work in progggrrresssssss........

  • Thread starter Thread starter mbuster
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mbuster

mbuster

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My ears are fried. I have been pissing around with this for too long. I'm making it worse.
Anyway, here's the scenario. I finally got my system up and running satisfactorily. This is my first Sonar project. It all started as a way to find my way around Sonar to get my feet wet. So began the obsession. I was laying tracks, playing around, enjoying myself, for the first time in months. I waited around all day at work, all evening at my other job, came home just in time to eat some dinner and kiss the baby goodnight. Ahhhh, 9:30. an hour and a half to record per night. sleeeeeep. Thats how this odd conglomeration of tracks came together. It wasn't a song I had written, It just kind of put itself together a little at a time. While trying to get a decent mix, I have gone through so many damn CDR's with ONE song apeice to try out different settings on different systems, I'm cosidering buying them by the gross. I think it gets worse every damn time. So I converted it to MP3 to let you guys help me. call me crazy but it sounds completely different depending on whether I play it back with WMP, Jukebox,Goldwave, or Sonar. I think I'm deaf now. I need direction. There's no vocals as of yet because I want to get the music sounding right first. I cant find my happy place. I cant hear anymore. Please help me. Please.:confused: :( hmm. In case you're wondering why this is so long, I'm waiting for this albatross of an MP3 to upload and I can't post this till it's done. Sorry.song 1
 
Killer tune......mammoth even.First off it has a lot of mud to it.Sounds like you need to roll some lows/lower mids off of the guitars for sure.There's not a whole lot of stereo seperation.The high stuff on the guitar a the 53 second mark could be a little louder and more defined.......the lead guitar lines at 1:12 could stand to be more defined....LOUD POP at 1:35.

The drums sound pretty good and have good seperation.Cool breakdown at 2:08.

I think the muddy guitars are the biggest problem with this mix.The low mids on the guitars are burying the Bass guitar to the point that it has no definition.Im listening on WMP btw if that helps at all to know that.

Another LOUD POP at 3:28.


I think if you focus on fixing the EQ on the guitars it'll sound a 100% better.

Just my opinion of course.

I Really enjoyed listening to this 4 times.

[edit to add]The volume level of this mix didnt reach the normal 0db level.I had to crank the volume to get it up to a listenable volume compared to most other mp3's or commercial CD's.
 
the guitar lick is cool as hell ....drums sound prety damned good....but i cant hear any high frequency much ....i mean at all....like the mix was done as"bass master"..??...the song is fucking great ...tho...wheres the lyrics..???....come on man you cant post something this cool with no words........






can you...???

jamal
 
Thanks for the listen, guys. Yeah, the muddiness. When I try playing it on WMP it sounds a lot muddier, too. Do me a favor and try it on Jukebox or something else and then tell me. When I do that it sounds much clearer.Is it just me?I think those pops you are talking about are me getting out of hand with the Bass guitar. I'm planning on retracking that tonight with a little more meat so you can actually tell what the bass is even playing. Aside, from the muddy guitars,( which I totally agree with,) The thing that bothers me most is the crashes. I don't want to tell you how much time I've wasted fooling around with those. It makes my heart sad that I'm not getting any better. Thanks guys, keep 'em coming.
PS no words till song is right.
 
Man those overheads need to come way out more in the mix. It lacks highs a lot. Bring the cymbals and hi-hat and ride out lots more. I realize these drums are canned but, they are too low in the mix.

Nice guitar playing and tone though.

Beezoboy
 
oh,, your gettin damn better dude.. this is a kickin ass piece for damn sure. I love it, especially the wide counterythym the guitars are doing off the drum kit. Like they said there`s a few pops in there, maybe a stray max velocity on kick or the bass. The low mids need to come off the guitars and open the top end a little for them. That would let you open the higher bass freqs and some snap on the kick drum maybe. I'd like to hear that bass grinding right alongside that front guitar and the 2nd. That would be massive.. I really like this. You already said you`d like to bring the h/hat out more and the crashes.
 
Didn't get a chance to mess with it last night, but now I've got some direction at least. Thanks a bunch guys, I was so burned out on the song i couldn't even trust what I was hearing anymore, but now I have high hopes for this weekend. If my woman and my baby girl let me that is. They get jealous of the headphones, man.
 
Yeah a real nice start to a song. Needs melody and words. But the tracks that are laid down now allow for endless possibilities. Good start. Good guitar parts.

The mix seems a bit quiet overall. The pops at 1:35 and 3:28 almost sound like someone hit a mic. Hey - it didn't sound muddy on my $9.98 Walmart headphones. :D:D:D

Again, this could develop into a pretty good piece. Keep adding. Good job.
 
You already know about the pops. Maybe careful automation could fix those. To be honest, when I get pops I retrack.

I think Kramer is right about the guitars and bass. I think that's where your mud is coming from. Try to seperate them with eq. I'm listening on iTunes and it does sound muddy.

This is a preference thing - I'd like to hear more snare.

As for the song and arrangement - wow! Very unique mix of modern and classic rock sounds. Great playing too. I like this a lot and am anxious to hear a remix.
 
I spent some time on it last night, and took out a lot of those lo-mids on the guits. just doing that really helped bring out the crashes and hi-hat, but I brought them up a bit as well. This morning I'm going to Re-track the Bass part, but I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out what kind of sound I want to use. I should have the updated file posted by this afternoon. Thanks everybody.
 
Thats a HELLUVA sweet rhythm... love it!! "Juke-Joint Jezebel"... or something even cooler. Guitars sound great for the most part... great beginnings of a song. This needs VOX of course... drums do sound pretty good; cymbals are a bit weak. Are they on their own tracks? Is there a way to isolate them to their own tracks? If so, you may be able to compress them a bit for level.

Great changes & guitar flavors. TOOL-ish. Love-ly. Great pickslides! Great playing.

The unclear-ness on guitars may also be your reverb settings. A longer pre-delay may do the trick. Have you quadrupled the guitars? If so, try just a single pair of guitars.

In the heaviest parts, the snare sound isn't quite brutal enough (IMO). Needs something more smashy-smashy. Or you may possibly try doubling the snare/delaying (slightly). Chorus does the trick sometimes, too.

Will be a great rock guitar thing when done....

As g likes to say, "hurry up man!! :D"


Chad
 
I've been messing with this damn song all day long. I'm getting burned out again. My goal when I started was just to re EQ some stuff and re-track the bass. I ended up changing the entire bass line for the majority of the song. Then once I had it written kept screwing up while recording it, and for some reason, I like to do my bass tracks all in one take, so I keep starting over. I've got it now, anyway. But you see, I've been working with the EQ FOREVER. I just can't get it right. Actually I had it sounding "great" (to me at least) but then when I export and go through all my dithering and converting it just sounds so shitty. especially on WMP. Whats that about? It's like when I play the MP3 on WMP it sounds like it's running through a compressor that keeps slamming the levels down on all the peaks and it's wikked muddy. It doesn't do that on other players. Plus I can't seem to get my overall volume level up there at all. I'm about to give up for the night and go bang my woman. I'll try again tomorrow.
 
By the way, good idea for the snare Participant. I'm definitly going to play with that tomorrow.
 
Ok. the newest mix is up now, use the same link, called song 1.2.
Still sounds bad on windows media player. Can't figure out the deal there.Otherwise, sounds better to me at least. I've got lyrics in mind, but I'm no singer. This will be my first attempt at recording my voice. virgin waters, man. If you guys have any more suggestions mixwise, I'd love to hear 'em. Of course once I get the vocals recorded I'll have to start back at square one with the mix i suppose.:rolleyes:
 
Sounds a TON better to me even on WMP.A heck of lot more clarity in all of the guitar parts.Killer tune.
 
Thanks fellas, I tried the vocals tonight. Didn't go well..........
 
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