My first real full band recording... bash it please.

[Skrasms]

I've generally been more into sound processing and design stuff than actual recording, but I finally put my equipment into recording and mixing for a friend's band. This is my first time recording more than one instrument at a time, and also my first time mixing, so keep that in mind. Please give me feedback on it, especially criticism. I thought it turned out decent for a demo, and the band was really happy with it, but I'd obviously like to get better. We had about 6 hours total for 7 songs, including recording+setup, and then I spent a long time on mixing learning how compression helped things fit together better, stand out more, etc. No EQ was used... at all... unless you consider the cable capacitance of 100 foot mic cable runs as a low pass filter. The band was recorded all at once and then vocal overdubs were done later.

3 mp3's are Take a Hike, Everybody's Girl, and Have Love Will Travel

Some things I'll point out really quick:
The band is 4 high school kids playing blues-y rock.
I used their amps (solid state 50 watt Fender and an equivalent power Marshall)
The weird muffled vocal sound in the background of Have Love Will Travel was the scratch vocals (they badly wanted to use a PA to have vocals while they played, and then decided to change the verse order up for vocal overdubs so it didn't mask well).
The kick drum sounds kinda floppy to me...
The vocalist moving around by the mic sounds really obvious to me (proximity effect), but he thought it wasn't bad enough to warrant a redo.

Help me with my weaknesses please.
Thanks.

[dougo]

Came out pretty cool. Perhaps the drums sound a bit low in the levels. Try some different eq on the snare. It has this boxy sound that doesn't do it for me.

have fun,
dougo

[psychicoctopus]

de-essing the vocals would be an improvement.

[Piotr]

Try mixing it with the drums on top, then the vocals and bass, then the guitars and then any other sounds. I was shocked at how the drums got lost in the mix behind the guitars and the vocals were way out on top. I would keep the vocal levels the same however.

Really work on getting the most out of your drum tracks and everything else should fall into place!

Excellent basic tracking, except the guitar amp should be more stereo, or roomy...

[workshed]

I agree with the above posts -- I think it sounds great given what you had to work with and especially with no EQ.

The big thing I noticed was lack of stereo field for the guitars. When I threw it into mono, it wasn't that much of a difference. I think with this kind of rock where you have definite lead and rhythm parts, hard panning your guitar tracks can make all the difference. The guitars could use some beefing up, IMHO, as well.

Vocals sound a little thin or maybe too up front. I know that sounds sort of contradictory, but it's late and I am thinking even less clearly than usual.

Overall, I doubt I could do as well on my first pass with recording a whole band, so good work!

[Stephen B.]

I pretty much agree with what has been said. I would add that I think some light reverb on the vocals would really help out. Not so much that your average listener would notice, just a tad would bring it all together a little better, I think. As for the guitar sounds, I think they are too saturated for this kind of music. It has been my experience that if you back off the front end gain it often makes the guitars sound heavier, especially when it is being recorded. All considered, it's pretty dang good for first full band recording. They should have probably rehearsed a little more (and nixed the drum solo).

[octobre]

the first guitar that appears in the first track sounds really flimsy. is there a way it could be beefed up some? maybe it's just a mater of bringing it up in the mix.

kick could use compression and i agree, all the drums can come up some. the vocals are sitting on top of, not in the mix right now. i prefer what you've done to having buried vocals.

[Skrasms]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback! It's giving me a lot of stuff to look into. I'm just now starting to get into EQ so that should give me a lot more options once I get it figured out, such as guitar beef. The band already has their finished mixes so I'm free to do all the experimenting I want to with the tracks.

As for the guitar sounds, I think they are too saturated for this kind of music.

Yeah, the saturation also made it harder to mix, I thought. One guitar was practically a solid block looking at the sound wave. Lesson learned, next time less gain on the amps (or maybe give them an amp that can't distort so much... that way they can turn it up as much as they want?)

Everyone has pretty much mentioned the drums should come up. I had them up to the point of hitting digital zero, even after some compression, so I guess I should look into a limiter for that kind of thing if I want to bring the drum levels up even more? Or just turn everything else down? I tried adding more compression, but adding much more made the compression itself really noticable, I thought.

Vocals sound a little thin or maybe too up front.

I think I hear what you mean. I think the sibilance combined with the compression (I rather squashed the vocals so they could compete with the white noise guitar) brought out some bad things. I'll try some de-essing and adding reverb to see how it sounds.

Try some different eq on the snare. It has this boxy sound that doesn't do it for me.

Yeah, the boxy snare has plagued all the drum recordings I've done so far (a couple different drummers/sets even). Any things to try in the future to help that while tracking? Mic placement hasn't helped much, but I haven't gone outside the cardiod-mic-on-batter-head box yet.

I think the harder-panned guitar idea is cool. I had some issues with the drum overheads picking up a LOT of one guitar, and not of the other, so it made a weird balance once I compressed. I was afraid it would sound weird with really dry guitar on one side and reverb'd on the other. Next time I'll pay more attention to the bleed while I track.

Thanks again for all the feedback so far! It really helps a lot.

[dougo]

Yeah, the boxy snare has plagued all the drum recordings I've done so far (a couple different drummers/sets even). Any things to try in the future to help that while tracking? Mic placement hasn't helped much, but I haven't gone outside the cardiod-mic-on-batter-head box yet.

Try the old sm57 on the snare for the next recording. On the recordings you've done patch in some eq and just have fun messin' with the different freq. until you find the one that reduces that honk-midrange sound.

Doug