need help with mix please!

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VoodooChile413

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This is my first time posting here, and I figured you guys could help me out, since you give such great advice here. Can you listen to this song, and critique it?? Tell me whats wrong. one of my problems is since im kind of new at this, is i can tell something is wrong, but i dont know how to fix it. Like the vocals. Something is wrong with the eq, but i dont know what frequencies. the bass drum is almost non existant. I also cant get the clean electric up high enough in the mix (which i also suspect might be due to eq problems??) anything else you hear wrong, please tell me. This is for an important project. Oh yeah, its a christian song, but that probably shouldnt matter since im just asking for you to see whats wrong with the recording, not the message. Thanks.
its at http://artists.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Two_Towns_Over/
and the song is titled "hsh test"
i guess their uploading feature is down right now, so i cant get the song up yet, but i will try to as soon as possible.
 
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Me no hear...me wanna, but no sound to hear.

Is the site working?
 
The up load is definitely not working....it shows 0.0 kb of data. Just a thought....you might want to wait 'till you get the song uploaded before posting a thread on it. I'll try again later. ;)
 
yeah, i wrote that its not working. Sorry. i probably should have waited, hah. oh well.
 
This is a pretty decent mix. Drums are good. I hear a lot of hiss at the beginning on the guitar intro. It's a very dry mix. That's not good or bad but as a matter of taste I'd have some reverb maybe on the drums and vocal. Just a little. The end fade out is a little abrupt. Very good job overall.
 
wo, that was quick. thanks for the advice. what did you think of the eq on the different parts?? the vocals sound kind of odd to me, but it might just be because ive been listening to it over and over again. also if anyone wants to listen to "Lift Me Up" also, and give some advice, i wouldnt mind
 
Yeah - I was expecting to hear a horrible mess, but it's not too bad.

Without knowing what equipment you're using it's tough to make suggestions, but I'll make some anyway, assuming you have bottomless pockets and another shot at recording it (hey, it's nice to dream :) ) If you tell me you recorded this on a 4 track, I'll be really impressed.

I'm noticing the vocals are a bit hot, and the levels fluctuate a bit much - I think you could definitely use some compression, and a hair of reverb like Track Rat said.

The snare sounds roomy/boxy - my guess is that you used 2 overheads for the drums. Again, without knowing what you have to work with, I'd suggest at least 4 mics for the drums (although it's probably a bit late now) - 2 overheads, 1 on the kick and 1 on the snare - that'd give you a lot more flexibility when mixing. IMO, the biggest thing that makes mixes sound "demo-ish" is the drums - they're also usually the most difficult instrument to work with.

I'd add some compression on the bass too - I'm noticing the same volume fluctuations. The tone on the guitar and bass sound good though, and the levels are all pretty good with the exception of the vox maybe being a bit loud.

The vox sound pretty good - I'm guessing that you're using a dynamic - it sounds pretty good - a little bit of sibilance here & there, but not horrible.

I'm assuming you have a parametric EQ - you can probably do a bit of good doing some low boost sweeps along the drum track to find where the kick lives, and give it a "kick".

Let us know what you're using and we can probably help a little more specifically. BTW, I record Christian music too - like they say, the pay isn't so good, but the retirement is out of this world :)
 
alright. heres the set up:
5 mics for the drums(hah, probably surprising). 2 overheads, a snare, a kick, and one for toms.
we recorded onto a mackie hard disk recorder. the MR24*4, i think? and then i export it all to cakewalk to mix. this is where i figure a lot of my problems are, ,becuase i use cool edit pro to do any serious track editing. Cakewalk isnt as user friendly in that area. this means that i export one track into cool edit, and try and get the wav compressed and not too shaky in the volume area. then i put it back into Cakewalk for mixing. after the mixing, i bring the mixed down file into cool edit, and use ozone, and waves to bring it up in volume. you guys are awesome. its been like 10 minutes, and two people have already listened. Thanks alot.
also, i probably didnt do that good of a job on compression with this song, because i finally learned how to use compression somewhat effectively just recently. So, if its not a problem, could you check out Lift Me Up, and see if it has the same problems?? thanks again.
 
Here's my advice:

1) No need to torture yourself with dragging tracks back and forth between Cakewalk and CoolEdit - use the realtime effects in Cakewalk - it's a lot (lot, lot, lot) easier to work with that way - especially with effects like compression. You shouldn't have to do any destructive editing (like you're doing with CoolEdit) unless you're fixing something like a bad note or a click or pop. It's critical to hear the tracks together when you're mixing, so do your mixing and with Cakewalk's mixer. Trust me on this one.

2) Forget about Ozone for now - get your mix sounding as good as possible before you spend any time in Ozone - otherwise it's just plain frustrating. The ears get tired and confused when you have to go back and forth. Save the mastering until your mix is perfect and you've got all your ducks (and songs) in a row.

And, yes - I am surprised that you have 5 tracks for drums (I guess the toms were a bit loud for overheads - my bad), but that's a good thing. At least you have more to work with. The kick needs a major boost in volume and in low EQ. Also, the other good thing about cakewalk's mixer is that you've got a slew of plugin effects available - depending on which version, you might have everything you need. You can sweep the EQ on the kick until it sounds right. Add some reverb to the vocals while listening to the whole song ....oops a bit much, bring it down again ...there it is. Roll off the EQ on the distorted guitar - maybe even a high-pass filter. The thing is, you can try different things without hurting your tracks.
 
great song and lyrics... big pro there...

the negatives..
the mentioned hiss
boomy bass end
midrangy, tinny vocal sound.

if those three items were fixed, this sonics would be MUCH better in my opinion. Nice power sound on the chorus.
 
Seanmorse79, I do use the effects in cakewalk. The compressors it has doesnt seem to do anything at all though. it brings out the instrument more in some cases, but there are still huge jumps in volume. I guess is because of the way we recorded, and the fact that we didnt have a compressor doing it. I pretty much only use cool edit for compression, and limiting. Thanks everyone for the advice, and keep it coming, hah. also, about the hiss on the guitar...thats only there when i compress it. What do i do to lessen it? as you can see, im a real novice at this stuff.
 
As far as hiss on the guitar, the biggest thing is to make sure you're recording a good, hot signal. If it's not hot enough, you're raising your noise floor (hisses, hums, mic imperfections, etc.)when you bring the volume up to where it should be - that's especially important when recording digitally. Aside from that, I'd double-check the way you're setting up your compressor in CE - compression is an effect that's often difficult to hear when it's done correctly. It helps alot to be able to see what it's doing (they don't all do that).

Being that I don't use Cakewalk, I can't really say how good the compressor is, but they come in all kinds of shapes and flavors (this is usually the part where Spin chimes in with a link to some good reading about compressors) :)

Looks like I misunderstood you yet a second time (hey - I'm battin' 1000). There's nothing wrong with using CoolEdit for just compression as long as you're using it correctly - it might be a bit less than ideal, but if it works for you then go with it. I thought you were doing all your effects processing destructively that way.

The other thing to make sure you have a good grasp on is EQ techniques. I don't know whether you do or don't, so I'll offer this - http://www.studiocovers.com/articles6.htm read the 3 part series called "All Things Being EQual". It's very well written and well worth the time. Grab a cup of coffee and dig in.

Here's the part I'm not clear on (I'll just ask this time instead of assuming :D ) If you've got a separate track for kick and snare, why would you have problems with levels (at least for the kick)?
 
one of the reasons its so low is, i have all the drums assigned to a subgroup. When i bring the kick up, the subgroup starts to clip. so i figure i just need to get a good eq on it. unless you have any suggestions about the subgroup. another reason is it doesnt even really sound like a kick drum when its loud, its very weak. probably something to do with the mic? (we used an sm58...hah).
 
The subgroup on the mixer? So do you have separate tracks for each drum mic or are you recording the subgroup drums to a single stereo track?
 
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