My Frist "Real" Recording

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TheLurker

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Hello all, I'm new to the forum... however I have been playiing music for about ten years now. In that time, I have done a lot of recording but never ventured into producing the recordings myself. Well, me and two other guys decided to write a song for a local radio station football show with a mic I bought. I used a free DAW to do all of the mixing. This is what I turned over to the radio station, I know it's definitely not professional quality but it was the best I could do with no experience whatsoever. The only hard part was getting the bass tone to cut through the track which I still think it lacks... Anyways, I would appreciate your thoughts on what my final product was, as well as tips for how to improve my future endeavors! M song is attached to this post. Thank you, hope to see you all around the forums!

Edit: Some of the lyrics will probably be hard to make out since we reference a lot of local football coaches, players, teams, and nicknames. Just a head's up.
 

Attachments

My thoughts:

The various are elements are probably alright, but, in my view, the mix needs more work.

In particular (and this is something that I'm constantly going on about) is that the rhythm guitar is too loud, and that's pushing everything back. Mix bass and drums first, then vocals. Then bring up the rhythm so that it fills that function, and is not overwhelming everything else.

Vocal level and sound is good, and the song is sung confidently and competently; your performing years have served you well. The song and its lyrics are not that exciting, but I understand that you've recorded this for a specific purpose, so I wasn't too worried about that. The people for whom it is intended will love it.

The lead guitar in my left speaker wasn't doing a whole lot. Fort this song you probably could have ditched it altogether.
 
Hey man, thanks for sharing this and welcome to audio engineering! While the mix needs some real work, you've got great, tight performances to start with, which will make your mixing job much, much easier.

Initial thoughts:
-Guitar is way too loud, for starters. Listen to Gecko's advice about mixing the drums and bass first, then vocals, and then bringing up the guitar until it feels right.

-Guitar would benefit from a stereo spread. In other words, you've got it dead center, and in this kind of a rock song, it really should be sitting pretty wide. There are a couple ways to do this. The best way is to record the rhythm guitar part again, as close to the existing track as you can, and then pan each at least 75% to the left and right. It's not uncommon to pan rhythm guitars hard left and right in rock music. This will give you track a big, huge feel. If you don't want to record the part again, you can fake it by duplicating the track, and offsetting it by 30ms or so, then panning like I described. Occasionally you would also offset the track by 6-10cents (pitch) as well.

-Vocals are recorded very well, clear, balanced, and confident. I wouldn't do too much to these, at least until the rhythm guitar is sitting properly, and then we could reevaluate.

-Kick drum is nowhere to be found. Push that fader up and get it kicking. I can't suggest any processing on it since I can't hear it.

-Bass guitar is virtually missing as well. If you're having trouble getting it to cut through, you're going to want to try a 2-5db boost around 1khz. This is where the finger noise is, and often the key to getting bass to cut through a rock mix. That and squashing it with compression. Bass guitar is the rare instrument that can afford moderate to heavy compression without losing almost any of its quality.

Once the mix is better overall, we can give more gritty details.
 
Yeah, I think these guys have it sized up pretty well. Really good for your first real recording though!

As it is, the main guitar part and vocal seemed to have been captured well and the tones are there, but the rhythm section is just buried behind those two elements. The other guitar part off to the side is quiet and seems to lack focus. I can't tell enough about the tone of the bass and drums are their current levels to evaluate them. Just by messing around with the levels alone on this one I think you could get it sounding a lot better balanced.
 
+1 to the previous comments. There seems to be a timing hiccup right at the beginning? It sounds like you don't get the first syllable of the vocals out quite soon enough.
 
Okay this is great feedback! Thanks guys... So here is what I plan on doing:

1) Turn the rhythm guitar down some and maybe mess with the EQ a tad to put it a little "behind" the vocals. First mix drums/bass - add vocals then "fit" the guitar in.

2) Stereo spread the guitar... I'll probably do the cheater way by duplicating the track, offsetting time/pitch and panning the two tracks.

3) Boost the bass around 1khz 2-5db (admittedly the bass was recorded by mic, not DI, and was recorded from a guitar amp, not a bass amp - I'll see what I can do)

4) Boost the kick drum in the mix as it is nowhere to be found.

I'll post another version of the song once I make these edits! Thanks again guys!
 
Guys... You guys... YOU GUYS... This helped tremendously. I.. love you. The only thing I really need to work on now is the bass drum, but I want to post an update. Now, even though I'm extremely excited I still want your honest feedback! Is the mix too wide? Does the master track need a little more compression (I did some things different on the master track this time)?

Anyways, I'm still working on the kick drum to get it to cut through some more... Please, any feedback is good feedback! Thanks!

View attachment MenofFridayNight-v2.mp3
 
High noise floor (fuzz/hiss) on the guitar I guess? It disappears mostly when the playing begins.

Nice guitar playing and singing. Great groove on the guitar, tight.


All the sounds are very disconnected from each other.
Can barely hear a bass guitar besides some low frequency mush.
Guitar is too loud.
The drums are much too weak. I can't hear the kick and the snare needs to be louder.


edit: that was for mix 1


Mix 2:

Already sounds a LOT better. Stuff is much closer together. Snare is more present. Bass is more audible. Could still be better.

Still can't hear a kick drum.
 
Mix 2 sounds better, but still needs work - still no kick drum, the bass is very low during the verses but stands out better in the 'chorus'. The rhythm guitar in verse 1 is too low IMO, except for the between-vocal-phrase accents.
I think the vocal could use a little 'air', sounds a little muffled - what mic was used? Did you use a reflection filter by chance?
The end part with just bass then snare was out-of-whack timing-wise.
 
Did you try some side-chain compression to get the kick to stick out in the mix a bit better?

I think the rhythm guitars are good where they are actually. They're fairly background except when they're meant to be accented.
 
Man I'm having a really hard time getting the bass tone to stand out. The bass is definitely there, but it is too "wide" sounding in my opinion rather than pungent just retaining some of its "wideness". I feel like I have levels pretty well worked out now. Any suggestions?
 
THERE'S NO KICK DRUM! :D

Is that received and understood? :D
 
Alright, here it is ladies and gentlemen. All done except getting the kick base drum in place.

View attachment MenofFridayNight-finalMaster-noKick.mp3

@VomitHatSteve - I haven't done anything yet to improve the kick drum. That's my last thing to work on.

By the way here is what I did to the guitar to get it where it is... I eq'd and compressed it yada yada yada... but the main rhythm guitar is duplicated 3 times (so there are four tracks that are essentially the same) and the following depicts basically what I did to get a nice stereo sound imo:

Track one: starts at 0 seconds, has some eq/comp - panned 75% left
Track two: starts at 30ms (is a copy for track one), did some pitch changing on it for variation - panned 75% right
Track three: starts at 0 (is a copy of track one), panned 10% right
Track four: starts at 0 (is a copy of track one), panned 10% left

Anyways, I just wanted your thoughts on the above?

P.S. I know there is no kick drum still... I'm just now starting to work on that.

Thanks guys, you have all helped so much!
 
TheLurker said:
Alright, here it is ladies and gentlemen. All done except getting the kick base drum in place.

@VomitHatSteve - I haven't done anything yet to improve the kick drum. That's my last thing to work on.

By the way here is what I did to the guitar to get it where it is... I eq'd and compressed it yada yada yada... but the main rhythm guitar is duplicated 3 times (so there are four tracks that are essentially the same) and the following depicts basically what I did to get a nice stereo sound imo:

Track one: starts at 0 seconds, has some eq/comp - panned 75% left
Track two: starts at 30ms (is a copy for track one), did some pitch changing on it for variation - panned 75% right
Track three: starts at 0 (is a copy of track one), panned 10% right
Track four: starts at 0 (is a copy of track one), panned 10% left

Anyways, I just wanted your thoughts on the above?

P.S. I know there is no kick drum still... I'm just now starting to work on that.

Thanks guys, you have all helped so much!
Click to expand...

You're mixing the entire thing back to front! You START with the kick, then work outwards from that.
 
Oh, woops. Good to know! I'm completely new to this - I had no idea that's what you're supposed to do. Well, at this point I'm going to try and work it in back to front first. If I can't, I'll step back and start at ground zero I suppose.
 
TheLurker said:
Track three: starts at 0 (is a copy of track one), panned 10% right
Track four: starts at 0 (is a copy of track one), panned 10% left
Click to expand...

These two tracks are probably not doing anything for you. If all you're doing is copying them then all they are doing is adding to overall volume, which you are then compensating for when you pull the faders down to set them in the mix. Try it without these two tracks then pull the counter-melody riffing guitar from the Left to near the center. Use volume automation so it's not stepping on top of the vox.

I'd like to hear more variation in the melody line of the vox. The verses and choruses seem to be nearly the same and are not separating the song into sections. Arrangement wise, there are no dynamics built into the song. It just kind of hums along in 3rd gear.

I like the tone of your crunch guitar. Fits the song just right.

Welcome to the site!! :)
 
I agree that they add to volume which I compensate by pulling the faders down so the the guitar doesn't blast you away... however, what I noticed is that just having a hard right and hard left panned guitar leaves the middle a little lacking. It's not that I want the middle dominated by the guitar but the guitar without the two tracks sounded to spread apart. Consequently I probably could have just kept the two tracks and not panned them as far, but I like the guitar where it's at currently. As for the crunch of the guitar, I spent quite some time dialing in that sound - I appreciate your comment about it! :D

I'd like to hear more variation in the melody line of the vox. - vox? Sorry, I'm pretty new and the only vox I know is a brand name for music equipment.

It just kind of hums along in 3rd gear. - I totally agree, however we couldn't get too dynamic as the song is really meant to focus on the lyrics (football radio show theme song - references many local coaches, players, teams, etc.).
 
:) Vox is my shorthand for vocals.

Okay, I can understand the focused audience thing and how you arranged the song.

As for the 10% tracks, I can see having them there, just make them different from the outside tracks. Track something new for those tracks rather than copy n paste. Chunky-chuggas (another one of my terms), maybe an acoustic. If they are identical, they aren't adding anything. It's just like having one mono track in the center and that track is doing the same thing as the Right panned track.

Or bring the riffing guitar closer to center.

The beauty of DAW software is you can experiment all you want without changing anything. Have fun with it.
 
I liked the song. I won't say anything about the lack of kick. :)

I liked the guitar sound in the last mix.

The bass sound is a little indistinct - but otherwise not bad.

The guitar/vocal dominate the drums a bit.

The vocal was noticeably dryer than anything else.

Something weird at 1:52.

Well played, but there was a tempo mistake in the first few seconds of the song.
 
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