Ah.. I botched the drum editing in the middle of the second chorus prior to the mid-8.. The fixed version is

https://app.box.com…

Thanks,

Ben.

Beautiful playing. The snare you are using is perfect choice. Sounds great with this song. The hats however sound a bit bright in relation to this mix but your programming of the drums sounds fine.

The compression breathing in this mix isn't something I would do. I'm not sure its what you've intended but I would fix that.

From a song POV, very nice song.

audiokid wrote:
Beautiful playing. The snare you are using is perfect choice. Sounds great with this song. The hats however sound a bit bright in relation to this mix but your programming of the drums sounds fine.

The compression breathing in this mix isn't something I would do. I'm not sure its what you've intended but I would fix that.

From a song POV, very nice song.

Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback! I attempted to tighten up the hihat with https://app.box.com…

Hopefully it sounds better? I’m not sure I follow with the compression breathing that you mentioned. Certainly didn’t mean to aim for any pumping effect in the sound if that’s what you meant? - thanks

Oh heck. I was about to type the. Read Chris’s comment and really weirdly, we clearly differ. Now I respect his opinions, so I’m quite happy that my view could be wrong. The very first thing I thought right from the first moment was that I didn’t like the snare. Not that it was bad or wrong, but sounded as if it was played in a different space from the rest of the kit. Maybe snares are things that certain people hear differently? I’d not thought about it before. So, I was going to say great song, apart from the snare? Assume I’m an idiot listener. Some might agree with that anyway, but with two respondents, what do you think? I found the snare  wrong and Chris found it right. We both picked the snare to comment on, and paid little attention to the rest. Is there something about the snare that makes it the focus of our listening? I really don’t know. Something about the snare made us both head straight for it, and then we liked/disliked it. This is very odd, and probably means that when you play it to thousands, it’s a risk. Two people is a rotten sample, but not what you expected, and not what we expected either. Usually we tend to all agree, so what has happened. Is it something to do with what we are listening on, or something else. I’ll listen again later on a totally different system and see if my result remains the same. It’s a great song, and apart from the snare sound quite typical, no issues I can detect, but there is a focus on the snare? How odd?

paulears wrote:
Oh heck. I was about to type the. Read Chris’s comment and really weirdly, we clearly differ. Now I respect his opinions, so I’m quite happy that my view could be wrong. The very first thing I thought right from the first moment was that I didn’t like the snare. Not that it was bad or wrong, but sounded as if it was played in a different space from the rest of the kit. Maybe snares are things that certain people hear differently? I’d not thought about it before. So, I was going to say great song, apart from the snare? Assume I’m an idiot listener. Some might agree with that anyway, but with two respondents, what do you think? I found the snare  wrong and Chris found it right. We both picked the snare to comment on, and paid little attention to the rest. Is there something about the snare that makes it the focus of our listening? I really don’t know. Something about the snare made us both head straight for it, and then we liked/disliked it. This is very odd, and probably means that when you play it to thousands, it’s a risk. Two people is a rotten sample, but not what you expected, and not what we expected either. Usually we tend to all agree, so what has happened. Is it something to do with what we are listening on, or something else. I’ll listen again later on a totally different system and see if my result remains the same. It’s a great song, and apart from the snare sound quite typical, no issues I can detect, but there is a focus on the snare? How odd?

Thanks for the feedback. Yep, that is a bit odd that two different people gave exact opposite views but yeah, I guess it could mean that something is up with the snare. I’m travelling right now but will have a further listen when I’m home early next week.

Some details on the drum programming, I used a program called EZDrummer. For anyone not familiar with this program, it features a number of drum kits typically geared towards different sounds (metal, rock, jazz, etc). Quite often in the past, I’ve gone with a custom kit that I made using the ‘drumkit from hell’ but with a snare from the progressive kit. But on this recording, I went the vintage kit because it sounded livelier somehow — more airy. But perhaps I should have stuck with my guns and gone with the custom kit that I’m used to working and mixing with… I do get rather obsessed with the drum parts. Like I can focus for hours on the levels of a single hihat hit.. anyhow, I digress. Perhaps I should try and get a real drummer on some of my future recordings!

Cheers,

Ben.

Interesting observation, Paul.

I never paid attention to the space of the snare but I agree with you on that. In fact, I think a lot of virtually produced music lacks a common acoustic space. People often use too many different reverbs in a song.

When I mixed as a business I always dedicated one reverb on the master bus so the entire mix sounds like it was recorded in the same space, all together (like a live band should sound).

I like this snare sample but fully agree about the the tight decay of it.

Hey Chris, Paul,

I've changed the virtualized drum settings a bit (snare, etc.) and have added an ambient mix reverb that I'm now sending everything though (including the drums) to greater or lesser extents (except the bass guitar - remains dry). The snare additionally has a small amount of plate reverb applied.

What do people think?

https://app.box.com…

I'm hoping that everything now sits better, especially the snare drum?

Thanks again!

Ben.

I never respond to posts with outside links to audio files for the obvious reason that the audio usually gets deleted and then our posts end up having helpful comments with no audio to compare to. If you post the audio here, I’d be happy to listen. 

audiokid wrote:
I never respond to posts with outside links to audio files for the obvious reason that the audio usually gets deleted and then our posts end up having helpful comments with no audio to compare to. If you post the audio here, I’d be happy to listen. 

Thanks -- I will create a new post. I'm not sure if it's a known issue but when trying to edit the attachment, the website errors, hence the external links :-)

cool, hoping you mean adding the audio file to this topic below, not a new thread? 

Are you not able to add an audio file to a new comment? 

audiokid wrote:
Are you not able to add an audio file to a new comment? 

Ah, sorry -- let me try that!

Done -- I'm an idiot; didn't realise I could do that! I'll see if I can delete the other thread (not sure if I can -- sorry for the spam!)

Cheers,

Ben

Sounds really good.