Please Critique My Mix

[aaronburr]

I'm an inexperienced mixer and i'm recording a demo for my band. I would like some more experienced ears to let me know if there is anything i can do to the mix to make it sound more even, or if there is anything i can do to smooth out the mix a little more.

link here

Thanks in advance!

[auralman]

that's a really cool tune man. Great performance. I have very few suggestions, as the vibe is really quite awesome and lo-fi.

I'd compress the vocal a lot. Very uneven level-wise.

You couldn't harm things by gating the guitars (or trimming the file at least if you can), there really isn't anything being gained by hearing dead amp noise. Sometimes there is, but not here.

Awesome.

[aaronburr]

thanks!
i DO need to compress the vocals more. can anyone recommend good compression settings to take care of that? long release, im guessing?

(and yes, ill take out the amp buzz - and the stick clicks - at the beginning. maybe some gating will bring down some of the noise in the verse, though, thanks)

[Corey Y]

The vocals are the only things that stand out as needing work, to me. Definitely needs some compression and I'd EQ it with more high end as well, too muddy for my taste. I get that there's an intentional (I'm assuming) distortion there to get a lo-fi "through the radio" type feel, but I always got that as being very high boost, low cut. That's my taste, but it certainly needs compression. It's a good performance, hopefully you can get the vocals to your liking without having to track it again.

It should be pretty easy to gate the guitars (or just cut out the noise completely) in the quiet parts if you're working with something waveform based on computer. Not that it's hard otherwise, just more work. What are you mixing on?

No easy guide to compression settings, unfortunately. Here's one primer though, which gives you something to start from. I would definitely experiment and see what works.

http://www.rane.com/note1558.html

[fossiltooth]

The vocals are too distorted to sound good in a "conventional" way and too normal to sound good in a "lo fi" kind of way. Pick an aesthetic and make it happen.

This sounds like am early 80s home-recorded punk release. Not in a 'retro' way... but rather in a (unfortunately?) accurate sense. If you think that people are interested in buying such a recording, it works! I wouldn't consider it "commercially viable" even as a raw indie release... but maybe that's not what you're going for. Since this record is not actually from the 1980s, but rather 2008, I probably wouldn't buy it. I can justify purchasing say... "Damaged" for instance, because that's how independent records in those days sounded. Or the Germs anthology... Or "Jettison".

That said, I hear a sincerity and rawness that's quite attractive in a way. If you could take this song, record and mix it decently, without overworking it, and make sure the drummer stops screwing up on the fills, I think you could have something fairly badass here.

You sir, have the potential to rock me.

[aaronburr]

The vocals are the only things that stand out as needing work, to me. Definitely needs some compression and I'd EQ it with more high end as well, too muddy for my taste. I get that there's an intentional (I'm assuming) distortion there to get a lo-fi "through the radio" type feel, but I always got that as being very high boost, low cut. That's my taste, but it certainly needs compression. It's a good performance, hopefully you can get the vocals to your liking without having to track it again.

It should be pretty easy to gate the guitars (or just cut out the noise completely) in the quiet parts if you're working with something waveform based on computer. Not that it's hard otherwise, just more work. What are you mixing on?

No easy guide to compression settings, unfortunately. Here's one primer though, which gives you something to start from. I would definitely experiment and see what works.

http://www.rane.com/note1558.html

thanks for the comments and the link!!! ill def. compress the vocals some more, and i think i just need to ride some fader automation to bring up/down some parts. ill try out some eq, too.

im mixing on logic 8, recorded everything with a firepod. for mics i was using an apex 205 ribbon and some 57s, also an akg perception mic (not too great, but eh - i bought it before i knew anything about mics). the ribbon was used on the guitars and vocals, and the drums were done with the condenser and the 57s. bass was recorded with a kick drum mic and a direct line (im moderately happy with the results but need to find a better solution for next time as this way took a lot of mixing to get sounding good). as far as plugins go, im using the stock logic plugins.

[aaronburr]

The vocals are too distorted to sound good in a "conventional" way and too normal to sound good in a "lo fi" kind of way. Pick an aesthetic and make it happen.

This sounds like am early 80s home-recorded punk release. Not in a 'retro' way... but rather in a (unfortunately?) accurate sense. If you think that people are interested in buying such a recording, it works! I wouldn't consider it "commercially viable" even as a raw indie release... but maybe that's not what you're going for. Since this record is not actually from the 1980s, but rather 2008, I probably wouldn't buy it. I can justify purchasing say... "Damaged" for instance, because that's how independent records in those days sounded. Or the Germs anthology... Or "Jettison".

That said, I hear a sincerity and rawness that's quite attractive in a way. If you could take this song, record and mix it decently, without overworking it, and make sure the drummer stops screwing up on the fills, I think you could have something fairly badass here.

You sir, have the potential to rock me.

well, this isnt anything we would have people buy, really. its a demo to show off what we are doing without having to spend a whole ton of money to go into a studio. we are working on a full-length album that we will professionally record, and this is a song we werent planning to put on that album so we thought we would demo it.

and your first comment hits on something ive been thinking myself, i think i might go a little more heavy on overdrive or roll it off a bit. thanks.

[fossiltooth]

well, this isnt anything we would have people buy, really. its a demo to show off what we are doing without having to spend a whole ton of money to go into a studio. we are working on a full-length album that we will professionally record, and this is a song we werent planning to put on that album so we thought we would demo it.

and your first comment hits on something ive been thinking myself, i think i might go a little more heavy on overdrive or roll it off a bit. thanks.

Cool. Then it's a good demo!

If my band just recorded a demo I'd be asking for musical/performance advice instead of mix advice. That's what a demo is for! It ain't about recording and mix quality. It's about sketching out the arrangement, hearing how the song really sounds, analyzing the performance and getting it right.

So, here's my musical/performance critique instead:

Have the drummer watch his fills. It's something he really has to practice. He should be able to consistently keep meter through the fills. Simply counting "one-e-and-a" in his head could help.

The bass doesn't hold steady enough during the section where the the guitars drop out. It's essential that the bass and drums are locked and muscular in that section. Currently, they're not. But you guys can pull it off! Rehearse it until it's better than goo enough and then run through it some more. Practice the transition back into the chorus as well.

Overall, the vocal performance is good. But like the bass and drums, it's a little better toward the beginning of the song, and starts to lose it towards the end.

If you can make the performance more compelling, this song could live up to its full potential when you're ready to record it for real.

Good luck!

[Corey Y]

I think the ribbon mic is partly the culprit on the vocals. It sounds too dark. fossiltooth articulated what I was trying to say about the lofi effect on the vocals better. It's got that bit of distortion on it, but no character. Either go full board with that effect and make it sound like a bullhorn or a phone handset, etc. or go for a clean vocal, I'd say. When I go for that effect I find a sturdy dynamic like the Shure SM7B let the vocals belt out and distort the crap out of it with a cheap guitar pedal when I'm mixing. It works in the right context, though by itself it sounds like hammered shit. There's definitely a lot of ways to get there, but I think you'll have more to work with if you get a decent vocal track first.

If you're doing it yourself then you're not losing anything by laying down a track, listening, figuring out what could be better and doing it again. I'd probably go that route, if the rest of your band doesn't pitch a fit over it.

Also, if you're distorting the signal, you need less compression. Distortion compresses the signal. Depending on your result you may find the real fix for the vocals is a more even performance. Compression can only do so much. Though if you're going to dirty them up enough it may not matter much about squashing the track.

[pixeltarian]

i like it for the most part.

I might get killed for saying this, but I would raise the high mids overall... I would put an EQ on the master track. eek!

if not I think at least the drums need to be a tinge brighter.