Losing all perspective....are my mixes ok?

[twitchmonitor]

I feel pretty good about the songs I write in general, but I have a feeling that my mixes aren't doing them justice and over the weekend a long lost friend dropped by and confirmed my fears (one of those brutally honest types, you know). I've posted a handful of the most recent stuff I've done and I'd love for you guys to give me some feedback. Brutal honesty is a prerequisite. These are all tracks done at home with my digi001, with me recording, singing and playing everything. All tracks are originals except one which is a cover (point to the first to guess it and who's song it is). Since I work at home, I pretty much keep everything in a working state, so I imagine I"ll be tweaking these tracks now and then, when I get some perspective. But can you guys pick out any problems that you notice across all tracks? What's sucking the life out of my tracks?

you can find them at:

http://f1.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/lun ... 3s&.view=l

or if that doesn't work:

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/lunarlander76 and just choose "mp3s"

NOTE: these links are now WORKING!!

Thanks,
David.

Update: All songs work now and "Paranoia" has been replaced with a more recent version (hopefully better...)

[greenmeansjoe]

Your links aren't totally working. I can follow them, but there's nothing showing up once I get there.

You can't open your Yahoo briefcase to the general public unless you pay a small monthly fee.

Did you do that?

Joe

[helstab]

Everyone is always skimpin on the webspace. Just pay for some... you will use it.

[twitchmonitor]

dang. I knew that seemed too easy. OK, i'll go pay for some space, gimme a sec...



....OK, that wasn't so bad. 50 mb for 3 bucks a month. Even I can afford that. I don't know how long it takes yahoo to process the order, but I'm guessing it's pretty quick, so go ahead and give it a try now. (it's now 1:45 pm pacific time).

[Bear]

Links work fine now.

First of all, David, you've got some excellent sounds there. The beginning of "Quite like you" is friggin' amazing. Love it. The song is my favorite of the bunch (sorry, if that's the cover song you mentioned). I like the murky drums and fuzzy synths a lot. As a mix, I'd make the acoustic guitars more prominent, because they add a lot of rythym, which compliments the beat. Other than that, though, I dig the mix. It's sometimes muddy and sometimes chaotic, but both of those really add to the sound of it. Also, that breakdown in the middle with the turn tables was fantastic. Very little to complain about.

I like how the toms on "Bubbles in my Beer" are all over the place. Adds a lot. But I'd say that the choruses are lacking. It feels softer there, where it should feel "harder," for lack of a better word. Try adding a really fast tamborine, or something that would pick up the pace some. It needs some "oomph." Also, the snare sounds a little dull. You might try eq-ing them a little more. Otherwise, Sounds pretty good.

I really like the trashy mix of "Try." Admitted, I have a thing for trashy recordings. They just appeal to me for whatever reason. Granted, I can't understand a word you're saying, but in this case I'd say it's okay. The only thing I'd advise is adding something that isn't so "lo-fi" to the mix. I listen to a lot of Mogwai, and something they always do on their trashy recordings is add a clean paino, or acoustic, or bells, or something, and it provides some awesome contrast and really lets the listener know that the quality of the recording was "intentional." Something to consider.

The link for "vanity" currently doesn't work.

I dig the sound of the drums on "Paranoia." Real punchy. The synth sounds are nice again. And nothing about the mix jumps out as bad or funky to me. I'm not crazy about the song, so much (it's probably my least favorite of the bunch), but that's beside the fact.

Hope that helps in some way.

[greenmeansjoe]

I'd be interested to hear these songs, especially "Quite Like You," without the busy, busy mixes. You say that you feel good about your songwriting ability, and I can definitely hear some good stuff in these mp3s. If you feel there's a certain lifelessness to the overall product, though, maybe you should try and weed some things out, let the songs breathe a little more.

I know that when I record by myself, I want to throw in everything ... including the kitchen sink. So I end up with too many ideas pushed too far up in the mix. I want everything to be heard CLEARLY. Songs lose momentum that way, though. You have to arrange carefully.

Maybe you could try stripping back a layer here or there, or relegating something to the distant background.

Remember to build the arrangements too. Start small, end big ... that kind of thing.

I don't know. I hope that made sense.

I still think everything sounds pretty good.

Joe

[twitchmonitor]

Bear,

Thanks, I think you're pretty right on. Quite like you is NOT the cover, so your off the hook ....the intro was what I did first and was what I built the song around (first time I ever did THAT). I'm pretty sure I've already got a tambo doing 16th notes on the chorus of Bubbles in my Beer, so mayble I'll have to look elsewhere, but yeah, if the chorus was "harder," I could see the song working much better. Maybe I'll switch from the "drunken choir" style vocals that I'm doing durring the verses and have a bigger, more focused sound with some tight doubled vocals, maybe fatten them with some compression on the doubles and tuck them right under the lead vocal.

That's interesting that you couldn't make out the lyrics on Try....I recorded almost every track in the red, trying to focus on conveying frustration that way instead of lyrically, the idea being that people respond more viscerally to the feel, and may not even consider what the lyrics are for years, if ever. I would like some of the lyrics to come across though....time to start carving I guess. That a great idea, to put a clean sound in there. I actually tried that (after reading the New Pornographers interview in TapeOp) but it seemed grafted on, not something that belonged with the song, so I axed ot. Guess I can experiment with other clean sounds, as I'm sure it'll do just what you're suggesting it will for the song.

I don't know what was up with "Vanity," but it's one of my favorites and I've resposted the MP3, so it should be sound as a pound.....give a listen, if you don't mind.

And as for "Paranoia," that's an older song from maybe 6 months ago, whereas almost all the others are from the last week, so I guess it looks like I"m making progress!

Thanks again for listening.

[twitchmonitor]

I'd be interested to hear these songs, especially "Quite Like You," without the busy, busy mixes.

thekingandcaroline: Yeah, Quite Like You was a song where I had too many ideas and I put them all down so as not to loose anything and am trying to carve the song out of the mess that resulted. Believe it or not, it used to be even busier! But as it is, I've pretty much whilttled it down to only one instrument in the foreground at a time, and I'm just not sure where to make the next cuts. Should I carve out the synths and or bass on the verses? Any rule of thumb I can refer to? should I use reverbs and delays to put stuff in the background or would you lean towards just cutting tracks out?

This is exactly where I'm having trouble...I know that song is too busy, but I'm just not sure WHERE or HOW to thin it out....

[Bear]

If you want to make the song less busy, lower the volumes of some of the extras. Even to the point where people won't be able to put a finger on what it is. I know it's a pain in the ass to do that, especially when it's a lot of work to get the sound, but sometimes just using the effect as an ambient/background noise serves the song better, even though people might never hear the work that went into it.

But that's pretty much what King just said.

But even if you do this, I wouldn't get rid of ALL the business. I think the chaos really adds to the song and makes me want to listen to it a number of times. The fact that there's too much to take in with one listen is appealing to me. But now that I'm thinking of it, it might be really cool if sections of the song were real clear and simple (maybe a verse in the middle), so that the listeners can have some breathing room. I think that would sound really good, actually. It always comes back to balance and contrast, and that would probably do the trick.

But one other piece of advice I'll give, make some mixes of these, burn them to a CD, then get the hell away from them for about a week. Then pop them into a stereo and see how you feel about the songs when you have "semi-fresh" ears. It's always an eye-opener for me and it helps you not to get sick of your own stuff too fast (I always have this problem with everything I record).

And one more quick tidbit: lower the volume of that beginning just a little. It's significantly louder than the rest of the song. Don't make it too quiet, mind you, because it's a great intro, but a little less would balance things a little more.

And I'll check out Vanity later tonight. For now, I'm starving, and I need to cook dinner.

[llmonty]

I'd be interested to hear these songs, especially "Quite Like You," without the busy, busy mixes. You say that you feel good about your songwriting ability, and I can definitely hear some good stuff in these mp3s. If you feel there's a certain lifelessness to the overall product, though, maybe you should try and weed some things out, let the songs breathe a little more.

I know that when I record by myself, I want to throw in everything ... including the kitchen sink. So I end up with too many ideas pushed too far up in the mix. I want everything to be heard CLEARLY. Songs lose momentum that way, though. You have to arrange carefully.

Joe

This is the story of so much of what I do. I throw everything in there - recording it is part of the writing/art phase. Then I have all this stuff, noises, blips and burps, countermelodies, etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. However, I have really found it to be a necessary part of the process. After recording everything I sit down with my Kay acoustic guitar with a really wide neck that makes it hard to play. Then I force myself to arrange the song so I can sing/play it. Now, it might have started out on the acoustic, but usually it is pretty sparse. Now I force myself to distill it down to the most important elements. Usually I add harmonies, counter melodies, chord substituions -- all to convey the song and the melody. Then I have my song. But the recording is the medium for finding all these new pieces of the arrangement.

blah, blah, blah

BTW, I listened to the first song on the list. I agree with what everyone is saying -- kickass song. Finding the balance between the song and chaos is where the truth lies.

[jajjguy]

i listened to Bubbles and Quite Like. First off, your music and arrangements are really interesting, and your recordings and mixes are quite competent, so any comments that follow will be personal and stylistic. Here goes.

The main thing i'd try to focus on is the space you create in your mixes. By that i mean the illusion of a space that the sounds inhabit. The instruments all sound really upfront, and they also don't sound like they're in the same space. So the overall feel is kind of disjointed. I'd think more about creating space between the listener and the instruments, or at least considering and deciding which instrument should be most forward (i'd always say vocal), which should be in the next layer back, etc. you can achieve this either through a combination of mic distance (like putting a second guitar mic a foot away, in addition to the one that's on the grillcloth) and subtle reverbs. Plate-style reverbs can be good for that, they create some distance and then get out of the way quickly.

Like i said, this is personal and stylistic. I like naturalistic recordings where you can clearly hear the room that everything was recorded in. I like other kinds of recordings too, but i always like to have a sense that the sounds are coming from some unified place, like the guitars and the drums are from the same hometown and hang out at the pub together, rather than being flown in for the session and never meeting.

ps: i got no problem with the busy-ness, or the cluttered effect, especially in Bubbles. i see that as part of what the song is about, a kind of messy, cluttered state of mind.