seeking constructive criticism

L

lansingxcore

New member
here's a couple of songs from a couple of bands.. i'd appreciate any advice on any aspect of the recording and mixing (i'll take mixing advice with a grain of salt!), and maybe what else could be done in the mastering stage to polish it up. although i must say, i'm not too keen on all this overcompression for volume. i like my music dynamic. anyway, here are the tracks, and i'll list equipment if anybody is interested... unfortunately, these are only 160 bitrate mp3's..

manatee attack

house of books

thanks!
 
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gee guys. i'm being completely ignored.. this stuff isn't crap, i assure you. i thought you guys would enjoy ripping a new guy's recordings to shreds. come on, i'd like to hear some criticism.
 
hey there,
i listened to track one....my first impression is that the snare drum is too prominent in the mix. The bass to me is a little burried. The whole bottem end is almost non existant to me. The bass drum has no thump to it. It sounds like your pounding on the door. I'm with you on the overcompression bit...this sounds like it's already too compressed to me. Kudo's to you for getting the vocals up front where they should be....most of the time they are buried also. the song sounds like it was recorded well, just need to get some eq working and better balancing on the mix and then i think it will come out ok.
hope it helps....
Jason
 
thank you, this is what i'm looking for. i agree with most of your points. i always have to coax bands into louder vocals, the bands i work with are just local kids for the most part, and they never seem to be comfortable with their voices.. listen to any professional cd, i tell them, and you'll realize that it's the vocals that hook the listener.

in regards to the snare, this was an unfortunate result of (gasp!) mixing through headphones. don't you worry, i've got my eyes set on some monitors.. i just need some money..

the bass was buried on purpose.. the bassist had just quit the band, and one of the guitarists begrudgingly filled in, but had no confidence in his basslines.
 
i'll have to work on that kick drum. is it maybe because i compressed it on the way in? the kick drum is actually the only thing i compressed besides the vocals. the overall mix is not compressed at all, nor were any other drums or the overheads. i have a parametric eq, but i haven't used it yet. any suggested settings for kick drum? right now i boost the low on my mixer board (60hz) on the resonant mic, and the high on my mix board (12k) on the batter side mic. i don't mix on a computer as of yet, i have to use old school rack gear and my mixer. also, i use relatively cheap drum mics for the time being (carvin, if you must know)..

thanks! any more suggestions anyone?

-john

(this reply is in two parts, by the way, because the php script this bbs runs on will always time out if my messages are over a certain length.. anybody know why? i see other people posting long messages. it won't work on my roomate's computer either.)
 
I thought the kick drum sounded like it could benefit from a better mic. I use a cad kbm412, and with the right eq I can get decent at best....

I like the sound of a 57 a lot more on kick than an inferior kick mic (like the one I've got), but I need the 57 for the snare drum, unless I'm just picking everything up with a mono overhead (cuz I've only got one suitable mic, and again it's low end, the mxl990......) Your overheads sound fine, it's mainly the kick that's lacking.... maybe add some slight roomy reverb to the snare if you can? snare sounds a little more "amateur mic in a garage" like the kick does, but not as bad.

Guitars sound fine, the drums are definitely the weak point in the mix, but being limited to cheap drum mics is hard to work with.

overall not too bad. especially since the performance itself isn't incredibly strong. There's only so much you can realistically do if it's not there to begin with.

edit: house of books definitely sounds a lot better, probably mainly because of the tighter performance and arrangement. Only thing I might try is bring the guitar out just a little bit more, but it's not too important to the song in this style, so it's not too far off, or maybe more guitar might kill it, who knows. just seems like it's a little under where I feel it should be at.
 
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