two songs - need constructive criticism please =]

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 2:00 am

www.myspace.com/zebrasandfirecrackers

been studying recording for a while at the local college with a strict teacher so i'm used to criticism. let me have it...

there's two songs (rough mixes) of my band up at the myspace listed above... the second one is definitely lower in volume because i haven't had time to compress it and raise the rms.

i've found my band is unbelievably hard to record... partly because im not the greatest drummer, and because my guitarist has a wicked gross sound which he is in love with. not to mention, a rookie singer. either way, no excuses... i've done my best and could really use the help and knowledge of everyone on this forum.

let me know and thank you so much in advance.

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 8:26 am

"i haven't had time to compress it and raise the rms."

That's okay, I'm not so fat I can't use a volume control.

"wicked gross sound"

Two negatives make a positive?

I listened to DNA, it's alright. Got an interesting sound, although you are not getting much projection with the drums. I don't get whats so special about the guitar tone, it's not wicked but it can be gross. So are the lyrics, where did they find your DNA, what were you doing around 8pm last Saturday? It was you that done it. Own up.

City's Only Rave was a much better listen, you could hear intensity in the drumming. Sounds like you were leaning into it. You drop the beat a couple of times but I wont hold it against you until I rewind and listen again... Probably wont though.

All in all the "City's" track is much better.

I get a lot of swirling phasing stuff which just sounds pox coming through the myface player.

It seems like you're having fun and you are definatly making some songs and getting "out there" keep at it, just keep at the grindstone, head down and metronome on.

Rock on.

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:01 pm

ok... so, any suggestions on what i can do to the dna song to make it, hrmm, more listenable?

as far as the drums not "projecting" in the song i hear what your saying. not sure how to fix it other than some eq adjustments and raising up the volume. any suggestions here?

i think the problem for me (when recording) a lot of times is not knowing exactly how to fix things i hear. as a drummer my biggest problem is timing. i'm thinking on trading in my dw kit for an electric kit and some new microphones. no use having a $2k kit with crappy mics and a player who can't play in time, ey?

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:33 pm

You got feel, I dunno about trading the kit away, especially not for electronic drums.

DW make nice gear and I can hear that you have some feel.

Maybe go into a professional studio just for half a day, not the worlds best just multi-tracking with the studio kit. Find an engineer who can maybe explain how to tune a kit for mic'ing.

Re-record everything a million different ways, that way you learn and maybe stumble across some gold.

At least you guys can write and play songs... I can't remember what I played four bars ago let alone yesterday.

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 12:58 pm

thanks. i just got a job in the recording lab at school so hopefully i will be able to record using the gear there from now on. i just have trouble staying in time, especially on the slower songs. it would also be nice to have a stereo image for overheads =]

as for the dw kit, im not sure what i want to do about them... i was thinking since i don't play very many live shows, i could use my pacific kit and hold on to the dw snare. it would also be nice to practice with an electric kit at my apartment and utilize the metronome. it's always been a dream to have a dw kit, but i cant even afford a sm57. for the two songs you listened to the kit was mic'd using an $150 audio technica drum mic set and one not-so-versatile omni-directional behringer microphone for the overhead(s). i used the snare mic for the guitar amp and the kick mic for bass amp. i've done a lot of recordings of solo stuff messing around with manufactured drum sounds and the sound comes out ten times better. im not sure if this is because of those drums or if it is just a lot easier for me to record music that has a "clean" sound. maybe a combination of both...

if you want to hear what im talking about you can hear some of my mess around recordings at:
http://www.myspace.com/thejoshandcamshowmusic

it's just i've been struggling to get that "studio" sound, especially when i mic up the drums / guitar. this website has been a tremendous help and, well, hopefully through trial and error ill get somewhere.

thanks again for your responses.

Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 1:23 pm

eatmyshoes wrote:

as far as the drums not "projecting" in the song i hear what your saying. not sure how to fix it other than some eq adjustments and raising up the volume. any suggestions here?

How about compression? If you have individual drum mics, smash the snare to death. You should have enough bleed that you can't over do it. And bus the whole kit and apply some parallel compression.

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 12:55 pm

when you say the whole kit, do you mean the overheads as well or just the "meat" ??

I always worry about the swishy effect when compressing cymbals.

Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 1:08 pm

eatmyshoes wrote:

when you say the whole kit, do you mean the overheads as well or just the "meat" ??

I always worry about the swishy effect when compressing cymbals.

It depends on how fat and dominant you want the drums. Try just the kick snare and toms to start. Some times I don't do any on the kit, other times I bus the whole thing. New York style parallel. If you keep the attack and release at moderate levels you should be good.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:32 am

I like the style; The recording is a little rough I must say. Whenever I have been recording, with intent on the public hearing, I was all about perfection.

Some of the guitar leads seem a little sloppy or even off tempo. But the music, it's catchy. Your drums sound a little flat. I am listing to DNA, and the whole recording almost sounds flat, like you might need to EQ it differently.

Also, on a side note:

You said you had problems with recording?
What order did you go in while recording?

If you did drums first, that might have been the problem. (I only say that because for some reason my friends liked to record drums first.)

I suggest finding the tempo of the song, tracking the guitars, synth, and then drums. Then once you have a pretty good mix of all of those, throw on the vocals, then do a final mix. Followed by mastering etc.

But all in all, I like the feel of the music, and like others have said, rock on.

Andrew

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:28 am

"I suggest finding the tempo of the song, tracking the guitars, synth, and then drums. Then once you have a pretty good mix of all of those, throw on the vocals, then do a final mix. Followed by mastering etc."

Who do you think should find the tempo of a song? The drummer or the guitarist?

Please say the metronome.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 9:53 am

i would def. agree with mister Greener, there.
you should almost never record with out a metronome/click track. while you may be able to get away with it playing live (people don't notice the speed ups and slow downs as much...cause they don't have a chance to listen to the songs over and over again), don't go with out it on a recording. it will help all the musicians sound tighter

but...from my personal experience, i would have to disagree with Andrewismism in that i found that tracking the drums first is always easier (atleast for me).

Here's why- the drums (whether hopefully to a metronome or not) are drive of the song. it's much easier for a guitar player to follow a drum track than for a drummer to follow a guitar track. drums are more dynamic than a guitar, -you can anticipate when a drummer is building up to something or when he's gonna hit the next beat. that way it's easier to nail that chord change right with the kick.
as a previous drummer (i now play mostly guitar) i know it can be a very rough situation to stay right on time with just a rhythm guit. track. it can turn into a big sloppy mess.

sooo my suggestion would be to track drums to a click first. then the other instruments can follow the feel of the drums. you'll get a more natural result this way.

only a suggestion / opinion, though.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 12:43 pm

Greener:
Sorry for leaving that out, I most definitely meant the metronome/click track.

I also only suggested tracking the guitars first because I've heard that it's easier to play drums to guitar, but I not being a drummer, don't know for a fact. So I guess just do whatever happens to be easiest for you.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:58 pm

"So I guess just do whatever happens to be easiest for you."

+1

Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 3:05 pm

thats understandable. I've always wanted to try to and record the drums with the guitar and bass tracked to a metronome. It's hard for me to play along with just a click. I suppose maybe the solution is in both answers for me. Perhaps I could get the guitarist and bass player to do a rough "in time" track with the click and then after i record the drums (in time) they can re-record everything flawlessly. This way, we all benefit from hearing each other while recording and it should add some "life" to the mix.

As far the recordings sounding raw, they were very raw.

we had one overhead mic and everything was recorded in my friends shed in his back yard. hehe =)

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