New song after a break...

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Jags

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I haven't been on here or recording for a while due to uni, but I recorded a new song over the last couple of days and have just about reached the limit of how much I can improve it, so fresh ears are needed!

It was co-written by myself and an ex-band member and I think it's up there with my best. An electro acoustic backs it up, along with an electric recorded via a crappy vocal microphone on a small park amp. There is also a small amount of keyboard near the end and a lot of double/tripple/quadruple tracking of vocals and guitar. The customary programmed drums also feature and I've added a touch of humanizer at certain parts. That's about it I guess. The microphone seems to leave a lot of fuzz on the tracks it records, but I think it's the fault of the soundcard more than anything else and I've tried to conceal it amongst the mix as much as possible.

Can you give me any tips on the mixing side? think I'm getting better at it but I'm stil not sure exactly what standard procedure is when it comes to these things.

Thanks

Jags
 
Unconventional song structure - which I like. Reminded me of a cross between Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Who (due mostly to the drums I presume).

Definitely a busy track - sounded fine to me. However, the distorted guitar midway through seemed to be tangled up with the acoustics - maybe you could try and get a little more separation in the mix. Also, I liked the acoustic guitar theme and thought it wasn't loud enough toward the end.

Very distinctive - I enjoyed it.

What gear did you use?
 
I really like it a lot. I think the guitars all the way thru sounded very good and well balanced in the stereo spectrum. I would think that the bass guitar could be a little more pronounced and more seperated from the kick drum. Also I think the mix could use an overall boast at anything below 100hz. I had to boast the bass knob on my stereo in order to hear the kick drum and bass guitar. The snare could use a little fattening up too. It sounded a little to tinny. Great song though. I really enjoyed it! Keep up the good work! :)
 
Thanks. The distorted guitar part doesn't sound exactly the way I would like it to be. Apart from the fact that the sound isn't great, it should be at a faster tempo, but I couldn't figure out how to change the tempo of one section using cubase. What do you mean by 'tangled up in the acoustics'? I'll try fiddling with the EQ but I'm not too skilled at that sort of thing... yet!

The acoustic guitar is a £200 Jim Deacon electroacoustic, which I plugged straight into the mic input of the sound card. I used the same instrument for the bass by maximising the bass level on the control panel of the guitar and upping the low end frequencies using a cubase eq plugin. Not ideal but it serves the purpose.

The only mic I have is a £30 Proel, which I used for all the vocals (again, straight into the mic input, no compression or anything) and also to record the electric guitar (Ibanez gio) parts by hanging it over a tiny park amp. Certainly a better result than had I put it straight into the mic input... just! A Zoom 2100 effects pedal provided the distortion and I recorded two different effects for the left and right sides.

A very old Casio keyboard provided the bell chimes at the end. It didn't even have a proper sized output so I had to use a small to big converter (very technical term!).

That's about it I think, I can't wait till I start using some half decent equipment!! :)

I'm glad you enjoyed it, that's what it's all about!


Jags
 
Thanks sae, your advice on levels etc is appreciated. I really don't have much of a clue about that stuff, or at least I can't pick out problems easily. I'll play about with it a bit...

Keep up the good work!

I'll do my best!! :)

Jags
 
psmith66 said:
tangled up with the acoustics
Click to expand...

What I meant was that it was hard to clearly hear either of the distorted guitar or the acoustic guitars individually while they were playing simultaneously - they seemed to be in the way of one another. Of course, that's probably only a preference thing anyway. Again, I thought the track was great overall.

Good stuff.
 
I agree. Unfortunately it's all very well knowing how you want it to sound, it's getting it to sound that way that's the problem! :)

Let's hope my random eq fiddling does the trick! :D

Jags
 
Jags said:
it's getting it to sound that way that's the problem
Click to expand...

That's it exactly - getting the sound in your head into MP3 format! In any case, you're doing ok. I'm still in the head-scratching phase. Wouldn't hurt if I could get some feedback on my own stuff.....

Look fwd to your next song.
 
Jags - I heard the tune. Unconventional, but not bad at all. God knows I'm no one to give advice on drums but I thought the cymbals could have been lower in the mix or eq'ed differently or something. The vocals certainly had a who-ish sound at times. Doubling, tripleing the vocals whatever certainly sounded good particularly in certain parts of this song.

Nice song, very creative.

Ray J
 
Thanks Ray J. I've never liked the cymbals which cubase provides, there are two crash variations and both sound really flat, I'll see what some eqing can do to it.

I tried implemeting some of the previous advice last night and the resulting mix came out terrible! When you alter eq levels should you increment in stages of decibels or fractions of decibels?

:)

Jags
 
Really liked the song. Just goes to show what you can acomplish even with limited gear! What drum program did you use. I wasn't aware cubase has one included. Vocals could use some tweaking. Though that may be the sound card's fault. Do you mind me asking what kind of Sound card you are using? Can hear most of your influences in the song.
 
Thanks. I don't know what drum program it is, as far as I am aware it came with it but it may be a plugin or something? I'll try and find out for you. If you are interested in drums, my effort on 'Coorporation' (my first attempt at semi-serious recording and the first time I used any kind of drum program) was rated highly here a while ago.

I think the vocal problem is probably a combination of the soundcard, mic and my inexperience at mixing. Oh... and don't forget my voice! ;)

The soundcard is a cheap Creative SB PCI 128. When the volume is up on the speakers you can hear interference which seems to change when the hard drive is accessed...

Jags
 
I did not dig the sound of the kick.
I did not dig the doubling of the vocal.
The vocal was a bit too loud. And then fits in at the end

Ok.
Nice guitars.
Nice space around the recording
If you did not tell me it was a 30 dollar mic I would not have guessed.
Nice singing and voice

I think that everything could move back into the room a little. it kinda sounded like they were playing into my ear.

Nice job
 
Thanks. The kick drum was distorted badly when I recorded the midi drum track to a wav file, don't know why. It took on a really bad crackling sound or something. I know the double tracked vocals weren't perfect, I did them in a couple of takes at most, but I think it sounds better than had I done a single track because the setup and bad mixing tend to accentuate my vocal insecurities. Given better circumstances they would be single tracked I think.

When you say move back in the room, i take it you're talking about doing something to the mix?

Jags
 
Jags - This is a really nice tune. I listened to it twice. I loved the vocal outro with the bells and acoustic strumming-- very cool, and nice harmonies. I like the tempo and volume changes through out the song, and it's interesting rhythmically-- very creative, and I'm going to keep that in mind for my own songwriting.

Vocals are strong, you have a rich quality to your voice.

In terms of suggestions...

I found the cymbals a little too loud, as well as the sleigh bells (?) around 4:45 and in the outro. I also thought that the syncopated thing around 1:44 sounded neat, but the actual sound of the "hit" I didn't like...what was that a sample of? Maybe throw in a reverse snare or reverse cymbal sample instead, just to freak it out a little more.

I also would use a clean up the distorted guitar just a little-- maybe use a warmer, less "solid state sounding" distortion so you can get some contrast with the direct-in guitar that already has a solid-state sound.

Pete
 
Thanks pete. I'm in the middle of trying to sort out the drums, they were on the whole one of the weakest links it seems. The sound you were refering to is a ride bell, I'm thinking about whether to change it at the moment. So far the revisions I've made have hopefully cleared up some of the problems with the mix. I didn't really understand tha last bit about the distorted guitars, but in any case I've tried to define the tracks a bit better and I've upped the volume a tad, still doesn't sound perfect, but better.

Thanks for the compliments, I'll probably post the revised version tomorrow if not later on tonight.

Jags
 
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