New Resting Cenuties EP, rough mixes

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ott0bot
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New Resting Cenuties EP, rough mixes

Post by ott0bot » Thu Dec 31, 2009 6:02 pm

Hello all,
My new band "Resting Centuries" is trying to finish our EP in between life and what not. I just finished laying down the tracks for a new song and did a rough mix If you take a listen let me know what you think. It's a bit sloppy...but that kind of our style. ha!

MP3 Stream (which sounds kinda crappy)
http://www.lowendmedia.com/aaron/Restin ... erside.mp3

EDIT:re-mixed version posted below
Last edited by ott0bot on Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:33 am, edited 2 times in total.

boid
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Post by boid » Fri Jan 01, 2010 1:52 pm

sloppy, yes :lol:
but sloppy in a cool way

there's a kick beat at 0:22 pretty off
the vocals are a little out of tune sometimes, too, but nothing major

imho, the guitar has way to much low end (or guitar itself is too loud)
the mix is peaking around 160hz every guitarstrum much louder than anything else
overpowering all other instruments

i would turn up the vocals just a tad at some placed but that could be due to the too-loud guitar(?!)

otherwise... sounds good to me

like the tune!

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Post by Jitters » Sat Jan 02, 2010 12:58 am

Nice! The more auto tuned and grid snapped music I hear the more I appreciate music that isn't 'perfect'. And the sounds are sweet and the mix is good and...yeah...nice!

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Post by ott0bot » Sat Jan 02, 2010 5:30 pm

Thanks for the responses guys, I apreciate you listening.

boid,
Yeah....i need to fix a few things on the drums and that is one of the more obvious. Unfortunatley, we haven't had time to re-track any of the drums yet, and their are all sorts of little jems I'm finding! I may doing a longer instrumental beginning and sweep the drums in on the next bar....we'll see what works.

About the vocals.....yeah I have a few other takes and I'm probably going to comp them in a few spots, but this was the overall best take. I don't exactly have a great singing voice, but I like to think i make up for the lack of range with character. right. but seriously I'll probably do a few more takes to make sure it can be as good as possible.

The guitar is a bit loud, and I haven't do much eq work in general except on the drums. The low end on the acoustic was due to me using an re20, but I like the sound. I was also considering some light de-essing on the guitar. Definately a spot that needs improvent.

Also we have a melodica, rhodes and bell part that may find their way into the song, so some more eq with be needed to make room for some other midrange frequencies.


Jitters:
we actually recorded a couple different versions of our songs and most had a click track version as well, but the looser ones just had the right feel. It seems like alot albums I've heard lately sound just too perfect and we wanted to make sure it's not mechanical. I like imperfections too, i think it makes music more personal sometimes. I'm not just saying that because i'm too lazy to retrack them. :D

I'll post another mix, and maybe a few other songs once I get some more done.

thanks,
Aaron

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Actually

Post by Autodidact » Sat Jan 02, 2010 6:31 pm

I actually like these types of mixes a lot.


There is this version of The Weight played live by The Band and it sounds really great and raw, though I'm not sure who recorded or mixed it. The piano seems to bark into place in the intro.

Good stuff man; I feel that sometimes "rough mixes" create a sound scape and 'identifiable room' that's more interesting; it might be due to sounds taking space not normally allotted to them.
Formerly known as 'Perranfulo'


Why do people find the need to use the word "anal" in day to day conversation?

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Post by Autodidact » Sat Jan 02, 2010 6:52 pm

Forgot to mention:

Personally, depending on the song content/intent/artistic vision, if a song has an ending, like yours, I'd rather here it end instead of fading out. There are many great songs that fade out but have awesome things going on during the fade (first noticed this when I was a kid on Santana songs) and I'd always wonder what else happened after the fade out.
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Why do people find the need to use the word "anal" in day to day conversation?

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Post by boid » Sun Jan 03, 2010 12:44 am

ott0bot wrote:
Yeah....i need to fix a few things on the drums and that is one of the more obvious. Unfortunatley, we haven't had time to re-track any of the drums yet, and their are all sorts of little jems I'm finding! I may doing a longer instrumental beginning and sweep the drums in on the next bar....we'll see what works.

About the vocals.....yeah I have a few other takes and I'm probably going to comp them in a few spots, but this was the overall best take. I don't exactly have a great singing voice, but I like to think i make up for the lack of range with character. right. but seriously I'll probably do a few more takes to make sure it can be as good as possible.

The guitar is a bit loud, and I haven't do much eq work in general except on the drums. The low end on the acoustic was due to me using an re20, but I like the sound. I was also considering some light de-essing on the guitar. Definately a spot that needs improvent.

don't take the stuff i say too seriously though, im sure you're better at this whole audio shit than me;)

it's just that i know that hearing a song 1000times (writing it, rehearsing it, recording it and mixing it) can make it difficult to judge if "mistakes" are too crucial to leave in the mix, because you stop hearing them or are overly judgmental because youre the one singing it for instance

i just wanted to state what's obvious to someone who apparently hasn't heard your song before

seriously, if you like the kinda "sloppy" sound i would totally leave that vocal track as is!
but a lot of people would want to go for a "modern" (clean and sterile that is) production that's why i mentioned it,
so you CAN change it depending on what your intentions are

same about drumtrack...personally i would snapp that one kick beat which souldnt be much of a trouble
and keep the rest

i agree with you, the guitar really sounds nice
but, for me, not working in the lowend of your mix(was listening through my monitors)

obviously i'm the only one who's hearing it so it might be just some type of setup problem on my side

however after noticing that lowend thing i turned on digicheck (spectral analyser) and like i said before
it's the guitar peaking at 160hz much much louder(up to 15db) than everything else
doesn't look healthy to me you know?
"normally" even a really powerful kickdrum isn't standing out like that

hope any of the above made any sense ;-)

just trying to help
max

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Post by ott0bot » Fri Jan 15, 2010 4:14 pm

Thanks for all the advice boid, I appreciate it really. I made a few minor changes but will remix later when we finish tracking the rest of the songs. By the way is there a spectrum analyizer that comes with PT le or a free plug in that you know of. Another thing to check when mixing

I recorded a little solo number this week and did a rough of that so please check this out too!

MP3
http://www.lowendmedia.com/aaron/Restin ... 3/Vows.mp3

AIF
http://www.lowendmedia.com/aaron/Restin ... s/Vows.aif

Again, there are some things to improve and any critique is welcomed.

Thanks for listening and click the link in my sig to check out our myspace page,
Aaron

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Post by jgimbel » Fri Jan 15, 2010 11:04 pm

Great songs! Your sounds are really stellar. That acoustic guitar sounds great, I was going to ask what was used on it. Definitely a little too much low end IMHO but like you said you haven't done EQ on it yet so it's not really a complaint, just something noticed. I am curious though what you used mic/placement-wise on electric guitar. I've been asking everyone that lately, I'm just completely not happy with my clean electric guitar sounds and I keep hearing the greatest sounds from folks on this board.

By the way, I like the "sloppiness" of it. I'm biased since it's something I always like in songs and something I intentionally keep in my own songs, but I really think it sounds great on these songs. The kick hit at :22 is JUST beyond my threshold for it, but the rest of it sounds fine to me, I'd just bump that one into place. This music sounds like people playing, not music that's been organized in post. Just how I like it! Seriously, great stuff.
Last edited by jgimbel on Sat Apr 10, 2010 10:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by ott0bot » Tue Jan 19, 2010 1:02 pm

Thanks for the comments! Yeah....I much prefer a feeling of music that is being played rather than organized. I just listened to the new Do Make Say Think record and I heard several "mistakes" in the first few minutes of the album, but I don't think it takes anything away from the album at all.

As far as what I used....
Acoustic - re20 about 1 foot away from the sound hole and an modded oktava mc012 about 3 feet directly above the guitar body. I used a pair of Summit 2ba-221's for the preamps into a stock 003r.

I tune my guitar to DADEAE so it has a bit more low end than standard tuning, plus the re20 captures a lot of low frequencies. Also, I know it's a bit boomy as a result of the re20...and so I went with a xy pair of modded oktavas about a foot in front of highest frets on my martin for the second song. that instead gave it a bit too much of a picked sound, but I think I can eq both of them into shape.

On the electric I have a great amp, which is probably the biggest key to the sound. It's a 73 Princeton reverb, and i just had it serviced so its super quiet and it's sounding great right now. I also have a decent guitar too, a 65 Mosrite Celebrity, which really has a nice warm tone. Now beside that I've always been a fan of recording with the amp at a low volume and distance micing a little bit. On the first song I used an Oktava mc012 about 3 feet away, and I angled it a bit downward at a 35 or so degrees aiming it at the cone. I used a Univeral Audio 710 preamp, with the tube/solidstate dial around 2 o'clock.

I still need to to some more tracking then I'll take a weekend completely mix everything to the full extent. I need to add verb, eq, and do some more compression along with some performance editing and comping of tracks. I hope i can get it to where I'm happy, but that's always tricky when working on your own songs.

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Post by ott0bot » Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:43 am

So i re-mixed the first song "Riverside" a little and added a few things here and there. If you have a chance to listen let me know what you think. Did a little eq and added some verb. I almost want to re-do the vocals. They sound kinda shakey to me know, but i kinda like it too. oh well.

AIF Stream:
http://www.lowendmedia.com/aaron/Restin ... erside.aif

-aaron

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Post by jgimbel » Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:46 am

Wow it's sounding great! I have to ask what kind of reverb you're using, it sounds awesome, is it a plate?

I love how present the bass is without taking anything away from the acoustic or electric guitars, that's something I have a lot of trouble with.

To be honest there are a few shakey spots in the vocals, but like we've talked abotu that may not be a bad thing. I don't really feel like it's my place to judge that, it's so subjective (even moreso than getting sounds I think). But it's really not distracting, I think it just sounds "honest". The only thing that distracted me at all was At 0:54 the timing of the vocals seems a little off, like that part of the line comes in a little too early. But it's really nothing major. This mix sounds wonderful, if I had a record of this music it's one I'd be thinking "wow they really did this one right". I love how soft your snare sound is, is it with a brush?

You made really creative use of reverb, I'm curious as to how you went about it. I feel like I'm hearing certain parts where the melody is doubled, with one of them panned/hardpanned? with reverb added to the panned one. Other places I feel like I'm hearing just reverb come up panned. I've never done something like that, it sounds great. It helps that the reverb you used sounds great, very curious about that!

Overall great job, I love the song and the recording is great. I can't really think of anything I'd change.

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Post by ott0bot » Fri Jan 22, 2010 11:45 am

Wow great response! I still need to post my comments on your song. :?

yeah....i'm on the verge on doing a few more vocal takes to get someting I'm really happy with. I'll check the one at 54 seconds and see if I can fix it on this take at least.

The bass is all DI from a Universal Audio 710, through a Summit tla-50. Then I did a little eq and some additional compression ITB. I tried re-amping in and blending it, but the DI track just sounded right.

The snare is brushed and it's mic'd with a EV 635a which is omni which makes it feel a bit more gentle.

The reverb is mostly a sound workshop 242a spring reverb. It does have a bit of a plate effect at times, and it's pretty versitle. I did alot of printing new reverb tracks after the fact and panning in various places, plus adding secondary takes with reverb going to "tape." I did alot of hard panning the reverb on the opposite side of the source so it gave it an echo track feel. Something I always liked about The Zombies Oddysey and the Oracle and I took a little inspiration from the mixing style. I also used some of the Air plug in of a few things. I had a previous mix with way too much and I toned it back a bit.

It still needs some work, and I'll get it mastered after the other songs are done. Hopefully I can finish it by summer.

Thanks for the comments, I really appreciate you actually listening.

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Post by ott0bot » Fri Jan 29, 2010 5:13 pm

Did a bunch of EQ on the acoustic, and readjusted some reverb.

remixed yet again:

http://www.lowendmedia.com/aaron/Restin ... erside.aif

i think its better!

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Post by jgimbel » Fri Jan 29, 2010 10:33 pm

Man I'm really on your ass about this song huh! Of course it's sounding great. The guitars are really in a good place. The acoustic guitars, with the EQ you've done, have a sound that's really natural and has a wide freq range, but somehow still leaves room in all the right spots for the other instruments. Your acoustic sound is so much more 3D than any acoustic sound I've gotten. The mix is great. The bass is at a level where it very much supports the rest of the instruments, but isn't just being the low end that you don't pay attention to. Part of that's the bass part itself, it's a good mix of sustained notes and staccato, so the sustained notes blend in and fade back, then those staccato notes stick back out. I always feel like that's something you hear in a good bass player, that they can be both supportive but still show that they couldn't just be replaced by a keyboard or something.

I love where the drums are at too, they're kind of where I try to get them in songs like this - loud/clear enough that you can definitely hear each hit perfectly, but not loud enough that it becomes the focus of the song. Perfect.

One thing I love about this whole mix is how it's "crisp" but not bright. The vocal and reverb sound don't have gobs of high end, but aren't yet dark. The guitar's got that too, I guess from the mic choice, doesn't have that horrible high freq crunch that kills you.

Really, really great work. I've found myself singing this song in my head lately.

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