Pop-Rock song: Afterwords - Mix feedback much appreciated!

[Dicus]

Hey guys, I'm drummer and songwriter in the band Kurt Rosa. And I'm trying to take up producing our own demos.

Our first one is afterwords, feedback on my mixing, mastering and recording is much appreciated! Thanks already!

https://soundcloud.com/kurtrosa/demo-afterwords

 

[Ex3vious]

It actually sounds pretty good. The weakest part is probably the drums, they are played well but they sit too far back in the mix. Maybe try using parallel compression on them. Or just bring up the volume. Great start!

 

[BroKen_H]

I can hear everything. Drums (except for the snare) are a bit low, and need to open up. They sound a bit flat....more oomph at the bottom, more air at the top. Guitar tones are nice. Especially in the solo. The bass is boring (not the line, but the tone) and has no push. Vocals...where to begin. Pitch and glide issues in the beginning. When they kick in (and actually sound quite nice), they're a bit loud to a lot loud. A little volume automation might go a long way.

Good performances overall, just a bit of a problem with the first part of the vocals. Good song.

 

[DM60]

Listening on a full system, floor speakers and sub.

Drums are a little low (not too much), guitar is tad too high (that could be brought down at the intro, :57 mark) vocal seems to be sitting right. Low end needs a bit more punch. I can't hear a kick and bass has no ass.

Except for the few tweaks not a bad little mix. No mud, nothing standing out, rather clean.

 

[Robus]

Drums need to come up. That guitar sounds really good but is too loud for me. The instrumental mix sounds dark, almost muffled. It could use some sparkle. I like the singing. Vocal level is inconsistent, loud toward the end.

Good job, I like the song!

 

[rayc]

"That guitar sounds really good but is too loud for me. The instrumental mix sounds dark, almost muffled."
What?
Drums, other than the super snap snare, too quiet or too far back if you've added reverb.
Bottom end is woofy - and the kick seems to have been eaten by the bass.
Guitar is too loud as are the vox.
there are some cool stickies around the forum about mixing/treating drums - have a read.

 

[Dicus]

Thanks for the cool feedback. Am working on it again today. I've got to look up parallel compression and how that works. I;ve tried pulling up the volume and bringing down the reverb which helps a bit but it still sounds so homerecorded .
I've used two different reverb one for the position and one for the ambience like this guy explains on sos Use Reverb Like A Pro: 1.
But aren't yet getting the hang of it.

@DM60 How do I add low end to kick and bass, that's probably a EQ thing what frequencies should I look to enhance? Or should I compress less that would bring some of the attack back wouldn't it?

I'll put the guitar and the vocals a bit down, see what that does.

@rayc what do I do to get the bottom end less woofy? I've used high-pass filters to cut away some of the frequencies under 30Hz.

Thanks for all the help, I'm pretty new to production but it's fun to do. It gets confusing 'cause there are so many ways to do the same thing and even more ways in which you certainly should not do things .

 

[BroKen_H]

afa woofy bass...try high pass filtering other tracks that are occupying the same space, but you don't actually hear them (you see low frequencies in a spectrum analyzer, but you don't hear them) in the mix. i.e. guitar, snare. You can go quite high (120-150Hz). Remember a snare needs 200-240 or it gets boxy, so don't go too near there...

 

[Dicus]

Cool, I already had most high pass filters in place. But putting the snare a bit higher and also putting one on the overheads (only till 50Hz, I don't want to loose the bass drum on there) and I've got the feeling that it helps...

 

[Dicus]

Implemented your Feedback: Newest version of Afterwords

So here is the latest version in which I tried to use all your feedback. Especially the drums did improve much, parallel compression worked incredibly well, also on the bass which got much tighter.
I also compressed the vocals some more and did a little autotune/manial tuning to it. The compression improved the vocals a lot, making them still punchier and more up front. But I had to de-es them afterwords because the -s and -f's got really annoying, anyway to compress the vocals without making s's more prominent?

Some more feedback would be again very much appreciated. I would really like to get better at this!

https://soundcloud.com/hoc-studio-est/demo_afterwordsv2 (uploaded it with a private link, after I inserted your last feedback I'll repost it on my bands soundcloud page)