Still Me

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Tadpui

Tadpui

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This is another old song of mine that I wanted to give the royal treatment in my new setup. It was originally circa 2003, one of the very first songs that I recorded once I learned how to multitrack (and I hope to hell that the webcrawlers haven't archived that original version somewhere). 12 years later I'm in a different head-space, and I now realize how the lyrics come off as some sort of suicide note or something. But don't worry about me, I'm fine :) It was originally the last song of a concept album. This was born when I was listening to a lot of Sparklehorse. Actually, I think that I lifted the drum machine part straight off of Apple Bed.

Anyways, I'm finding that things are mushing together quite a bit on this one. Any suggestions about how to give each of the numerous parts their own little slice of the pie? I've tried some complimentary EQ of certain parts that share similar parts of the stereo field but that didn't yield much. How drastic do you get when you have a lot of different things that all need a little bit of separation?

Also I'm just exasperated trying to get a good bass tone. So fuck that. It sucks on this one.



1/17/2015: Mix #2


And the lyrics, since they get buried a few times:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/d0t6j7wbjee60ed/Lyrics.txt
 
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This is a fucking awesome song man. I think it's got a ton of potential! The mix sounds a little too mono to me. The instrument tones are all fairly dandy. Maybe some clever panning would make it sound a little more full. The vocals are very up front. Maybe set them back a bit. Pan out some of the other instruments and I think this mix will really come alive. Again very awesome track!
 
Holy shit man, thanks! I did a first pass at panning things more, and I think that may be the ticket to getting everything to stop sounding so congested. I was able to turn down the vocals because now there's more space for them, and the things that are now more off to the sides are shining through more. I'm gonna sleep on the changes that I made and fiddle with it a bit more before I post a remix. But really, that was some well-needed advice.
 
Pretty much agree with jndietz. I didn't think it sounded mushy. Frequency wise i wouldn't have picked any one thing stomping over another if that's mush. The guitars are pretty centered, maybe a bit of panning would help with separation and give the whole mix a bit more width. Bass tone wasn't so bad to me.

Personally i thought everything blended together quite well. I don't mind a mono-ish or narrow mix - it doesn't detract from a good song for me, and not everything needs a superwide 'artificial' stereo field to sound good IMO. Been thinking about the whole separation thing a bit lately, isn't mixing about mixing sounds together as much as it is about mixing them apart? - guess it depends on your perspective.
 
Stereo-wise, I think it was good except for the drums - they're way over to one side. Definitely a suicide note, though! :rolleyes:
 
I liked it. I'd like to hear the results of playing with the separation. And i'd like some more depth on the drums if thats possible. But overall , great tune !
 
Really good sounding guitars (lead and rhythm) and very nice vocal sound. I caught a pitchy note here and there.

Bass tone isn't horrible. But it's kind of mushy. Needs more definition - although there are spots where there fine note definition in it. It's just in the power sections where it goes wanky.

Drums sound OK. Cymbals are a wee bit wide - but that might just be me. Other people probably like it where it is.

All in all, not much to complain about. Good job.
 
I was skeptical at first upon hearing the intro, but it came together nicely. Great job man
 
Nice separation of sounds. Everything is rather defined.
I liked the vibrato on the strung out guitar notes.
You can really tell if somebody is actually decent at the guitar by their bends and vibrato IMO.

Not a fan of the snare sample.

You remind me of Radiohead a bit.
 
Hey - this is very cool! I like the quirky intro. Lyrics are cool.

Bass sounds a little better defined than on the last track maybe? I wish the snare had a more traditional rock sound once the electric guitars really kick in, but still that part is cool.

Stylistically, it actually reminds me of phish a little bit. Nice guitar sounds and I like the vocal parts a lot on that you've come up with on these last two tracks. :)
 
Yeah, it's very reminiscent of Sparklehorse in parts. They seemed to struggle to get a decent bass tone for a while too - the whole low end is MIA for large parts of vivadixiesubmarine... I like the songs on that record, but find the mix really unsatisfying to my ears.

This is a cool tune, and the guitars sound really good. I think the overheads are a bit loud and agree that another snare sample might be better?

I don't hear that the parts are too mushed together, they all seem to have their own space fine to me. I agree that the bass part isa little indistinct and could do with some more body. How are you tracking it?
 
Thanks for sharing this man. Quite an interesting song, in style and composition. Some thoughts:

-Intro is very intriguing, reminded me of the final track to Extreme's 'III Sides to Every Story' concept album
-The lead guitar tone that starts at 2:18 is most excellent. What are you running through?
-Vocals felt a little dry to me, but I believe in a different thread you were trying to get me to back off the verb because you preferred drier vocals (was that you?). This is purely subjective.
-Harmony vox are sweet. But watch out for sibilance when multiple vocals are singing at once. It wasn't horrible but did get some harsh s's in there
-Crash cymbals in drum kit were really narrow if not completely centered
-Bass tone itself was just fine, but the overall mix felt a little low end light

Overall this was really enjoyable, and it gets better on every listen. Thanks for sharing!
 
Thanks so much everybody! I waited a bit too long to reply so hopefully a couple of blanket thanks will do.

The drums seem to be a big sticking point, and I'll work on them today. My issue is that I have 2 drum sets going thru most of the song (acoustic set with traditional panning, and an electronic set panned mostly right). I think that the electronic kick and snare are coming through just enough to make the acoustic kick and snare sound weird. Maybe I should mute or turn down the elec snare/kick during the louder sections? Or EQ them so they get masked more while the acoustic set is playing?

Slate drums got a little weird on me with the cymbals. I think it may be triggering more than one cymbal each time, one left and one right. So I think it sounds like a single centered cymbal. I'll get to the bottom of it.

I'll see what I can do to get more definition on the bass, and try to turn it up without having it take over during the quieter sections.

Oh and Bryan: the first solo guitar was a Gibson LP Classic on the neck pickup through a Tube Screamer and into a Marshall DSL40 on the clean channel, cranked waaaaay up.

Thanks again everybody, your suggestions and comments are a big help.
 
Digging the tune, Tad.

I can't remember who, doesn't really matter, but someone said the drums were panned to one side, which I don't hear at all. They sound pretty centered to me. Maybe you re-mixed it since that comment was made.

Anyway, I like everything about the mix. Again, some of the earlier comments might have been about an earlier mix, but I hear nice separation and don't hear any cluttering at all.

The only thing I wish you could try would be to use a different snare sound when the heavy guitars come in. The snare has a bit of an old Boss Dr. Rythm sound to it, which actually works great for the soft verses. But when the "band" comes in, a bigger, deeper snare would work better, in my opinion.

Vocals are clear and sound great and I find everything plays together really well.
 
Thanks Rami, long time no see! Hope you're all healed up and rocking again. I appreciate the listen and comments very much.

Another thanks to everybody, you got me to looking into the drum weirdness. Turns out I had my overheads routed to a mono track (and all of my kit pieces to stereo tracks, less of a big deal). I hadn't noticed the "mn" and "st" markings after each of the SSD4 multi-output names. Now the acoustic drums are actually panned instead of straight up the middle. The "off to one side" thing was probably because the right-panned electronic stuff was pulling ears over there since everything else was straight up the middle.

Unfortunately this did mean that I had to totally remix the drums. I tried a couple of things to let the acoustic samples shine through more, being less affected by the electronic samples during the verses. Hopefully it sounds more like a drum kit and less like a Casio now :)

Here's the most recent remix. I have a few lip smacks to get rid of in the lead vocal but I didn't have any luck with the things that I tried. Are the drums sounding any better?

 
Tadpui said:
Thanks Rami, long time no see! Hope you're all healed up and rocking again. I appreciate the listen and comments very much.
Click to expand...

Thanx buddy. I had a detached retina, but that's not what kept me from being around. I just took a little break like I do every few months.

I will listen to the latest mix in a few minutes. I'm going in and out of my house right now trying to boost my car with another car. I'll be back in a few. :D
 
When the vocal comes in, drop the tinkly thing a couple dB - it's distracting. This one reminds me of someone I've heard, but I can't remember who, but I know they're damn good. For me, the biggest deal in this mix is that I think whatever you're doing with the vocal isn't the best thing for this mix. I'd turn it up way more. Put more verb on it maybe. The arrangement makes a big sound, but the vocal's got a small feel to it. I know that treatment sort of fits the vibe of the lyric, but I still think this tune would have more power if the vocal were bigger somehow.
 
I kind of take the position that this is the mix you had.....at least the revised one. I have zero suggestions to make on the mix. No buzzing, no noises, good songwriting. There's a sparseness there that you don't usually find in a mix. It's uncluttered, and the song reminds me a bit of the Beatles. Perhaps shorten the song down a bit.
 
MusicalSound said:
I kind of take the position that this is the mix you had.....at least the revised one. I have zero suggestions to make on the mix. No buzzing, no noises, good songwriting. There's a sparseness there that you don't usually find in a mix. It's uncluttered, and the song reminds me a bit of the Beatles. Perhaps shorten the song down a bit.
Click to expand...
I agree with all that. Definitely has a Beatles vibe to it.

I just realized it's called "Still Me". Until just now, every time I read it I thought it was "Silly Me". :D I have no idea why, but I might have to use "Silly Me" as a song title now. :D
 
Everything seems on point level-wise.. Personally, I'm not wild the kick sound. It's pretty big, loose and woofy and kind of takes over.. kind of Total Eclipse of the Heart-y. It catches me when the backing instruments kick in around 1:20, where it almost sounds like something swells in a hair early. Small nits.. in general it seems pretty well mixed. Nice job.
 
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