New Song - How Is This Mix?

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dewhitt

Dave DeWhitt
Hi All,

This is a new song I've been working on called "Falling Right In". I think it's nearly complete, but I'm hoping to get some opinions on the mix, arrangement, etc, before I call it finished.

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=9148907

The drums are loops and Logic instruments that I played via MIDI keyboard. I am upgrading my studio now to try to accommodate live drums, but I couldn't wait any longer to finish this tune, so I'll have to redo the drums in the future when I'm able.

Let me know what you think!

Best Regards,

Dave DeWhitt
 
Wow! 'Nuff said.

I got a fresh post here, so I better say a little more :)

Dave, This is an extremely well crafted song. I really liked it. Specifically, the main riff was interesting and catchy and verse dynamics created a pocket for the vox, but (unlike my own) staved off boredom with the guitars. The pre-chorus was stellar with it's panning and bv's - it just opens up like sun through the clouds! I'm studying it carefully to try to learn a few more things to make my own work better. Additionally, it has such an accessible/mainstream sound that I could picture it appearing almost anywhere. The wife even liked it a lot :D.

The small nits: The vox, at times, seem to be a bit hot. I love your voice, so I don't mind. But, I prefer not to clearly hear every single inflection of a singers voice in a professional recording; I like to use my imagination to complete the picture or be surprised by a subsequent listening. The other small thing would be the solo. It sounded great and tasty, but the tone was just not quite what I hoped for. I hate almost all my lead sounds, so I can't really tell you what to do different except probably ignore my advice.

Thanks for the schooling :),

Brad Smith

Edit: PS - Loops or not, I liked the drum sound!
 
Real nice tune Dave!
Very well-performed and recorded. My only nit would be the drum sound. It could be a little more defined, especially snare and kick. I think it's just a matter of EQing the kit better because the basic sounds sound good. Nice work!

Joey :)
 
Hey, thanks guys, I appreciate the kind words and the great feedback. This one has been brewing for awhile, so it feels good to finally be close to done with it, I'm pretty darn sick of it honestly :D

@Washburn100 - Yeah, I have seen those reviews in recordingmag.com and thought about submitting once or twice, maybe I'll do that with this tune. My setup for this wasn't too complicated, but there are a lot of guitar tracks. I own a strat that I use for most of my stuff, no choice really since it's my only electric :) It tends to sound thin for this type of style, and I heard a lot of feedback to that effect on a previous song I submitted, so I recently borrowed a Les Paul to do some retracking, and the end result is that this tune has two rhythm tracks with the strat, panned hard left and right, and two tracks with the LP, also panned hard left and right. I think there's a danger with that many rhythm tracks that you can end up with a mushy sounding guitar part if you aren't careful and you don't synch up the takes pretty closely together. Hopefully I succeeded in that respect.

Not to write a book here, but...I don't have any real tube amps (yet) to record with, so I use a Line6 UX8 and Pod Farm. My recent time spent with Pod Farm has convinced me of a couple of things: 1) All of the stock tones have way too much gain, and way too little mid, so they need to be tweaked accordingly, and 2) sometimes backing off the volume on the actual guitar itself is a decent way to get the models to sound a little less fizzy. I tracked all of these rhythms with the volume knob backed down to around 7, and to me it just sounds better that way, I'm not sure why.

Hey Brad, thanks for listening! The solo was recorded with the strat, and I didn't replace it with an LP recorded track because I just loved the vibe on that strat solo take, so I'm leaving it alone. I agree that the tone is less than stellar, but I also have a bitch of a time with my guitar tones for some reason, and I figured in this case I'd just stick with the performance I loved rather than try to duplicate it with a better tone. I'm going to add that to the rapidly growing list of things I want to revisit in the future as soon as I have time ;)

@ Joey - thanks man! I saw on your recent post that you are using Slate drums, and I just recently ordered Slate Digital Trigger, and I'm excited to see if I can improve my drum sounds with the trigger and their samples. Hopefully yes. The interesting thing about these drums, and probably what is tweaking your ear a little, is that there are actually slightly different drums in the different parts. I couldn't find any loops in Logic that did exactly what I needed, so I took the basic loop that you hear in the intro, and then added my own accents on a second track with a software instrument. The sounds are close but not exact. Also, same thing later in the song with other parts/fills, etc. Again, I'm thinking Slate Trigger will help me with that because I can hopefully trigger the same samples with all of my programmed stuff.

Sorry for such a long response, but hopefully some of this is useful/interesting :)

Thanks for listening guys!

Dave DeWhitt
 
Another great one, Dave! I had to listen to this one through a set of disgustingly horrible desktop speakers, so I really can't give a whole lot of detailed critiquing, but...

I was pretty impressed by the way this sounded through these tin-cans. Kudos, man. I really like your vocals, too.

Hopefully, I'll get around to listening to this through some repectable monitors soon.

Great job, Dave!
 
I liked this right from the get go - both the sounds and the riffs. It's got a modern, dare I say it radio friendly sound. Nice concise and compact lead break. You're obviously no slouch when it comes to arrangements either. The only thing I didn't go for was the acoustic breakdown - I hear it so much on the radio - but that's probably what you're going for. Great job on this
 
Hey Jason, thanks man! This song has been plaguing me for a few months now. I was in the middle of recording Signs of Life when the chorus for Falling Right In came to me as I was driving one day. I quickly recorded a "rough" take of the vocals when I got home, and those vocal tracks ended up being the keepers for the final mix. It's funny how sometimes those first takes are the best ones :) Anyway, now that this one is about wrapped up, I'm ready to focus back on Signs and getting your new drum tracks in there. I'll let you know as soon as I have something for you to listen to.

Bulls, I'm glad you liked it. I was definitely going for a radio friendly sound on this one, so I'm glad it's coming across that way. The acoustic breakdown is way overdone, I agree, but I ended up putting this one in there simply because I had never recorded my acoustic before (Gibson Gospel, which I LOVE), and I wanted to see how it sounded. I think it turned out all right, especially since it was literally just me standing up and strumming the guitar, sans strap, in front of my Rode NT1000 mic. I did a take that way to see if was going to be even in the right ball park with one LD condenser, and I ended up liking it so much that I did another take for the left/right spread, and called it a day. Took all of about 3 minutes...go figure. I wish all of this was that easy.

Thanks for listening guys.

Best Regards,

Dave DeWhitt
 
Okay... I took a listen through some higher quality speakers, and I've got some nits...

First and foremost, when contrasted against the guitars (which are super hi-fideilty.. Very well recorded guitars), the drums sound almost muffled.

Even though the drums don't pop, they aren't a sore thumb of the song. The only reason I even noticed this is my experience as a drummer, and my recording technique is almost exactly opposite. I like my drums to have the hi-fi portion of the mix, and the guitars take up less of the spectrum. Either way works just fine.

For this song, I think your approach actually works quite a bit better because your guitars are the strong point (along with the vocals) of the song. The drums sound good being canned, primarily because they are pushed so far in the background. If we heard the smashing crashes and the hats, the idiosyncrasies of them being canned would probably be quite a bit more glaring, and disruptive for the song.

My only other nits are that the guitars and vocals are very, very much "in your face" I'm not sure if pulling them back a bit would help or not.

Anyway... Great work, man.
 
I thought it sounded pretty good. Real good singing. Real good playing. Guitars sounded pretty decent.

Lyrically, there are a few cliches.

You might get away with nudging the bass up just a wee bit. Compare to your favorite commercial mix before playing with it though.

Didn't care for the telephone voice. Mostly just because I'm tired of it.

Couple of vocal clicks (e.g., the word "breeze" at 2:02). Others too.

The acoustic section at 3:18 sounds much fuller than the rest of the song. I'd try to balance that just a bit. Fill out the rest or thin the acoustics. Or blend a bit of both.
 
dewhitt said:
Hey Brad, thanks for listening! The solo was recorded with the strat, and I didn't replace it with an LP recorded track because I just loved the vibe on that strat solo take, so I'm leaving it alone. I agree that the tone is less than stellar, but I also have a bitch of a time with my guitar tones for some reason, and I figured in this case I'd just stick with the performance I loved rather than try to duplicate it with a better tone. I'm going to add that to the rapidly growing list of things I want to revisit in the future as soon as I have time ;)....

Dave DeWhitt
Click to expand...

I gave it another listen with my monitors this time, and just because I'm really enjoying listening to this song right now! There's much more fullness to the tone and and the mix filling it out - Sorry for using the ears bud before 'nitting' and for doubting your ears! :o

Go forth and make more!! ...waiting for the album release....:)
 
PoeticIntensity said:
My only other nits are that the guitars and vocals are very, very much "in your face" I'm not sure if pulling them back a bit would help or not.
Click to expand...

Ha ha...this is turning into a common reaction to my songs, so I guess maybe I am really heavy when it comes to guitar and vox levels. The only thing I can say in my defence is that today another person who listened told me that they thought the song sounded a bit like Chris Daughtry's "No Surprise" (which doesn't thrill me, but that's another story). So, I went out to YouTube and watched the video for No Surprise to make sure I wasn't ripping the guy off or something. As it turns out, I think I'm in the clear :p However, one thing that definitely blew me away was the vocal levels and "up-frontness" in that mix. Wow, the vox and guitars are really loud and clear there...they almost made mine sound downright soft! I know the arguments about loudness and the resulting lack of dynamics and everything else, but I think that in the style I'm currently writing in, maybe I'm not too far off with my vocal levels. Go out to YouTube or somewhere similar and listen to that mix and see if you think the same. I think you'll be surprised :)

Anyway, as always, thanks for taking the time to listen and provide excellent feedback. It is definitely appreciated!

Best Regards,

Dave DeWhitt
 
Well, I just went and had a listen. Here's what I think; I could be high, but here goes: Yes, the Daughtry vox and guits are dominant and up front (btw - the only thing that I think sounds the same about the two songs is the acoustic breakdown). I don't think your guitars are even THAT loud, whew! But what I THINK I hear is that I can hear your voice much clearer; I can hear your consonant endings like you are in my room. I believe (but don't know for sure) that Daughtry has quite a few takes on each pitch lined up nice n tight. There might be about a million $ worth of compressor chains and a reverb that's so good, you can't tell it's there (best kind). Same for guitars. He's loud, no doubt, but he's not 'all up in yer grill.' with the dry clarity :) My invaluable studio knowledge and about 6 bucks will get you a coffee at Starbucks!

- bottom line is, you sir, do, in fact, rock! :D
 
Yeah, that totally makes sense. It's not as much about loudness of the vocals as it is about the harshness or something. I can hear something in my vocals that's definitely too up front, but I'm not quite sure what it is. It leaves me wondering if it's a) just the timbre of my voice, b) something that is over-emphasized by the mic/pre I'm using, or c) my lack of experience with EQ. I have a feeling the answer is likely B (it couldn't be A...ha ha), but I am just not sure. The thing about these vocal tracks is that I haven't really done much to them at all. I sang them into a Rode NT1000 and Line6 UX8 pre, and the only EQ I applied is a high pass to remove all of the lows below 100 Hz or so. Other than that, it's flat...but maybe it shouldn't be? I also sent just a tiny bit of the vocal through an aux to a reverb, but it's such a small amount that you can't even really hear it.

Will the person who currently has the "Ultimate Secret for a Perfect Vocal Sound" book checked out please return it so I can figure this out before it kills me :)

Best Regards,

Dave DeWhitt

http://www.soundclick.com/davedewhitt
 
FWIW - I thought your vocals sounded pretty nice (the vocal clicks I mentioned notwithstanding).

I don't have any experience with that Rode, but I've read quite a few other people who say that it's "harsh." So what people are talking about might be caused by the mic.
 
Thanks TripleM, I appreciate that. I'm going to go back and check out those clicks. I was noticing a few of those when I had the track on solo, but I was hoping they'd disappear in the context of the whole mix.

Good to know that about the Rode mic too. I managed to borrow a Les Paul from a friend recently to try to tame some harsh guitar sounds, I wonder if I have any friends with any good tube condensers they'd be willing to let me try out... :)

Best Regards,

Dave DeWhitt

http://www.soundclick.com/davedewhitt
 
Ive never heard one of yours before....man its very very good...had a really beefy full sound on my system..

I found the vocals a little too up front and the snare couldve cut through a little more but if no one else had mentioned it best to ignore me :)


very radio friendly, very commercial (if thats not offensive) would not sound out of place in my car going along the freeway


good job
 
kcearl said:
Ive never heard one of yours before....man its very very good...had a really beefy full sound on my system..

I found the vocals a little too up front and the snare couldve cut through a little more but if no one else had mentioned it best to ignore me :)


very radio friendly, very commercial (if thats not offensive) would not sound out of place in my car going along the freeway


good job
Click to expand...

+1 on everything he said (mostly the upfront vocals. Just bring them down a tiny bit) . Awesome song! I liked that little guitar solo. Great production.
 
Wow. Where to start. Great lyrics. The guitars sound great. The mix is really well done. Backing vocals "Aaah-oh, ah-oh" is perfect and sounds great. Loved the transition to acoustic guitar on the last chorus. Great change of pace. This is way better than most of the tripe foisted upon us by the major labels. When will this be available for purchase?
 
guitar zero said:
Wow. Where to start. Great lyrics. The guitars sound great. The mix is really well done. Backing vocals "Aaah-oh, ah-oh" is perfect and sounds great. Loved the transition to acoustic guitar on the last chorus. Great change of pace. This is way better than most of the tripe foisted upon us by the major labels. When will this be available for purchase?
Click to expand...

Yea, Dave, 'ditto' on the 'available for purchase'! Also, would you be willing to tell me how you recorded (eg layered, panned, number of tracks, etc) those Aaah-oh's? In case someone with a good voice like yours gets behind my mic, I'll be ready :D
 
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