New to the board... here's a link to some songs

[Miggs6]

Hi everyone. I am new to this board. My brother and I have been recording on and off for several years now. He is an accomplished guitarist. I come from an art and architecture background, and have been self-teaching myself recording, engineering, mixing etc over the last few years. We use Sonar XL 1.3, Roland GR33 guitar synth, Line 6 Pod, Yamaha 12 channel mixer, M Audio SP5B nearfield monitors, Aureal Vortex AU8830 sound card and an 8gb/512 ram computer. We will be upgrading to better sound card and computer and to Sonar 4PE in the next few months.

Here is a link to some of our songs. We welcome feedback of any kind, especially in regards to:

a. composition
b. EQing ( I have been struggling with low end mud for years... still trying to learn the best way to EQ things)
c. mixing
d. or anything else that you hear.

'Sway' is bossa nova with a touch of surf.

'The Far Away Near' is an experiment in 5/4 time composition which turned out to be kind of a nice tune.

'Organza' is a lament with some fun use of backwards guitar.

'The Road' reminds me of the vast open landscapes while travelling through the western United States.

'Because' is a coda to an unfinished song. A bright compositon with guitars and sitar.

Listen and Enjoy!

 

[Pinky]

Sway - well, it's been done before but that's not to say your variety of lounge musak isn't fun. Bass was a little lost in the mix, but the song did have a nice mellow tone. I would trim the drums just a touch and bring the bass up a db or three. Recording principles are there, it's a solid recording. Guitar (on all the recordings) is little too "plucky" sounding. A lighter pick and/or trimming some of the treble may help this. Could also be the guitar pickups...

The Far Away Near - drums and main keyboard were definitely a little overpowering in the mix. Everything else up, drums and keyboard down. Musically this is solid, even cute in a clever way.

Organza - the electronic drums have that 80s feel, not a good thing. I like the more 'dark' tone, good use of the keyboards. This could use some double tracking, offset panning trick work. Seems like you send the guitars left/right to avoid them from occupying the same part of the mix, but there's other ways of filling the sound field without hard panning.

The Road - The shaker's a tad loud, otherwise I enjoy the subtlety of the guitars on this one (in this case having them panned in this manner worked). In general your recordings have a busy panning theme which is okay but makes headphone listening a little tiring because once you focus your mind in one place at any given time it's being tugged in a completely different direction the next. So far this is my favorite. Like the country feel while not quite being country.

Because - Interesting. Definitely hear a lot of plucky action on the guitars.

Good recordings, solid guitar playing.

 

[Miggs6]

WOW! Thanks for taking the time Pinky and giving me such useful and thorough feedback. I am going to rework these songs when we get our new computer in the next month or so (as well as the latest version of SONAR), and will surely encorporate your comments.

Wondering if you could explain a bit more about how you would deal with offset panning in your original comment (quoted below) about ORGANZA. I had originally recorded these guitars in stereo and ended up only using one side of the guitars in this mix. I'll try the other side in my next mix. I think I had one guitar panned at like 9 and 1 and the other at 11 and 3 (or something like that). Is that what you are talking about? (I'm still kind of a newbie with some of this stuff).

This could use some double tracking, offset panning trick work. Seems like you send the guitars left/right to avoid them from occupying the same part of the mix, but there's other ways of filling the sound field without hard panning.

Thanks again Pinky.

 

[Pinky]

No problem. I thought you might ask about the panning, it's a trick several here use and one I first learned from a coworker that's been doing midi and homerecording for longer than this site's been around.

What you do is take the final version of your guitar track and duplicate it, then in the wave editor bring up both tracks (original and duplicate), select either one and drag them to be slightly offset. [see link below]

I've highlighted the tracks being adjusted (4 and 5). Notice the pan for each track on the bottom virtual mixer. One is slightly left, other slightly right. The offset creates an artificial stereo bounce and the panning helps to spread the stereo effect. This gives you a 3D positioning within the sound field. A lot of studios use expensive chorus rack units to do the same thing, but with a little extra time we can get the same effect in our recordings for free.

Here's a link to this song. Tracks 4 and 5 are the exact tracks for the beginning acoustic part of "Oblivion". You'll notice the acoustic sounds fuller and doesn't sound like it's coming from a particular spot in the sound field (too far left or right).

You'll need to practice this as it does take some tinkering to master. I actually have to go back to one of my recent songs and apply some of the techniques I learned from this song to improve the panning effect. Always learning!

 

[Miggs6]

Thanks Pinky... This sounds pretty much like doing a panned delay with out sending it through a unit.... sort of the home-made version of a panned delay. And undoubtedly just as effective. Great sound.

 

[Pinky]

Clumpy bumpy

Excuse the poor use of technical terminology in my post(s). I still don't know all the correct phrases/terms, but what's being done here is a stereo expansion and not really what I would deem a chorus as I stated. I often use chorus in conjunction with this effect, and sometimes choose to use one or the other depending on need.