Tear this mix/recording apart! (fixed the link)

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:11 pm

http://files.filefront.com/Travis+Leming+Branch+Auewav/;9633226;/fileinfo.html

This is my first mix and recording as a student interning at a studio down in Santa Ana California, being the awesome community this forum is, I was looking for some constructive criticism, thoughts, or whatever.
It's literally a one man band. A friend of mine currently studying as a music theory major wrote this song and wanted me to bring it to life. The sound of the song was very muse-e to me, which coincidently was one of his favorite bands. So I gave absolution a listen through to get an idea of how everything was pieced together. I noticed they had huge roomy drums, but they still left room for everything else going on in the mix. So I heavily compressed the snare, overheads, etc, but left the room mics alone to get that natural sound.
He also wanted it to keep a kind of prog-metal clarity to everything, much like a dream theaterish sound. So I felt if I gave vocals an undistorted center stage, and overall control of the song, it would give him an equal balance of the two elements he wanted to combine.
I put a little but of compression and distortion on the base to grit up the bottom end, which in retrospect might have made the low end a little too murky, what do you think?
I should also add that I didn't have the luxury of a nice studio, in fact, it was done for the most part in a garage with a bunch of 57's and two Chinese ribbon mics.

Hope to hear from you guys!
Sorry for the huge file size too, I hate losing clarity in mp3's m4a's.s
~Alex Kavli

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 8:59 pm

Heres the thing.

There are far more qualified persons here @RO that can tell you to scoop something from this freq to that freq, maybe some de-essing, drums seem a bit dry, your M and S is in a mess and stop slurring those vocal notes then I can.

I do construction...what do I know from on axis to out of phase.

But I like this.

I listen to tunes from many different spots on the web e v e r y day, day after sometimes never ending day...this is a well played and thoughtful piece of work.

Somebody stop me...I'm gushing!!!

Suspended Joined: Oct 09, 2007 Posts: 33

Wow. I like it a lot... sounds very full, you did great job with stereo placement. What is that reflection panned to the left? Vocal delay? Sounds good... I like the how you tucked in the backup vocals too. As far as criticism goes, there isn't really much to say... it's a little middle range heavy, but that doesn't really matter... I like the song too! It's like Muse mixed with the Dave Brubeck Quartet with a hint of exoticness!

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 6:42 pm

StereoBoxJosh wrote:

Wow. I like it a lot... sounds very full, you did great job with stereo placement. What is that reflection panned to the left? Vocal delay? Sounds good... I like the how you tucked in the backup vocals too. As far as criticism goes, there isn't really much to say... it's a little middle range heavy, but that doesn't really matter... I like the song too! It's like Muse mixed with the Dave Brubeck Quartet with a hint of exoticness!

I have a delay setup on the vocals, a little more noticeable in the pre-chorus and chorus. Full right being an eighth note delay and full left being a quarter note delay.

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 7:59 pm

Not my thing but very very good. Keep working it until you are happy and then work it some more.

Very, very good!!!!!!!!!!

A lot of good stuff going on, interesting rhythms, good vocals, maybe a little more melody from a horn or even percussion instrument, something.

Overall excellent.

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:09 pm

This isn't bad.

The number one issue I have is the amount of sibilance on the vox. You would benefit greatly from the use of a de-esser.

And the hat is kinda swirly from right to left.

This is a .wav file, isn't it?
There's some MP3 type of swirliness in there.
Very strange, phasing on the OH mics possibly...
How did you have them set up?

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:52 pm

Overheads were two 184's near coincident, about 6 inches apart from each other, 90 degree angle, and just about 6 feet off the ground. I had a 414 on the hi hat that I had slightly panned to the right to give it a more stereo effect when he was mashing it when it was open. Perhaps this was unorthodox?

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