Somemore rockart i need critiqing:Bass2low?Plugined the thing to death? Its a groover

[William Choi]

heloow, There is a song I have at
http://www.mp3.com/willchoi/
its called Ciircalsprint.
I was hoping someone could tell me how the bass sounds to them. I basically plugged my bass into my ART TUBE MP>RNC>MIXER>PC>
then I really did a number on the DSP.
I used a the Revalver plugin to simulate an large amp and some room res. And now it sounds really heavy.
I've never tried this on any of my other recordings and I hope someone could tell me how it sounds to them.
THannks,oh and to keep this post within criteria:
I play somewhat contemparary art rock if thats a genre.
Some rock opera,heavy guitar and vocal productions.
Influences are Queen,Pumpkins,Beatles,Floyd
and BTW, I snagged and looped a drum section from ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL.

 

[drstawl]

Nice job. 3 thumbs up!

First off. Fantastic changes there.
Those toms around 2:00 were my kind of beats.
As to your bass quest- I think I see (or hear) what you're griping about. The thing is low, sure enough and strongly present in the mix, but lacks percussive reinforcement.
Hey I just made that up!! Sounds pretty cool, eh?
In other words it's sort of mushy.
What the bass line needs is the drums (or any other instrument for that matter) to add a sharp, thumpy line that doubles the rhythm pattern that the bass is doing.

 

[pglewis]

Objectively, the mix is pretty muddy. I agree with drstawl about some low end percussion to help "define" the bass line a lot. There's also a lot of sounds fighting to be heard in the lows and low-mids... I think that's what's creating the muddy feeling. I know you were stuck mixing on headphones before, have you been able to set up a better monitoring system yet? Monitors would make a world of difference.

I usually try to keep the subjective stuff to a minimum, but I like your stuff too much for it not to be a factor. 1984 and Emerald i are brilliant, IMO. You're a great producer and musician, and you're that close to having the engineering side down. It gets tough to give "advice" when you're a fan.

 

[gibs]

I loved this tune...the vocals are particularly sweet...but I echo what drstawl and pglewis about the mud....good writing!....gibs

 

[37point5]

ReValver

William, this is once again amazing. I'm a fan, too; I've got a few of the songs from your mp3.com site (especially Emerald i) in heavy rotation on my Winamp player.

Not much to add mix-wise, except that ReValver is a monster plugin with WAY too many options . I mean, I look at the presets, and they have like 20 modules stacked up, and I have no idea what each one does. I've started making combos from scratch; I'm not too keen on the drastic sound changes the room simulations make, and a lot of the presets are loaded with those or are too mid-scooped for my tastes. But, the thing has many possibilities, is cheap, and sounds great when used well.

My only tip for using this thing is that if you're going to use the room simulations, try out a bunch of different ones, because they alter the sound drastically. I'd recommend not using them at all, though, especially on bass, because they'll muddy it up just like any reverb will.

A few side notes and questions: 1) Are you still using the Rode/MP combo for vocals? They sound great. 2) What echo plug-in are you using for vocals? 3) I figured out that the swirly wooshy effect we talked about from Emerald i works with all of the mic and gear-simulating Acoustic Mirror impulses; for some reason the program can't process stereo files correctly in certain cases. Weird, huh?

Ryan

 

[William Choi]

Man, you guys always make things much clearer for me. YALL ROCK.

dwstawl: I think the bass does lack percussiveness. I had that problem when i first recorded the original track.Maybe its the way i set my compressor. But its always never right when I do it,so I keep it at a 1:6 ratio or 1:4 just to tame it and I do a RCL compression from Waves plugins to boost it. I use their preset for a bass track and tweak it to my liking. but i think its more of the case of my original compression from my RNC.Perhaps maybe i really need a good Bass EQ? External? maybe some fine tweaks will give it more clearity. Ever find EQ to be the cure for percussive sickness?

pglewis: I finally got a pair of Sony MDR7506ers. I love it. Love to use it all the time. Which is probably my problem. I should have gone back to the AKG 66ers(or whatever) and checked out the mix on that. Not that it would have been the solution. I think my problem is not having enough time and patience to really monitor the mix downs on a veriety of sound projectors(speakers,monitors..whatever). I just get caught up in the actually level mastering. Not realising that i should put more time in listening to the frequence dynamics. ...only because i find that its the hardest part.

gibs: THanks! You've made a point stronger.

37point5: Yeah, I noticed,too, how large the present collection is in Revalver. I will definitely recheck and double check the room sim. I found it very colouring. And quite possible another large factor for my muddyness.
1)Yup, still using the RODENT/MP combo.
2)For this particular song, I used a reverb plugin from TC Essentials 2.0. IMHO, its one of the most coolest packages I've got lately. The reverb is just amazing. And there is this Modulator which lets you do random modulating...the only way i could describe this feature is by the song from THE WHO, called THE RELAY. I think its a popular song. I think its either a vintage pedal hooked up to a synth or its just built into their organ. I don't know much about organs but it sounds like they hooked up one to a distortion pedal,then to whatever their modular was. Maybe it was a Microsynth for guitars. its the oldest pedal i know that creates synth like sounds(although I've never really seen or heard anything from it other than some rave reviews)
3) Im dont rememeber whether or not it had problems doing stereo files before. In anycase, try using Soundforge to process it. It usually works better when Sonic Foundry uses its own.

 

[37point5]

William,

I'll check out the TC reverb; I've heard other good things about it. I'm still figuring out how to use all of the nifty effects in Hyperprism, though, so it might be a while before I get around to it.

I was listening to "Harmony Follows Unity" again and noticed you used a lot of delay on the lead vocals in some parts. What delay program was that?

Regarding the Acoustic Mirror wooshy effect: what I meant was that it's Acoustic Mirror's inability to correctly process stereo files with certain impulses that causes that effect. Try that one impulse on a mono file and it doesn't make that effect. It's a beneficial bug in the program.

A tip for mastering: you should seriously look into getting Steinberg's FreeFilter. I use it on every mix while mastering (before the limiter/compressor). It lets you capture the EQ curve of any song you think sounds good and then it morphs the EQ of your song to fit that EQ curve. Kinda like what Acoustic Mirror does, except with EQ, not impulses. So, basically, it's a quick and very effective way to do all of your EQ tweaking during mastering.

Keep up the great work!

Ryan

 

[pglewis]

If you get some monitors you'll be dangerous. I'd save the phones for dubbing and spot checking, personally.

DL'ed "Harmony Follows Unity"... man, that kicks ass. You really had that Lennon thing going on in spots.