recording my bands demo ... lookin for some input before its finalized

T

thecugga

New member
Hey,
Ive been working on my bands demo for awhile now and I think I'm almost done. I have finished mixing one of the songs and I think its complete. There are a few lines the lead singer has to retrack, but other than that I think I'm all done.
If someone could lend an outside ear and tell me what you hear that maybe I missed that would be great.

the song is titled "my punishment..." on the website
the link is www.purevolume.com/theporticoproject
a downloadable version of the song is availble and is better quality than the streaming version

I think I did a decent job considering it was all done with only an old 1202 and some budget mics. But we'll see i guess :D

Thanks again
 
I think listening to that song is a punishment. It sounds like you set one mic in the middle of the room and recorded everything at the same time. Here is a hint keep your pet Tasmainian devil away from the mic.
 
the streaming quality is horrible on purevolume unless you pay for an account, which i havent ... so you really cant listen to it critically without downloading it.
if anyone wants to spend the time to download the song and have a listen that would be a help.
and any advice a little more constructive than ocnor's opinion would be helpful too............
 
I will be honest, i dont like this style of music, but i like the back vocals that starts around 1:10 min. After that the track gets much more nicer

Anyways in terms of recording, mixing and everything, i found that it really miss something here, no big deal, just that little extra touch.
Maybe you could give the drums a little more life. It feels that the track its missing that. I also thought that the guitars solo are somewhat loud compared to the rest
I had listened to both version, the one you dowload and the other one. When i heard the streamd one, i thought that it was terrible recorded. Like ocnor said " with a mic on the center of the room", but when i heard the dowloaded version i could see that it was not bad. It does lacks imo, a little more "fatness" on the drums and a better setting for the guitar
Overall its nice. I would recomend you try to record several versions where you try some experiments and diferent settings and see wich one works best :)
 
ya maybe i should tell people it has a screamo vibe to it (btw i hate that word ... genre labels in general really) to get a few people that actually like this type of music to comment on the mix.

i also forgot to mention that this track hasnt been mastered yet. mastering it should add to the fullness of the track, b/c right now it is a little thin.

and thanks for the input soundofmind ... i'll take what you said into consideration when i go back and tweak the mix. i think if i tweak the sound of the kick and then master it should help with livening up the drums.

when i listen to this mix i feel like everything is competing for space ... especially distorted guitars and oh's ... anyone else hear that?/have any tips on how to fix it?
 
Some comments

First of all. The guitar riffing has a very thin tinny sound. Not in a good way. It's sounds like all treble with a cheap distortion pedal.

The drums are lacking in sound quality, they seem to be flat and weak. Not enough boom and snap if you know what I mean.

The screaming is extremely irritating. Maybe crank some reverb and throw it in the back. I actually listen to some of this type of music and have played in bands where we did some monster screams.

I like the accoustic and singing at the end the most out of anything on the track.

I hear what you are going for, and I bet it sounds pretty good live, but you need to work on the micing and the miixng.

Overall I would give the recording a grade of C/C+. The song is pretty well thought out, and the parts are played well. The singing is a little nasally at times and very middy, but not bad.

P.S. I listened to the stream and the download.
 
undrgrnd studio said:
First of all. The guitar riffing has a very thin tinny sound. Not in a good way. It's sounds like all treble with a cheap distortion pedal.

The drums are lacking in sound quality, they seem to be flat and weak. Not enough boom and snap if you know what I mean.

The screaming is extremely irritating. Maybe crank some reverb and throw it in the back. I actually listen to some of this type of music and have played in bands where we did some monster screams.

I like the accoustic and singing at the end the most out of anything on the track.

I hear what you are going for, and I bet it sounds pretty good live, but you need to work on the micing and the miixng.

Overall I would give the recording a grade of C/C+. The song is pretty well thought out, and the parts are played well. The singing is a little nasally at times and very middy, but not bad.

P.S. I listened to the stream and the download.
Click to expand...

I agree with it
I feel that it looks like the drumer is verty far away from the rest of the band
I think it would be a good idea to boost up some of the low end frequencies around 100hz. That is really where all the "punch" is. Off course this is just a simple solution for this particular problem. Sometimes the best you can do, is to record the drums again
I think that the "raw" type of singing and production fits very well on the song
 
Alright, I listened to the streamed version at first while it was downloading and it sounded like ass. The downloaded version sounded ALOT better. Purevolume sucks. Myspace's streaming sounds a little better.

Snare drum is kind of annoying, needs a little depth to it, kind of sounds like cardboard right now. Kick drum isn't so bad. Vocals could be mixed better, singer is a little too upfront in the mix. I think I like the little swelling reverb scream like a minute into the song, that's kind of cool actually. Guitars sound very thin, probably the amps you used, I'm guessing 40 dollar distortion pedals through 1x10 practice amps? Correct me if I'm wrong. I can see you getting a lot better in time. It's not terrible, better then some of the recordings I did when I first started. But you will get there if you stick at it.
 
PlnsMstkn4Jacob said:
Alright, I listened to the streamed version at first while it was downloading and it sounded like ass. The downloaded version sounded ALOT better. Purevolume sucks. Myspace's streaming sounds a little better.

Snare drum is kind of annoying, needs a little depth to it, kind of sounds like cardboard right now. Kick drum isn't so bad. Vocals could be mixed better, singer is a little too upfront in the mix. I think I like the little swelling reverb scream like a minute into the song, that's kind of cool actually. Guitars sound very thin, probably the amps you used, I'm guessing 40 dollar distortion pedals through 1x10 practice amps? Correct me if I'm wrong. I can see you getting a lot better in time. It's not terrible, better then some of the recordings I did when I first started. But you will get there if you stick at it.
Click to expand...


That is one very precise input
I should make it clear cugga that when i complain about the drums is especially the snare wich lacks of power and depth
 
thanks for all the input. yeah i hear everything you guys hear too. this was just a first rough mix though so theres plenty of time to try and fix things.
the kick i didnt think was too far off ... ive already went back and tried to make it better tho.
the snare has pissed the hell out of me. im still screwing around with it. i was gonna leave it actually but from the response here i thinnk i can do better.
i'll lower the vocals in the mix ... they are pretty raw and would probably do better a little deeper in the mix anyway


i agree with the guitars too. ive only recorded electric guitar 3 times before this and its never turned out well, apparently i gotta keep practicin. i agree they sound like theyre all highs which gives them a disgusting hissy sound to them and no thickness or definition whatsoever.

anything i can do to save these guitars :confused: ????? (besides retracking which isnt an option cause the amp we were using died shortly after we finished recording) or should i just live with how they sound and hope to do better next time?

thanks again for all the help by the way!!
 
whats up,
I followed all the advice you guys gave me.
Compressed the overheads a littel more, made the kick punchier, fattened up the snare and brought it forward, put the vocals slightly futhur back, and spent almost a full day fixing the guitars. The guitars are defintiely the biggest improvement, and screwing with the snare made a big improvement too.
I posted the new mix on purevolume if any of you wnated to hear the changes and compare it to the old mix.
www.purevolume.com/theporticoproject
and ya u gotta d/l the mp3 if u really wanna hear anything
the old ones still up there too....

and thanks again for the help. i must have been on glue or something before to think it was sounding good, but i didnt notice the problems in the mix until they were pointed out to me.
thanks again!!
peace
 
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