New Track, looking for some feedback

[kokain]

Here is a new song by me and Adam.

We spent about 3 hours total on this, most of which was spent drinking.

Is the guitar too spanky?

 

[Schwarzenyaeger]

I guess that this was done more as a thing between friends than a professional production?
It has a nice vibe


The guitar in the left speaker sounds very, very harsh and seems to have no body. It sounds almost like an electric guitar that is being played unamplified.

The kick is more of a loud dance thump than an actual kick drum.

The snare sound is rather grating as is more of a fizz than a strong smack with a nice body.

There are a few pops in the vocals such as 0:54.
The vocals in general are a bit clouded at times and get drowned out somewhat in the chorus. Maybe automate them up a db or two. They aren't cutting through right now.
You might want to compress them a bit more as well. The volume is really uneven during the verses.


The backing vocals are nice, maybe you could even turn them up a bit more.

 

[TripleM]

I don't exactly know what a "spanky" guitar sounds like. But the acoustic guitar is pretty thin and has a lot of brightness. Too much to my ear.

The vocal, by comparison, is missing a lot of presence. It's a bit unclear sounding. Pitchy in quite a few spots. I'd get rid of any stereo effects you have on the lead vocal. Some plosives too.

I liked the sound of the electric guitars.

I liked the tone of the snare. But I'd dry it up considerably. Kick could have a bunch of low-midrange removed. I think that would tighten it up. Maybe boost somewhere around 4K to see if you could define its attack a bit.

Bass is a bit sterile sounding. Missing a little woof. Its tone fits an 80's techno song more than a song like this.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

 

[Btyre2013]

the guitar is indeed too spanky, try turning the treble down on it, is it a piezo pickup? that's what it reminds me of, was this recorded on cassette by the way? it sounds analog

 

[kokain]

Thanks to all for the comments so far. I agree with all of the you. I'm working on a second mix right now.

Schwarzenyaeger - Really great feedback. Those vocal pops are killing me. I'm trying a multiband (Reaper X-Comp) to get rid of them, but as I take out the pops the vocals get a little thin. I need to fine tune the bands a little more.

My acoustic does have a piezo. I usually record one track from the piezo and one track from a mic close to the 12th fret. Then I blend them to get the sound I want. But for some reason, I am having trouble with this one. I think the mic placement may have been too much pick attack.

I can dry out the snare no doubt. There are two mics on the snare, top and bottom. I can pull the bottom mic down to dry it out.

TripleM - Good advice on the kick. I will try that.

Give me a day, and I'll throw up a second try.

 

[robgreen]

My acoustic does have a piezo. I usually record one track from the piezo and one track from a mic close to the 12th fret. Then I blend them to get the sound I want. But for some reason, I am having trouble with this one. I think the mic placement may have been too much pick attack.

Good to see you on here again kokain. I'll listen properly when the second try is up, but I gave up on miking at the 12th fret because I felt my acoustic tracks ended up sounding too thin. I tend to point the mic at the soundhole now and then make a narrow EQ cut around 110Hz ish to tame the boom. I dunno, just something I find works for me.

 

[Schwarzenyaeger]

Thanks to all for the comments so far. I agree with all of the you. I'm working on a second mix right now.

Schwarzenyaeger - Really great feedback. Those vocal pops are killing me. I'm trying a multiband (Reaper X-Comp) to get rid of them, but as I take out the pops the vocals get a little thin. I need to fine tune the bands a little more.

My acoustic does have a piezo. I usually record one track from the piezo and one track from a mic close to the 12th fret. Then I blend them to get the sound I want. But for some reason, I am having trouble with this one. I think the mic placement may have been too much pick attack.

I can dry out the snare no doubt. There are two mics on the snare, top and bottom. I can pull the bottom mic down to dry it out.

TripleM - Good advice on the kick. I will try that.

Give me a day, and I'll throw up a second try.

You could also automate them out. You can make a quick dip in the loudness of the pop or sometimes actually cut it out altogether. I've used that to some success since our mind just fills in the blank "p". If the cut is small enough, you'll never notice it.

 

[kokain]

Alright, second mix is uploaded.



I tried to fix the guitar, vocals, drums... well everything. I dryed up the master buss and darkened it a little.

I ended up using XComp to help with the vocal pops. I think I got most of them without affecting the vocals too much.

I tried a third mix, but I got to the point that nothing sounded right and everything was mud. I need a break. I think I am going to try and mix to a reference track. A/B switch and try to match everything. Maybe not. We'll see.

 

[DM60]

Good to see you on here again kokain. I'll listen properly when the second try is up, but I gave up on miking at the 12th fret because I felt my acoustic tracks ended up sounding too thin. I tend to point the mic at the soundhole now and then make a narrow EQ cut around 110Hz ish to tame the boom. I dunno, just something I find works for me.

I would think with a pick up in the acoustic, one could not worry about the 12th fret and point the mic towards the sound hole as mentioned above, then blend and EQ. Usually if it is just the sound hole, it is very boomy, but with a DI and mic (to get some bottom), should be able to get a better blend.

Based on my limited knowledge, what you are doing here is pretty standard for acoustic. Everything below 110ish on the acoustic has to be tamed or removed.

 

[DM60]

Alright, second mix is uploaded.



I tried to fix the guitar, vocals, drums... well everything. I dryed up the master buss and darkened it a little.

I ended up using XComp to help with the vocal pops. I think I got most of them without affecting the vocals too much.

I tried a third mix, but I got to the point that nothing sounded right and everything was mud. I need a break. I think I am going to try and mix to a reference track. A/B switch and try to match everything. Maybe not. We'll see.

Still has a lot of high on the mix. Maybe start rolling off around 10K gently and see if you could bring up 1-2K range (this is just a guess, so take it as such). That snare is really screwing things up. I usually don't comment on those types of things but here it is pretty clear it needs work. You may want to see if you can fix that in the track before making adjustment to the master EQ.

 

[Tobe]

This is fun... well done. It feels like this could be easily improved in the mix, but the 2nd mix version didn't really do it.

The guitar still needs warmth and the drums need to get a lot lighter. From what you have said perhaps the guitar needs to be re-recorded.

Put a savage HP filter on that bass drum to clear out the thud, and while your at the EQ perhaps boost the slap of the pedal. It might sound odd, but perhaps that will make it sound more "realistic" and energetic rather than heavy dance domination. The snare is "fizzy" which suggests you can still mix down the bottom mic. Without knowing the individual sounds I might try excluding the bottom mic, and using EQ boost to find the "crack" of the snare more from the top mike.

For the odd vocal pop, try simple volume automation (as well as anything else that seems to help).

 

[Mickster]

DM60 has it right. The snare is killing the mix in my opinion. Listen to the mix from about 1:10 to 2:00. There's no snare. Now think about what you would do to make that section of the mix sound better. The snare is not in there to confuse your mind / ear. It's too thin still.........and the guitar seems to have just a little too much "room" / environment on it. The vocal is better but so very very dry and up front and so is the snare in the rest of the mix. I know I say this a lot in this section but I think it's very important to get the sound stage right. "Right" only means that as you imagine the sound stage it needs to feel like it "works". I like to listen as if I am sitting in front of a live band and I look for "placement"......depth......left and right......I wish I could describe it better. Someone showed me that a while back and it's helped my results tremendously. As DM60 says....go back to your tracks.......a master EQ is is not going to work here. Just my 2 cents.

 

[kokain]

I agree with everyone. Every track needs fixed. Kick needs definition, vocals need space, guitar needs body, snare needs less fizz... The mix needs realigned... basically everything.

I'm going to take a few days off from listening to this. Then I'm going to start a new project from scratch. I'm not even going to try to fix this one. Hopefully that will help to give me fresh ears on it. Although we'll see how much I can actually do without re-tracking anything. If it comes to that, I will probably just move on to the next song.

 

[DM60]

My two bits. Rather than just abandon this, you might use it as a good learning exercise. Go through each track, list to the source, try some EQ, make a mental note of what could have been better in the tracking, how you were using EQ, etc. Bring the mix back not for perfection, but to make sure you have a good understanding.

When you start your next project, now you have a lessons learned and can avoid issues, know what issues you can't avoid, but know how they are going to be fixed, etc. I think giving up on it just now will not help you in the learning process.

Just thoughts, but I am sure you want your next effort to be easier and improved, this is how it is done.

 

[Mickster]

I agree with everyone. Every track needs fixed. Kick needs definition, vocals need space, guitar needs body, snare needs less fizz... The mix needs realigned... basically everything.

I'm curious. What are you listening to your mixes on?

 

[kokain]

DM60- I see your point. I'll keep at this one. I am noting the lessons learned already. I've had way better results in the past especially with acoustic guitar. I am going back to that for sure. I'm not sure I can get this one perfect, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Mickster- I mix mostly with headphones. I go through each track and then do a mix. Then I tweak and fix through my studio monitors (that's a fancy way to say the speakers in my basement). Then I take it out to my car for final tweaks. I admit that this song does not sound the way I want. I do hear (after everyone helped) what needs changed but got too lost with it.

 

[Crazy Luke]

Drums need a hi-hat in the 1st half. Also, try to write song in your key, so you don't have to strain your voice.