Need ears and advice for my humbling recording experience

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Zydeceltico

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I have years of experience on the delivering end of a guitar or piano writing music but have oh so humblingly little experience on the technical end of recording and mixing. I am rapidly learning about compression and not burning hot to tape the way used to love to do.

I am wondering if anyone can give me some insight, tips, or tricks they use when tracking/mixing/mastering with basic gear to get these remarkably clear and powerful mixes I am hearing everywhere from home studios. Mine feel "little" and I have been told "old-school" - lol - whihc really shouldn't some as much of a surprise to me.

In any regard - I am recording mostly country rockish style arrangements so acoustic gtrs, electric bass, les pauls and strats thru guitar rig, and ezdrummer which I m finally getting a pretty good handle on.

One particular song cover mix is at soundcloud.com/timbrogdon/time-is-on-my-side-version-3
It was intended for an ad campaign but I doubt the mix is up to snuff.

I would love a brutal mix critique of this recording. and any thoughts at all of how I could have tracked, mixed, or mastered it better and differently in order to better compete in the marketplace -as it wwould be hugely appreciated.

Thanks,

Tim
 
Well the link you posted doesn't actually work, so I went ahead and listened to Waters Edge, which has a pretty cool REM feel to it, actually.

So step one to a powerful mix is having clear, punchy, drums. In order to do that you'll really need something better than EZ drummer, and you'll need to have the ability to mix each different drum track individually. At it's most basic, you will need at least the following drum tracks to produce a good sounding drum mix - kick, snare, tom1, tom2, ..., Left Overhead, Right Overhead - and right away I can tell that all of the cymbals are panned dead center and have no stereo diversity. Next thing you need to do is make your drums a LOT louder. In pretty much 99% of pop/country/rock/metal music, the snare drum is going to be one of the loudest (if not THE loudest) tracks in the mix. Beyond that, you need to learn how to use compression on drums to control their transients, emphasize the "smack" and help bring their levels up. Lastly, with drums, you will need to tasteful add reverb or mix in room samples of each drums in order to add a sense of space and size to the drums, if you are indeed trying to go for that "large" sound.

There's a lot more to it than just that, and each of those individual things requires some in-built understanding of things like compression and reverb, but you'll get there eventually. For now you are limited with what you can accomplish with EZ Drummer. I say step one would be getting your hands on a higher quality Drum VST. I can't reccomend Steven Slate drums enough. You won't break the bank, and the quality of the drum samples are top notch.
 
Thanks for the Steven Slate tip and all of the general tips! I hear what you are saying about the balance of the drums. I've been hesitant to put them too much up front. And I've also been thinking that the drums were already probably compressed to death but you are right - if they can be improved with more compression/fx then I should go there.

It seems to me - perhaps incorrectly - that the name of the game these days is to compress every track - regardless - in order to get towards that huge and clear sound I am hearing in other people's tracks. And of course - taking the time to give the binding reverb the attention it deserves.

I wish I could setup my real amps for the guitars but I can't so I suppose I really need to dissect GR5 as well and not use the presets - even though I tweak them a bit.
 
vocals sound kind of lonely in the beginning. A reverb might sound nice. Drums def need to come up!
 
Gave a quick listen on some not-so-good headphones. I can't comment on exact tonal quality of the mix, but I hear some room for improvement. I think you need to find a better balance between the vocals and backing tracks.

Usually, what I like to recommend is to start with Bass, Kick and lead vox and get those three to mix well with each other. Then gently bring in the rest of the tracks; but only in supporting roles. Nothing should be louder than the bass, kick and lead vox (except for rare effect or something).

Don't think you need to trash EZD just yet. You can do some good things with it. I have both EZD and SSD and I prefer EZD. Sounds are just as good as SSD and it is easier to work with. Way easier. For you, I think you are still on the learning curve with EZD and mixing in general (aren't we all :( ) Keep working and experimenting. It's the only real way to learn this art.

For EZD, I think you probably have it going to only two tracks. You can google how to send to multi-tracks, but basically; go to the mixer, Right click on the channel assignments and select Multi-track. This will give you the ability to mix each drum individually as Bridges noted. Google can tell you how to mix within your specific DAW program.

I recommend treading carefully with compression. Really need to use it where it needs to be used and not just thrown in the mix arbitrarily.

I don't care too much for covers, but I like what you've got going here.

peace,
 
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