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So here goes guys I have never had any of my ideas heard like this on a public forum by fellow musicians so go easy k lol. This is a tune I made BUT I have done nothing with it in terms of mixing or mastering, freq cutting...the only thing done here is gain staging the tracks to about -23 DB. I read in a few articles that -23 is a good per track level to make your entire mix come out to about -12 to -15 DB with eventual mastering in mind. The energy carried in parts tells me that I recorded too hot in some of my guitar work and as my treble EQ band on my guitar was maxed when I recorded, all the energy and heavy peaking comes in the 2K to 5K range. So mainly what i am looking for is your guys' ideas about whether this song could be a workable mix or should I go back to the drawing board and record everything again. Is my mix too busy with 3 guitars? I can hear some of the bass drowning out when everything starts to come together in the end so I feel good about knowing that I can identify some of the issues with it but an educated opinion is what I am kinda looking for. Thanks for your time guys. I am new here but everyone has been awesome so far. Great forum :) http://cl.ly/1p2A1t363W0Z . sorry it's in MP3 so there will be some data loss but my cloud wouldn't allow the AIF file through due to size :(

Comments

RemyRAD Thu, 06/12/2014 - 20:09

I rather enjoyed listening to what you've done. You've done a nice job of recording. No need to cut anything again. You're ready to start mixing and manipulating. Your mix, not yourself. Keep that in the bedroom. Manipulating yourself.

Your slight loss of quality due to MP3 data compression is not of major concern. The integrity of your recording and technique still shines through, quite nicely. No problem there. You did good.

As far as your guitar sound goes... you've got options there. You've got a clean recording. So you can either plug in it up? Or, you can feed out that track via your computer audio interface device. And then you can re-amp the thing. With one or two different guitar amplifiers. With one or two different microphones on each one. All laid over to new tracks, in your audio software multitracked timelines tracks. And then you can start playing with time delay to create the Haas effect to give a feeling of distance and space surrounding the guitar amplifier. You can do that with virtually anything else as well. Sticking a couple of microphones in the bathroom with the speaker. Or the basement. The stairwell/ffire escape. It's all good. Just don't do it at 2 AM! 10 AM to 10 PM you're okay. Babies crying in the background makes for cute ear candy. And getting your guitar to feedback won't be possible without a live amplifier and microphone. If ya like that kind of thing? I do. Others do. Not always appropriate. Obviously not needed here.

You can also use cabinet emulation that comes in a variety of different software. It doesn't have to go through a real guitar amplifier and speaker. Not unless you need those feedback effects with nasty fuzzy sustain? That's like trying to bring someone back to life that has been dead for over a week. It won't work. You can try? We've all known there's more than one way to get feedback. You can either play it live? Or ya could make a really crappy recording and post it here and ask us what we think? Which you didn't do. You didn't give us a crappy recording to tear apart and shred you into spaghettivacation. Which I think only happens in Italy and Black Holes? And a couple of weeks off, from your furl time job. Or full-time, job?

What about the rest? Well that's entirely up to you. Don't muck it up too much. It's already good sounding. That's what real mixing is all about. It's not about the EQ. It's not about the plug-ins. It's about the mix. And that MIX is already basically good. But not quite sure, where you want to go with this? Or what you want it to become? It moved me just the way it was. Too much gobbledygook and ya lose me. It's a fine recording. It's not a beginner piece of crap. It shows talent, expertise and technique, already.

I'm sure you'll get a multitude of other suggestions from the other fine people here. All of which will be good. All of which will be valid. All of which is 100% subjective. I like recordings that sound like yours. They sound real. It's not a piece of slick horizontal stereo slather like so many others present. Which is also fine. That shows a different style. You've got choices.

Nice.
Mx. Remy Ann David

Mike Thu, 06/12/2014 - 21:12

I appreciate that it means a lot because I have never jammed with a band or anything. I was part of a band and we never got together the lead guitarist died before we started any kind of work and hit us pretty hard, we just dissolved. I love the funny comments haha ... ... no stairwells at 2 AM .. babies crying ... gotcha :) ... I really want to do vocals with my mixes but too shy to try myself lol.....as the songs take more shape I will start looking for a singer with some grit in the voice shout out some lyrics to it. 'shanks mang :) Cheers

anonymous Fri, 06/27/2014 - 04:08

"...So here goes guys I have never had any of my ideas heard like this on a public forum by fellow musicians so go easy k lol..."

We don't go easy. We go true. ;)

Drums are thin. Unless you've done this intentionally for effect, they are severely lacking in body, particularly in the low and low mid region.

The kick and snare sounds like one of those mini-kits that drummers sometimes use for practice.

You really need "body" to the entire drum mix. But, again, if thin and weak is what you were going for, then don't change a thing.

You've got quite a bit of mud in your guitar, and it's messing with the definition and clarity of the bass guitar. Consider rolling off the lows - use a hi pass filter, set your corner frequency around 200 - or so - you'll have to adjust accordingly. You don't want to kill any warmth or weight to the guitars, but right now they are spilling over into the freq ranges of the bass guitar... and it's effecting both in a negative way.

As a drummer, I'm not crazy about the half note strikes on the splash cymbal during the breakdown. It pulls away fron the guitars. It's distracting. It sounds like a count method to me... too metronomic. If you do need something to keep count during that breakdown, then consider a hi hat on the back beat, instead of that irritating splash cymbal on the downbeat.

Everything seems very "centered " to me, there's not much width here. Try panning some of these tracks, particularly the guitars, this can provide more definition and separation.

Don't go nuts and throw them 100% left and right. You'd be amazed at how much a difference of even 20% either way can make. You may also want to consider some short delay to one of the guitar tracks as well... you could have the dry guitar on one side and throw the delayed signal to the other side by a little bit. This can help to create a nice depth and width in terms of your stereo field.

I won't lie, this sounds like a beginner's mix. But, I've heard worse. Much worse. ;)

d/

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