the first song i've wanted to submit in a long time.....

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GONZO-X

GONZO-X

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it's called "Yesterday".

it's got my cheapo little casio going through a soldano sim, ha ha, and also features my taylor 414 and a borrowed Morley wah......

here's the link.....
http://artists2.iuma.com/IUMA/Bands/Trouble/

i need some mastering/mixing feedback/ideas....
 
The song is beautiful. I dig it VERY much. It's got that emotional and surreal feel to it.

Now, the mixing:

The drums sound a little distant, but in this kind of psychedelic song, it's not such a bad thing. I'm really tired, so maybe I can't find much to complain. The song is just simply great. The acoustic guitars are very nicely mixed, and I like the cymbals that start at 2:25. It's got that nice spacey thing going on. The acoustic middle part reminded me a bit of the ending of "Dancing with the Moonlit Knight" by Genesis. The solo guitars and rhythm guitars have very good tone for this kind of song. Very fitting. The only bad thing I can come up with, is the crowd noises, because they are obviously sampled, but they still can't ruin this great song.
 
Gonzo

Very nice work. Excellent composition for the tune, and since you didn't ask for feedback on the writing/arranging I won't tell you that the interlude at 2:25 sounds absolutely terrific, just a little too long.....

The stereo field sometimes gets too wide. I'm listening on cheap speakers at work and the vocals tend to be too far back and seperate. Narrowing the field could bring focus to the vocals without increasing their volumes.

Snare sound could get a little annoying since I really like the beat, and I think a little lower pad sound might be a nice fill between the base and guitars. Maybe a B3?

I've listened several times now and the song just gets better. Maybe with headphones the vocals' and guitars' stereo spread would be more "spacey" rather than seperate.

Keep the tunes rollin' Gonzo. This is a really nice listen, and I think I'm beginning to really appreciate the open space in the center of the mix. Did you listen to alot of Frampton?

Tim
 
I REALLY APPRECIATE THE LISTENS YOU GUYS!

CRANKY ONE-
i'm glad you "dig it"........ LOL.... it always makes me think of hippies when i hear that... i use it too.......

thanks for the critique. The drums, yeah, going into this thing, i decided that, rather than spend time trying to make my machine sound more natural (my typical m.o. is to take the quantize off, and spend a lot of time hitting the pads to get a natural feel, which is a pain in the ass!) i instead programmed a very obvious machine feel, going for a more industrialish vibe, and used some kit sounds that i normally wouldn't have gone for...... for effect.....
i loved old genesis.....
these guitars were miced cabinets, and i definitely came up with different tones than i've ever worked with before, and i think the more i go along, i'm going for "difference"......
the crowd noises, i picked that sound because it sounded very artificial, which was exactly what i wanted. i wanted that effect to be very non-human, and a touch harsh...... this was in keeping with the lyric content..... as if the crowd didn't even matter..... but was there non the same....
i played around with some natural crowd sounds, but it just wasn't the same effect....... instead i went with what actually is white noise, slightly chorused......

TTryon-
thanks for the comments. i hope you get the opportunity to hear this through a standard stereo at volume, it's a world of difference than through the little computer speakers...... the vocals were basically panned centered, with the harmony a little to the left or right, i don't remember now...... everytime i take the headphones off, i put em back on backwards! then i don't know my left from my right! LOL
the snare is annoying, it's one of those factory industrial kits, and if i had the ability to change out individual pad sounds, i agree with you, i would have...... but it's just a little zoom 123, no can do.....
i do a lot of compromising with that machine.....
in the headphones, this mix is really spacey, in fact, i would suggest that as the first listen.
i'm old enough to remember frampton with humble pie...... and i like frampton, but never bought any of his albums, but i did have a lot of humble pie!!
thanks tim.
 
Very cool, can only agree with previous comments, can't really offer any useful mixing advice. Liked it a lot, you've definitely created an atmosphere.

Jags
 
For the first time, I didn't read the other comments before typing

this is a very good song....I really like everything about the tune itself....something doesn't sound right to my ears about the sound, but that may just be the Mp3......I don't know.........I really like the song though.........didn't really care for the applause at the end....

definitely good tune...different sounding than what I've been hearing around lately..:cool:
 
THANKS A LOT PEOPLE!

i really appreciate the listens......

jags-
thanks for the atmosphere comp. that was the idea... the lyric had to impose a certain "atmostphere" for it to work at all....

i wrote the music before the lyric, and originally the music was called "devil game"........
i'm not sure why...........;)


mr. black.........

what a cool name. paranoid is one of the reasons i ever picked up an electric guitar........ LOL

glad you liked the tune. i'm agreement with you on the sound, something i didn't get right, either in the mix, or in the mastering.... and i can't figure out what it is, either.

i think maybe there's too much high end, which makes the mids sound scooped, which they're not.....

or the bass, i might have to much energy in the meat of the bass, and i just didn't compress it right or something......

that's my bass going into a tube mp (which i've since sold) and into a vs880ex into an amp sim........ i'm really wanting to pick up a sans amp bass DI for doing bass, sometimes i can dial in the sim, and sometimes i can't.......

either way, if you think you know of a particular frequency i should look at for eq'ing, i'd appreciate the insight.

the crowd noise.
you know, when i came up with the idea of it, i was only going to put it in here and there, barely in the mix, kind of subliminal, and after i did that, and listened to it, i didn't think it sounded rude enough....so at the end, i let it run over the ending, so it was obvious that it was a cheesy version of crowd noise, very fake, not even real....
i wanted it to bother the listener.
i think i succeeded!

LOL
 
First off the guitar reminds me of real early U2 and the harmonies are definitely straight out of the CSN archive. I think this song would absolutely ROCK with a big fat "When the Levee Breaks" kinda beat to flow along with it. And yes, that snare is the freakin antichrist. I'd ditch it pronto. It may need work, but this could be a great song.
 
hey Bri715-

thanks for listening.
i'll have to go back, and find some old U2 and CSN mp3's, and see just exactly what it is you're referring to.....

for something being straight out of an archive, i need to listen to what i didn't know i have stolen.....;)

yeah, i so REALLY dig the heavy "levee" type of drum breaks, and i actually played with some long back beat type of things when i was working out the drum programming, but nothing seemed to work as well with the bass groove as the faster thing...... plus, i wanted a real static drum groove, obviously machiney, so it would play out like a loop almost.. the snare, the "antichrist" snare...... LOL.... it just came with the patch i chose. i will never use it again, i promise!
 
Gonzo,

Perhaps I shouldn't have said "archive", just that there were some strong similarities in style. No slagging intended. ;)

After listening a few more times, I'm not as against the drum beat as I originaly was. The snare is still a little annoying. Maybe some of the following will help. I copied it from a post by Ausrock. Not sure if the original thread is still around, so I'll just copy in the EQ settings here. They've helped me some. I keep them on my desktop now as a handy quick reference.

FREQUENCY: USES:
50Hz
1. Increase to add more fullness to lowest frequency instruments like foot, floor tom, and the bass.
2. Reduce to decrease the "boom" of the bass and will increase overtones and the recognition of bass line in the mix. This is most often used on loud bass lines like rock.

100Hz
1. Increase to add a harder bass sound to lowest frequency instruments.
2. Increase to add fullness to guitars, snare.
3. Increase to add warmth to piano and horns.
4. Reduce to remove boom on guitars & increase clarity.

200Hz
1. Increase to add fullness to vocals.
2. Increase to add fullness to snare and guitar ( harder sound ).
3. Reduce to decrease muddiness of vocals or mid-range instruments.
4. Reduce to decrease gong sound of cymbals.

400Hz
1. Increase to add clarity to bass lines especially when speakers are at low volume.
2. Reduce to decrease "cardboard" sound of lower drums (foot and toms).
3. Reduce to decrease ambiance on cymbals.

800Hz
1. Increase for clarity and "punch" of bass.
2. Reduce to remove "cheap" sound of guitars.

1.5KHz
1. Increase for "clarity" and "pluck" of bass.
2. Reduce to remove dullness of guitars.

3KHz
1. Increase for more "pluck" of bass.
2. Increase for more attack of electric / acoustic guitar.
3. Increase for more attack on low piano parts.
4. Increase for more clarity / hardness on voice.
5. Reduce to increase breathy, soft sound on background vocals.
6. Reduce to disguise out-of-tune vocals / guitars.

5KHz
1. Increase for vocal presence.
2. Increase low frequency drum attack ( foot / toms).
3. Increase for more "finger sound" on bass.
4. Increase attack of piano, acoustic guitar and brightness on guitars (especially rock guitars).
5. Reduce to make background parts more distant.
6. Reduce to soften "thin" guitar.

7KHz
1. Increase to add attack on low frequency drums ( more metallic sound ).
2. Increase to add attack to percussion instruments.
3. Increase on dull singer.
4. Increase for more "finger sound" on acoustic bass.
5. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers.
6. Increase to add sharpness to synthesizers, rock guitars, acoustic guitar and piano.

10KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals.
2. Increase for "light brightness" in acoustic guitar and piano.
3. Increase for hardness on cymbals.
4. Reduce to decrease "s" sound on singers.

15KHz
1. Increase to brighten vocals (breath sound).
2. Increase to brighten cymbals, string instruments and flutes.
3. Increase to make sampled synthesizer sound more real.
 
THANKS FOR THE EQ PRIMER!

that's always good stuff to know, or at least be reminded of.
thanks for sharing that, i copied it down in a text doc......

my problem with individual eqing is, with my drum machine, it's all or nothing, no individual outs (damn cheap drum machine......)

but, hopefully it wont be such an issue in the future, i'll avoid those drum sounds.....

i've decided on a kit to use for a while, i'll post a new one soon, and hopefully i can get some feedback on the snare choice on that one..........
 
Pretty cool. The low end is a bit muddy. If you could give the instruments a little more room in the low mids it will probably have a little more punch. The guitars sound great.
 
hey tex, thanks for checking out the new tune.....

I AGREE WITH YOU, about the low end thing.... that's the problem.....

yeah, i think i've got a problem mixing, with using home stereo instead of monitors, and i'm not dialing in the low end where i know if i heard it, i'd be able to fix it.......
i did do cuts at 200 hz on just about all the guitars, keys, and voice....
i did rolloffs at 80 hz on everything, except bass and kick.......i cut at 200hz, boosted at 400 and 800 on the bass.....

the guitars are so easy..... just throw the mic on the cab, no eq, hit record.........

everything else is the bitch!;)
 
Having good monitors is the key to good tracks and mixes.

Having bad monitors is like taking a picture then checking the focus on a small, grainy print.
 
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