new song -- critics are HIGHLY appreciated :-]

good song.. I liked the vocals best.. the guitars need to be eq'd so they come out a bit more.. the drums sound a bit strange.. one of the bass drum hits in each measure is too loud and the snare sounds far away.. great melody.. I think you could have wrapped it up a minute sooner though..
 
CyanJaguar - I'm glad that you liked it & thanks for taking the time!

B.SABBATH - after I finished the mix I realised that's too long - but I thought only ~ 20-30sec
- about the drums - you're right! - now I know why they sound strange (hehe)
- how would you exactly eq the guits? you know, my problem is that I don't know exactly where to cut or where to boost..
anyway, thanks a lot for listening!!

cheers
 
Nice song. I liked it. Great groove to it.

The harmonies for some reason don't seem to sit that well. Can't put my finger on it. I think it's a delivery issue. I also think there are other opportunities in the song for harmonies.

Little lead guit mistake at :18. Maybe another one at 4:11? Maybe that one was intentional...

I think the rhythm guit needs some more umph to it. Maybe a boost at 350-400hz? Just a guess. You might want to cut some mids to they don't cover the vox. 2Khz - another guess. Then you should be able to give the fader more of a boost. It's a great part though.

Some pitchiness in the vox in some spots. I think doubled vocals would really work nice on this song.

My thoughts... Trip
 
hey sc, when are we going to hear YOU singing one of YOUR songs?

I'm actually not too enthousiast about the lead guitar, but the for the rest it's pretty nice.
the 'bell' panned almost hard right is a little annoying.
I don't also like the overdriven guitarsound; too muddy, and too far away in the mix.

But: Great song, really. Great sung, very nice drumming (I really like the stuff he/ you does/ do on the snaredrum).
Overall very 'emo'; love it.
 
first of all I have to thank you all that you spend your time listening!

I made a todo-list for this song wich was huge before I posted the song but thx to you guys its getting even bigger LOL



TripleM - I'll be very interrested to know more about how you think that the harmonies could be improved! I mean how and where you would change them; about the lead guit, well, I'm a crappy player - so, everywhere you suppose a mistake, there is one (and none is intentional) ..but I'm learning.. I planned to retrack them all
- thx about answering my question about cutting&boosting the rhythm guit - really needed some advice
- I also want to retrack all the vocals&make some doubling too

a_super_critic - gracias 4 your super critic
by the way, what have the harmonies to do with the potential of the vocals?

F_cksia - cool that you liked it, man!
- about the guits, like I wrote to TripleM, I'm bad in playin and also in mixing them :-(
- the drums took some time to programm them, but it seems to be more needed

thx&cheers
 
OK. As long as critics are HIGHLY appreciated... (you asked for it) :p


Alright... I don't mind the song... I think it has potential. I thought the intro was a tad bit drawn out, though. Both of those are purely subjective taste, though.


The performances weren't bad... I thought the drumming was good and tight. The lead git was a little sloppy. The rhythm gits seemed fairly consistent. I think SC mentioned the BGV's because, well... they were kinda bad. You aren't holding that note very well at all, and it's really kinda distracting. I don't mind the lead vox, some straining going on and a couple mild flatties, but not bad.


The recording, on the other hand... needs a lot of work. Every element has very "low-grade" sonic quality. The whole over-all mix has a very mid-ish quality to it,... no brightness, and almost no "low" presence (except for the dull "thump" of the kick drum) The drums are very over-compressed (or very poorly tracked, or both. :p) The high-hat has had the life squeezed out of it. The kick drum (as mentioned) is a very innocuous, dull "thump". The snare has been castrated. The only element of the drums that has any life left in it is the ride bell. Also, the gits are very mid-rangey.

Now... having said that. There's plenty you can do to improve this. If you don't want to retrack too much, you can try doubling the gits to see if you can get a better stereo presence, and doing some EQ'ing on them to try to get a bit more life into them. For every element of the drums, I recommend laying way off on the compression... let them breathe a little, cause most of them are dyin' of suffocation. :p I don't know that the kick can be helped much, because that sounds like the result of the mic that was used to track it. Try putting the kit in a "room". Bus the drum tracks to an aux and use some strategic reverb to make them sound like they have an environment (note the word "strategic" :p You don't want to make it sound like they're on another planet, you just want a little resonance goin' on, and right now, they have no resonance at all). The BGV's have to go (unless you plan on autotuning them back into shape). Double or triple those... sing the same part multiple times and layer it (preferably with a decent stereo image)... and nail that note dead-on. That will make the BGV's into a nice "bed" that the chorus sits on. I don't know what interface you use to record... but if you use a computer, then I highly recommend vocal comp'ing. Track the main vox at least three or four times (I usually do at least five) and then pick the best phrases from each take and make one main vox track. And consider adding a second rhythm git track... maybe alternate the chording patterns and, then you can get a more "full" bed of gits to use in the chorus. After that, make sure you do some EQ'ing on the over-all mix... I was able to get a bit more life out of this mix just by EQ'ing it in my mp3 player.


That's aboot all I gots. Take it for what it's worth... (which ain't much) :p



WATYF
 
Okay, first thing's first. I like the song, and it's weird that I have 2 clinic participants tunes in my player right now that BOTH remind me of Bowie (the zig days)...

Man, the first couple of lines on the vocal were kicking ass, and then you started to sink a little bit before the backups, and then those backups came in too hot, and too dry, in my opinion...Oh, and off key. Honestly, I don't think this song needs 'em. If I were you, I'd very seriously consider just ditching the bg vocals...yank those tracks out of the DAW and don't look back. I've posted several tunes here that started out with bg vocals that later disappeared :D - I tend to overkill the whole harmony thing anyway, but some tunes really stand alone fine w/o them, and judging from the first couple of lines of this, this is one of them.

See, my advice is really easy to implement...just hit a couple of mute buttons, lol.

Then I guess do what WATYF says, but it looks like a lot of work...I mean, I haven't read his post or anything, but he's generally not totally off the mark; in fact, reading his post would require more work than implementing my advice :D :D :D

Dug the tune, and the "potential" of that lead vocal to really carry this in a good way. Just comp it, if you didn't.

Obviously, I focused on the vocals b/c it looks like you're getting plenty of advice elsewhere :D

Again, I liked.
 
chrisharris said:
Then I guess do what WATYF says, but it looks like a lot of work...I mean, I haven't read his post or anything, but he's generally not totally off the mark; in fact, reading his post would require more work than implementing my advice :D :D :D
Click to expand...
LM@O.


:D :D :D


WATYF
 
Hey Man,
....Im glad to see the other thread leave the front page;)

Nice writing, the tune is definitely worth putting some time into. The big issue seems to be the thick compressed sound of the rhythm section....... .....as covered above. ...fix that and the tune is gonna open up nice.
nice work man
g
 
The drums don't sound like a lot of other drums, but I like the effect - it's like the drummer's playing a tiny drumkit in a box.

With his unerring accuracy, supercritic has put his finger on the weakest part of the project - the backing vocals. With his unerrring lack of tact, he has also neglected the whole rest of the song, which is really good.

It's interesting to me how the drums sound so *contained*, and yet the drums are excellent - a powerhouse. It's canned drums, right? It sounds too good to be a real drummer.

bsabbath noticed the other thing - if you want to have the song that long, you probably have to change something in the last minute and a half of the song. If it was me, I'd dump the slightly out of tune vocal and put in another guitar. But then I like guitars. :D

I listened to this one half a dozen times. It was easy. It carried me along. Good work.
 
groovejunkie

Sounds pretty cool.

The electric guitar needs some highs taken off in the beginning or they should have another take.
Maybe cut the length in half of the intro solo, also.

I can also tell you copied and pasted that reoccuring guitar riff at the end because their is a mess up on a note and it keeps repeating.. ya might want to fix that.

Should be a pretty strong song when your done.
 
:D:D:D:D
wow, guys, thanks for your comments - my TODO-list for this song is getting bigger nd bigger.. so, this is what I'll do:

- retrack every track a few times (vox 4-5 times) and take the best phrases out
- take the comp from the drums and re-programm them
- make two versions of the tune - one with BGVs- layered a few times and in tune , and one without BGVs(hope somebody will have the time then to listen to them....)
- shorten the beginning(solo) and the end


btw, the drums are programmed with Steinberg Groove Agent (what a cool plugin!) - unfortunately that's the best performance in the tune!


WATYF - hey man, I REALLY do appreciate that you spend your time and wrote so much to this tune; almost every suggestion is in my list!! thanks!

chrisharris - hope you'll find the time to listen when I've finished the 2versions; I'm a bit affraid that it would be naked without BGVs..

Guernica - thanks, I'll take some time for it!

dobro - referring to the last minute of the song - instead the BGVs you would put a guit there over that guitar riff or instead it also?
I wroted above where the drums are comming from - dissapointed?

JMarcomb - all your suggestions are in my list :) glad that you liked it!
 
Wowsa, lots of compression on the drums, sounds sweet though. Cool vocals. Guitars feel kind of far away. I like it.
 
I liked the song. The harmonies could be redone but I generally agree with most the mix comments you have already had. The song deserves a serious remix. Just take some more time with it.
This is definantly good song. You could probably fix some of the solo gtr mistakes also.
Myx
 
Now I just have 2 questions left

WATYF said:
And consider adding a second rhythm git track... maybe alternate the chording patterns and, then you can get a more "full" bed of gits to use in the chorus.
Click to expand...

1. how should I do this? layering new chords over the existing or replacing them complete in the chorus?

2. almost everybody in this thread tells me to redo the harmonies;
why or/and where should I change them(besides, how) ??


thanks in advance!
 
1) For simplicity's sake, let's say your song is G, C, and D, the whole way through. An example of alternate chording for a fuller chorus would be, in the verse, you'll have one guitar playing the open chorded version of G, C, and D. Then, in the beginning of the chorus, if you have a place where it seems appropriate for a "diamond" to happen, you would have a second guitar come in play G, C, and D in bar-chorded fashion and pan each git maybe 80% to each side. There are a host of ways to do this, though. You could have two gits in the verse, but one would play open chords, and the other would pick through alt. chorus, and then in the chorus it would stop picking and start strumming... or instead of bar chorded formations, you could have the second guitar play the same chords in DADGAD during the chorus... or you could have a Nashville 6 string come in just during the chorus (a 6 string tuned using only the high strings of a 12 string git), etc. etc. It varies from song to song. But if you want your chorus to sound like a smack in the face that says, "I'M THE CHORUS, LISTEN TO ME AND LIKE ME!" ( :p ) then you'll want some kind of sonic impact that makes it sing just a tiny bit "louder" then the rest of the song.

2) Like most everybody mentioned, first off, you gotta nail that note. Be dead-on. Then double or triple it (hard pan each doubled take and add a little 'verb to fill it out), and consider adding in a third harmony part (if it's appropriate). I'm at work, so I can't listen to the tune again, but if I remember correctly, your placement of the BGV's wasn't bad. So I don't know that you have to change where you did it, so much as how you did it.


WATYF
 
even the dumbest understands something at last ... finally, I've got it!

WATYF - thanks for answering my stupid questions with such a patience!

:o:confused::(:):D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top