wanna pee on your snare drum!!!:eek:

actually, they are trained (I'd like to think!) and I wouldn't let them do that
 
Actually Mixmkr, they are probably closer to you than they are me. They were way down there somewhere.... are you anywhere near Buffalo Ky? I didnt even know there was a Buffalo Ky, lol...

It was about an hour and 15 minutes south...
 
Hey Paul, good recording. I'd consider lowering the vocals just a touch in the chorus. Or maybe I just want more guitar there. Not sure which...it's late and I'm having trouble with decisiveness. :)

No, it needs more heavy guitar. In fact it almost sounds to me like the clean gits are louder than the distorted. Probably set that way on the amp. I don't know.

I'm useless...

Cool song. Glad you ditched the AT. That would have really fucked this up. :)
 
Rhythm guitar sound at beginning reminded me of Twisted Sister, like in I Wanna Rock...

That thing the drummer does bugs me a bit, hits the snare and then the kick right after, like a delay effect. Kind of throws out the timing.

Sounds like a live recording, everyone played at once I assume? (I didn't read the other threads..)

The vocal in the verses seems to need a little spicing up, like it should have kind of a chorus effect or something...

The lead just doesn't jump out at all, I usually try to make it about the same volume as the vocal, as it's kind of "replacing" it during that section.

A good mix overall I'd say, dark grungy sound like it should be...
 
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