New member with few songs!

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Djool_fr

New member
Hello there,

I discovered this forum few weeks ago, and I think it's really one of the greatest forum all around!!

There are some very good pieces of music here, you guys are very talented :)

I have recorded few songs with my home-studio (basically a Cubase station, some guitars and keyboards), and have uploaded 2 of them here:

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1904&alid=-1

I'm trying to have good sounds, on both guitars, which is my primary instrument, and virtual synths. A good mix is also a key thing.

Please tell me what you think, I'm sure I can improve a lot the overall rendering, but I don't know exactly how...!

Thanks,
Djool - From France
 
Listened to Hideaway. I wasn't crazy about the "piano" sound, but overall, I thought the mix was fine. The guitar tone was actually just about perfect for this tune. The snare's kinda' thin, but it actually almost sounds like a real snare to me...but so do most fake snares :D :D

I can't verify that the low end is okay, because I just can't turn it UP right now, but I don't have any complaints. If others do have complaints, then you'll get help...if they don't, then your mix is perfect!!

Good Luck and welcome aboard,
Chris
 
Welcome Djool_fr,

listened to both tracks, (lo-fi):

Hideaway:

Nice blues rendering...

Excellent recording, - everything is *there*. You have captured a great *live * sound in general, but in particular the lead guitar is perfect....miked amp? how did you get THAT sound! Do tell!

Bass is working as it should and also sounds very good...How did you record tha bass? equipment.....?

Drums are ( canned) good and sound fine.

...Z_myST:

... overall another good recording...like the sax....
The lead guitar sounds direct recorded, and lacks tone....

very impressed,

/dmm
 
Hi again,

I'm really pleased to read such comments!! :)

The lead guitar sound is really important to me, but I didn't use any amp for these tunes. Well... I did, but without any cabinet! The grain/drive and overall brightness of the guitar sound comes from the Marshall JCM900 Pre-amp, which goes into an external effects processor - at least to get a stereo output. It then goes through some Cubase VST FX (delay, reverb, not even much EQs).
Well, it initially comes from a Deluxe Strat Plus, which sounds great :D

All other instruments, incl. bass, are virtual synths. They are nowadays doing a great job! I use a midi keyboard for realtime recording. I sometimes use MIDI files as a structure, to get focused on the guitar parts (like in Hideaway for example - I did not plan to do anything more with this than improving my recording techniques).

I then do some basic mixing in Cubase, mostly panning and volume controls, ajdust effects, and record automation if necessary.

Many thanks for the positive input, on my side I will now congratulate some other guys here because I'm currently listening to really good music! Huh... 2:30 AM... Time to sleep, will be back tomorrow!

Bye
Djool
 
hi and welcome to all yer future"free" time....:D

lisening to "djool"....nice easy feel .....now lt.bob..will looove this...
nice change around 1:50...sweetlittle giutar licks in there......oh and before i forget..the begining..where it sonds like a spaceship landing was prety cool to......man this is way too short.tho...i like the keyboard sound...jazz is so......cool.......nice job.


thanks
jamal
 
The drums could use some work, but the rest sounded great. Some very tasty blues playing....
Myx
 
Hi Djool_fr,welcome.

I listened to Hideaway.
Wow,great guitar playing,nice tone!
Sounds really good for being DI'd.

I liked the tempo changes,cool.

Sounds to me like mabey the piano needs a little more high end,or less low to mix better with the lead sound.JMHOP! :D

Very nice job,I really enjoy good pickin!

Pete
 
Thrill is Gone - nice playing. nice groove. The guitar seemed pretty dry. But the playing was tasty.

QBz - pretty cool. gotta love hearing something besides guitar once in a while

Hideaway - my least favorite of the tunes. The midi drums were pretty annoying. The guitar tone seemed a bit a weak, but like I said earlier... the playing was tasty. Was the bass midi as well? It seemed a bit lifeless.. but that's midi for ya. The change-up caught me by suprise. That would go across very well live.
 
Listening now...

Nice guitar on Hidaway, the rest had that "background music on the organ at the mall" kind of feel, ya know, a little TOO synth, but just a little. Especially the keyboard sound I think. Otherwise it sounded OK.

I like QB, nice mellow club feel, but there seemed to be some synch issues, maybe it was just my connection?

Nice Thrill Is Gone too, the drums and bass sound better on this one I think.

Decent sounding mixes and you're a pretty good blues player. Keep it up! :D
 
Thanks for the feedback. I do agree with your comments about the MIDI sounds, this is a problem when recording alone...!

Hopefully I will purchase a bass guitar soon :D

I was pretty satisfied by my drums sounds, but now there are too many people complaining about it, I have to do something! I don't know exactly what yet !?!

I already noticed that Reverb has a great influence on drums sounds and can drastically change the tone, do you have any other recommandation on FX to improve the sound?

Enjoy the week-end, play hard :D

Cheers,
Djool
 
ok, newb, you're too good to be here, so leave now and never come back. he he he he he

Djool, that's some great picking you got there. Where'd you get it? Man, these are some good things going on. Do some more like the QBz tune. I like yo style.

dtb
 
Feedback

Listened to Hideaway... EXCELLENT guitar playing!! The tone maybe needs a little work. Not bad at all for DI, though.

The piano reaaaaaaally needs work though. Too Roland-ish. For that style of blues you need something with more tack and thinness.

I actually like the snare at higher volumes. ;) It sounds a little like the ones in Johnny Johnsons blues records. Overall, though, I thought the sound was pretty decent.

Hee hee... Sometime we all need to have an Internet blues jam with individual track submission put in the hands of the most experienced mixer on the board. Wouldn't that be awesome??!
 
Welcome to the board ...

Listened to QB --- there is something weird going on here (some kind of sound that comes and goes every so often...sounds kind of distorted...almost like you are hitting the pick guard, but hard to tell) :) ... Anyhow, nice tune overall. There seemed to be a few places where the drums weren't quite on the beat ... The mix sounded good over here (in lo-fi)...

I like the tune overall. It has a real nice mellow feel to it. Nice job! :)
 
Commenting on the mix and feel only (Hideaway), since it's not my preferred genre.

Guitar - Nothing wrong here. Tone is fine. Slightly harsh on a couple of chords, but not overly so.

Bass - Needs to come up in the mix. But more importantly, go out right now and buy a bass -- you'll never regret the purchase! You can pick up a brand new Fender Squier Precision fairly cheap, and it would make a big difference. I used to do sequenced bass parts, and would work my ass off micro-editing the notes to do whatever I could to make it sound real, but could never get closer than about 80%.

Drums and piano sound mechanical... sounds like extreme quantization to me. If you have the option in your sequencer, look for a "humanize" feature, which can slightly randomize attack volume as well as beat placement. This can go a long, long way in making it sound more natural. Piano could also use more reverb.

In general, I might like a tad more reverb on the mix, just to give it a more live feel.

Mixing, I'd give a little more to the snare, and less to the ride.
 
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