New Recording Up - please give it a listen

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BJW

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Hey,

I just re-recorded a song I wrote a while back. This is my best recording job to date, but it still lacks, I'm afraid.

The song is called "Something Better"

Here's the link: http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?songs=261004&T=4463
(or click on the link in my signature)

I realize that the drums absolutely suck, but I just improvised a loop over a bass beat that I listened to while I tracked. It's late and I don't have the time (or ability) to make a cool programmed drum track. . . .so until I find a drummer. . . .

Let me know what is good and what I can improve on.

Thanks!
 
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Turn up the vox a tad. The accoustic guitar is barely audible but it sounds kind of cool being in the backround. Good toon overall.
 
Here is my personal opinion, I'm no expert mind you:

1)More acoustic guitar, too far back and would be nice if it wasn't panned so far to one side (maybe double track the acoustic guitar to give it more body), 2) Volume up on lead guitar slightly, 3) Less effect on vocals, make them a little more crisp to the ears, 4) More emotion in vocal performance (really let it out of your diaphram when you crescendo)

Other than that, Great Song! Nice flow
 
Hey thanks for the compliments/comments!

I was kind of going for acoustic in the background. I just put a few more electric tracks in it to fill it out and a bit more lead stuff (though I absolutely suck at playing lead guitar). I also re-did the drum track and made it suck not entirely as bad as it did.

Personally I thought the vox were too loud in the mix, so I brought them down a bit and tried to get the entire mix a littler louder - my stuff always comes out too quiet - how do I bring it up to a normal volume? I tried compressing the final mix which just made it sound all squished - like it didn't have any depth to it. I'm no mastering guy.

This is also my first real crack at recording electric guitars. I just did everything with a 57 pointed right at the speaker, which was part of a Mesa Boogie Blues Angel 4X10, and the guitar was an Stevie Ray Vaughn Custom Strat. I also went through a Thesis Audio PowerValve tube overdrive pedal. If my electrics sound good, its thanks to my roommate for the awesome gear, not necessarily me for good recording/playing.

Anyway, listen to it again, it's a new version!
 
Electric guitar sounds a bit muddy well maybe just the one on the right speaker. The picking bits on e guitars sound good but i think it is the strumming e guitar that is a bit low mid end or something.
Nice tune man, you seem to have quite a few tunes there! hope youve copyrighted them!!
 
ecktronic said:
Electric guitar sounds a bit muddy well maybe just the one on the right speaker. The picking bits on e guitars sound good but i think it is the strumming e guitar that is a bit low mid end or something.
Nice tune man, you seem to have quite a few tunes there! hope youve copyrighted them!!
Click to expand...

Hey thanks!

I kind of agree with you on the electic panned right. (The rhythm electric). It is a bit muddy. . . maybe I'll try and eq that out a bit.
 
cool songs and sound..... pretty good result with the gears you're using....

in general the electric guitar is a little loud at time.... maybe can play with the faders at diffrent part of the song.

I like the fake drums... :) perhaps some volume adjustment and reverbs with make it sound even more balanced....

the one thing that bothers me a little is I can hear some room sound in your vocals...

good job!
 
Doesn't sound very balanced to me. The song could use more emotion indeed, but that'll be ok if you retrack the vocals. Try this:

Double-track the acoustical guitars, 1 to left, 1 to the right. Bit of verb, mic not too close. Keep the level not too high and you should have a very nice background layer of guitars.

The electrical guitar sounds too much to the right to me. Try panning it a little bit more center.

The drums:
The kick needs more punch. Eithter turn it up, compress it more, or replace it (if it's a sampled drum [and it is right?] go for a fuller kick).
The hats are good, don't touch em.
Less verb on the snare, and add some compressiong. It hardly stands out.

Vox: What mic did you use? If it's a dynamic, try a large diaphragm condensor. Could use some compression aswell, but keep it light.

on the upside, your guitar tone (both acoustical and electrical) sound great :)
 
Thanks, Halion,

I've never really mixed anything "full band" style, so I'm just learning with panning different instruments left/right/front/back, etc. I'm still trying different things out.
 
In that case, here's a list I kindoff keep in my head all the time about placement of instruments:
Lead Vocals: center, always. A delay can go left/right, but the main vox is always center.
Bass: center, always.
Kick: center (low tones are hardly directional anyway, but just keep it center).
Snare: center
Hats: here's where you can play (if you ask me). Center is ok. You could pan half of the hats left and the other half right, taking turns (like ping-pong). Doesn't sound very natural, but can enhance the stereo image and is a pretty cool trick I think :)
Toms: center, but panning left or right is better. A tom fill going from the left to the right always sounds good.
Overheads/cymbals: hard left/right.
Lead guitar: center, or left/right UNLESS you have something to counter it (second melody panned hard the other way maybe?).
Rythm guitar (mostly acoustical): there's a couple of ways to do this one. You can pan 1 dead center, but that'll sound pretty flat most of the time. You could try A/B micing, panning one mic left, the other right, or what I like to do: track the part twice, with slightly different accents, and pan each one the other way. You can layer this infinitally aswell, to make it bigger and bigger. This trick is used on heavilly distorted guitar alot aswell.
Percussion: wherever you like.

Everything else is basicly your call. I try to stick by a couple of general rules, wich are:
1) Always keep it balanced. If one think goes left, the other goes right (but make sure they are of equal value, example: an acoustical guitar panned right will not make up for a snare panned left).
2) Stuff that comes in hard, and keeps the very basics of the groove should be center 99% of the time. Snare, kick, bass etc.
3) Center sounds the most natural, and draws the most attention (although a good fill panned left/right can be fun too), so keep very important stuff, like main vocal, center.

Hope that helps :) Also, another tip for a bit more front/back imaging: reverb makes things sound farther away, so too much reverb on vocals will not help at all, for instance.
 
Halion said:
In that case, here's a list I kindoff keep in my head all the time about placement of instruments:
Lead Vocals: center, always. A delay can go left/right, but the main vox is always center.
Bass: center, always.
Kick: center (low tones are hardly directional anyway, but just keep it center).
Snare: center
Hats: here's where you can play (if you ask me). Center is ok. You could pan half of the hats left and the other half right, taking turns (like ping-pong). Doesn't sound very natural, but can enhance the stereo image and is a pretty cool trick I think :)
Toms: center, but panning left or right is better. A tom fill going from the left to the right always sounds good.
Overheads/cymbals: hard left/right.
Lead guitar: center, or left/right UNLESS you have something to counter it (second melody panned hard the other way maybe?).
Rythm guitar (mostly acoustical): there's a couple of ways to do this one. You can pan 1 dead center, but that'll sound pretty flat most of the time. You could try A/B micing, panning one mic left, the other right, or what I like to do: track the part twice, with slightly different accents, and pan each one the other way. You can layer this infinitally aswell, to make it bigger and bigger. This trick is used on heavilly distorted guitar alot aswell.
Percussion: wherever you like.

Everything else is basicly your call. I try to stick by a couple of general rules, wich are:
1) Always keep it balanced. If one think goes left, the other goes right (but make sure they are of equal value, example: an acoustical guitar panned right will not make up for a snare panned left).
2) Stuff that comes in hard, and keeps the very basics of the groove should be center 99% of the time. Snare, kick, bass etc.
3) Center sounds the most natural, and draws the most attention (although a good fill panned left/right can be fun too), so keep very important stuff, like main vocal, center.

Hope that helps :) Also, another tip for a bit more front/back imaging: reverb makes things sound farther away, so too much reverb on vocals will not help at all, for instance.
Click to expand...
Hey thanks, Halion. I might go play with it a bit more. I think I'll try this: The acoustics are pretty much background, and I actually recorded a track in stereo, so hard left and right. I might just go with that and add some reverb. During the verses, there's an electric almost all the way on the right, and not much left, so there needs to be some balance there. Plus it's pretty loud there. During the Bridge and verses there are 2 electics, one left and one right, with a little different distortion on each, and I think it sounds cool. I think I'll work on the drum sounds a bit - they are midi, so I can play around with them a lot. I also think I'll take a bit of verb off the vocals and try and bring them more to the front and do something better with the acoustic guitar and electric during the verses. I might just re-track that one electric guitar in the right - it sounds kind of harsh and muddy. I later added the electric that's on the left during the choruses and bridge, and I think it sounds a lot smoother/warmer. I'm gonna try and play with the balance.

Thanks for the info. I'm learning a lot with tracking and mixing this song.
 
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