The Trap - New Mix

[Todzilla]

Colleagues,

Based on input received from Internet and analog sources, I've added a bunch of tracks and done a new mixdown of "The Trap."

I welcome all feedback, including the witheringly negative, before I submit this to American Idol...

 

[Whatmysay]

Great lyrical hook and nice to start with the Ch. Really love all the vocals and the processing on them. What is that you are doing in the inst, are you strangling something –sounds cool. My only issue is the rhythm section – because you have panned everything so far left and right to me the drums and bass sound like they are in a different place to the other instruments. Also the drums sound a bit thin. I would compress the bass some more and maybe double track the snare and foot to fatten them up.

Still it is a wild song with multiple hooks going on – American Idol would love it

 

[up-fiddler]

Nice work. I don't find the drums troublesome at all. I would take Whatmysay's advice and punch up the bass track a bit. I especially like the moderate use of the distorted guitar. It fits very well with the song. Your harmonies are tight as well. I'm not certain that Idol is ready for this one but there are a lot of folks who are. It has a sort of Flaming Lips feel to me. Nice effort.

 

[Todzilla]

Nice work. I don't find the drums troublesome at all. I would take Whatmysay's advice and punch up the bass track a bit. I especially like the moderate use of the distorted guitar. It fits very well with the song. Your harmonies are tight as well. I'm not certain that Idol is ready for this one but there are a lot of folks who are. It has a sort of Flaming Lips feel to me. Nice effort.

Flaming Lips?

OMG, I just wet me trousers.

 

[Todzilla]

Great lyrical hook and nice to start with the Ch. Really love all the vocals and the processing on them. What is that you are doing in the inst, are you strangling something –sounds cool. My only issue is the rhythm section – because you have panned everything so far left and right to me the drums and bass sound like they are in a different place to the other instruments. Also the drums sound a bit thin. I would compress the bass some more and maybe double track the snare and foot to fatten them up.

Still it is a wild song with multiple hooks going on – American Idol would love it

Thanks for the feedback. The only hard panning in the rhythm section is doubled guitar, although I think I know what you mean. The hard panning sounds better with the clean guitars in the chorus than the grunge guitar in the verses.

As for double tracking the snare, what do you mean? using Drumagog or some such triggering program to add a different layer of snare? I'm still somewhat old school in my production. I've done some kick triggering, but using the native Digital Performer plug-ins to do so was a bit ungratifying. The timing was not great and I just got to the point where I realized I needed to figure out how to mic drums better. Rationalization? perhaps.

Simon Cowell is still not returning my calls. Better go to phase 3 - Ninja celebrity stalk

 

[Whatmysay]

Tod I am even older school than that I mean just double track the snare and bass – so they sync perfectly and just compress the hell out of the second track – then bring the second track up under the first till you hear its presents, but that it doesn’t dominate the first. A health dose of mid- highs or high EQ on second snare track will increase attack or just a bit of mid for fattening. Play around with foot’s low EQ and decide if you want to really get the pedal or the fatter post hit.

May be it was just the head phones through my computer, but the l/r panned guitars didn’t seem to meet up in the middle and there was this thin alleyway – probably will disappear with a more evenly compressed and present bass. I know that there is a ‘don’t compress revolution’, but it hasn’t reached my little Hong Kong room yet – so I still compress the hell out of everything.

I think of it like building with square blocks with nice flat surfaces, as opposed to jagged edges. Then I when I mix they just stack up better – it is possible just a ‘phaser’ I’m going through

Beware Simon Callow he has mastered the ancient marshal art of ‘man breast manipulation’ no star knives can penetrate the excessive padding around his heart

 

[up-fiddler]

May be it was just the head phones through my computer,

I'm not trying to be mean when I say listening to music should be done with speakers. It's good to use headphones to reference monitor after the mix is nearly done but MOST of the time you probably ought to be monitoring with speakers. Long periods of time in headphones usually lead down the crooked path to bad mixes.
jm (and countless others) ho