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I just gave a summary of that to the other members. The guitarist (who produced it) basically wants to kill you :LOL:

 

Haha! It's just that I've never heard anything done in quite that way before but maybe the drummer really does play with the snare 30 feet to the side of the kick drum and I'm just misunderstanding the situation ;). I'm genuinely curious about the thought process that went into it because if anything you often find when people are first starting out that they don't make enough of a stereo image and that everything's straight down the middle.

 

I mean there's some odd stuff going on with

like the lead vocals being jarringly off to one side but back they were still playing around with how to mix in stereo and the choice for each element was hard left, hard right or centre. Even then it's not as bats as what your guitarist went for :LOL:
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I just gave a summary of that to the other members. The guitarist (who produced it) basically wants to kill you :LOL:

 

Why? He was given constuctive critisism to which to improve your whole music on. He can't take that personally or he won't get anywhere. If he thinks that is harsh, wait until he gets into a (decent/good) recording studio and see how he goes there. ;)

 

Now for my two cents:

 

That panning. I was thinking before listening, yeah, okay, it can''t be as hard left and hard right as I think. I was a bit wrong. For one, "lead vocals" should generally be centered, so should any bass and kick drum. That snare as well could do a lot better center or at least not so far right since it seems the most prominent sound in this mix at least.

 

Your vocalist really needs to show more confidence in both his lyrics and singing. It goes between reading and singing a bit too much for my liking and it sounds like his phrasing/timing goes out with the feel of the song. There is that potential but practice will help.

 

Drummer also needs to focus more on their fills and general playing. Unless whoever mixed it actually decided to automate random hits louder and softer, your drummer needs to practice their velocities, and practice their fills, and practice all in general to get it right before hitting record. The good thing I can say is at least when they aren't doing fills they are pretty much on time which is something I find more drummers struggle with than fills/technical stuff when recording.

 

Bass could do with a compressor to help level the higher notes when playing (that you Dave?). Also that particular high note sometimes sounds rushed. Practice to a metronome and record it to see if you can make it flow smoother. I know this because I sometimes am guilty of doing things like this too when I zone out and lose focus on playing. :LOL: Also sounds like the bassist is doing the more challenging work here.

 

Guitar is okay. I can't really say much about it since it's generally pretty quiet and seems consistent.

 

I won't say anything about tone/sounds and that because you're really just demoing and getting ideas down and I'm fine with that. Basically, practice will help everyone here and hopefully you guys will get more stuff done. ;)

 

Haha! It's just that I've never heard anything done in quite that way before but maybe the drummer really does play with the snare 30 feet to the side of the kick drum and I'm just misunderstanding the situation ;). I'm genuinely curious about the thought process that went into it because if anything you often find when people are first starting out that they don't make enough of a stereo image and that everything's straight down the middle.

 

I mean there's some odd stuff going on with

like the lead vocals being jarringly off to one side but back they were still playing around with how to mix in stereo and the choice for each element was hard left, hard right or centre. Even then it's not as bats as what your guitarist went for :LOL:

:LOL:

 

Yeah, I know for one I'm guilty of really keeping things kind of "down the center" but I would probably prefer that over what is a huge stereo image here.

Edited by Crowella
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Why? He was given constuctive critisism to which to improve your whole music on. He can't take that personally or he won't get anywhere. If he thinks that is harsh, wait until he gets into a (decent/good) recording studio and see how he goes there. ;)

 

Now for my two cents:

 

That panning. I was thinking before listening, yeah, okay, it can''t be as hard left and hard right as I think. I was a bit wrong. For one, "lead vocals" should generally be centered, so should any bass and kick drum. That snare as well could do a lot better center or at least not so far right since it seems the most prominent sound in this mix at least.

 

Your vocalist really needs to show more confidence in both his lyrics and singing. It goes between reading and singing a bit too much for my liking and it sounds like his phrasing/timing goes out with the feel of the song. There is that potential but practice will help.

 

Drummer also needs to focus more on their fills and general playing. Unless whoever mixed it actually decided to automate random hits louder and softer, your drummer needs to practice their velocities, and practice their fills, and practice all in general to get it right before hitting record. The good thing I can say is at least when they aren't doing fills they are pretty much on time which is something I find more drummers struggle with than fills/technical stuff when recording.

 

Bass could do with a compressor to help level the higher notes when playing (that you Dave?). Also that particular high note sometimes sounds rushed. Practice to a metronome and record it to see if you can make it flow smoother. I know this because I sometimes am guilty of doing things like this too when I zone out and lose focus on playing. :LOL: Also sounds like the bassist is doing the more challenging work here.

 

Guitar is okay. I can't really say much about it since it's generally pretty quiet and seems consistent.

 

I won't say anything about tone/sounds and that because you're really just demoing and getting ideas down and I'm fine with that. Basically, practice will help everyone here and hopefully you guys will get more stuff done. ;)

 

The panning will be fixed (once the guitarist stops being a cunt and either fixes the mix or gives me the tracks).

Our vocalist only recently started singing in a band and this is his first time singing an original. He currently lacks the confidence but like you said, that comes with time.

 

Our drum mic set-up was painfully primitive. One mic over the drummers head and one on the bass drum. The sudden jumps in volume are down to the mic stand not being very stable but next time we'll try to have a better set-up. He is an amazing drummer and listening to him record it he absolutely nailed it. The recording process screwed him over.

 

Yes it was me on bass :$ I have the compressor off as I was worried about it destroying my tone. I think the loud high note was down to the fact that in the previous take I barely hit that note and hated the sound of it. And its a very tough riff! None of us has a metronome so we kinda fucked up the timing because of that. Oddly enough when we play it live we're rock solid.

 

The guitar was recorded afterwards and since the song is a bass heavy song he held off on the volume of the guitar, probably a bit too much.

We'll work better on the next demo, first time for everything! We know now the issues with the song so we'll have it far more improved the next time. And I have an octave pedal now which I was gonna use on the track but I didn't have it at the time.

 

tl;dr Excuses, it won't happen again.

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Our drum mic set-up was painfully primitive. One mic over the drummers head and one on the bass drum. The sudden jumps in volume are down to the mic stand not being very stable but next time we'll try to have a better set-up. He is an amazing drummer and listening to him record it he absolutely nailed it. The recording process screwed him over.

I don't want to start beef here so sorry in advance but no he did not "nail it". :( He was in time, yes, but the fills seemed to have parts that are out of time and rushed. I get the impression even with the jumps in volume there are still some areas that could be improved.

 

Yes it was me on bass :$ I have the compressor off as I was worried about it destroying my tone. I think the loud high note was down to the fact that in the previous take I barely hit that note and hated the sound of it. And its a very tough riff! None of us has a metronome so we kinda fucked up the timing because of that. Oddly enough when we play it live we're rock solid.

Well for one, good work with you guys not playing to a metronome and keeping time like that, that's actually not bad at all. That little bit of compression will help and if you're destroying the tone, you're using too much. A little goes a long way with bass. ;)

 

The guitar was recorded afterwards and since the song is a bass heavy song he held off on the volume of the guitar, probably a bit too much.

We'll work better on the next demo, first time for everything! We know now the issues with the song so we'll have it far more improved the next time. And I have an octave pedal now which I was gonna use on the track but I didn't have it at the time.

 

tl;dr Excuses, it won't happen again.

We all learn. Not as if my first recordings were good. In reality, they were probably worse than this by a lot :$

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I don't want to start beef here so sorry in advance but no he did not "nail it". :( He was in time, yes, but the fills seemed to have parts that are out of time and rushed. I get the impression even with the jumps in volume there are still some areas that could be improved.

 

 

Well for one, good work with you guys not playing to a metronome and keeping time like that, that's actually not bad at all. That little bit of compression will help and if you're destroying the tone, you're using too much. A little goes a long way with bass. ;)

 

 

We all learn. Not as if my first recordings were good. In reality, they were probably worse than this by a lot :$

 

All very good advice. A lot nicer than just getting "Its shit, why are you so shit? Stop being shit lol,fags"

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A compressor doesn't "destroy tone", especially when used correctly.

 

 

My first ever recordings are all on my soundcloud still :LOL:

 

So are mine actually, although on a different Soundcloud profile, will try finding a link if people are interested.

Edited by haze015
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Also KnT should have a contest to make the best mix of the song. Winner gets a free signature from Dave and the opportunity to buy Dom's DS-1.

 

Can we actually do this? Would be well good. There's loads of places where you can get stem tracks for a track from, we'd all just have to decide on one. It's technical kitten factor!

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Can we actually do this? Would be well good. There's loads of places where you can get stem tracks for a track from, we'd all just have to decide on one. It's technical kitten factor!

 

It would actually be pretty cool!

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All very good advice. A lot nicer than just getting "Its shit, why are you so shit? Stop being shit lol,fags"

Well, you need some advice. It's called learning and I'd rather you put up that than nothing at all. Shows your band is not lazing about doing nothing and want to achieve at least something.

 

I would have spammed another song on here today but my friend wanted to have a go at a basic mix and learned today that headphones/monitors/speakers all react differently to mixes and you shouldn't put so much reverb onto a guitar in mixing. I truly need to buy a set of monitors soon and start doing our stuff "properly" :LOL:

 

I'd be up for it also. I'd like to just hear how we all comparatively can mix and do things given the same source.

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you shouldn't put so much reverb onto a guitar in mixing.

 

Some Fender amp spring reverb have like 3.5secs of reverb time.

 

One example would be that Dub/Reggae guitar stabs will sometimes have that length spring reverb plus compression to get even more out of it.

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Our drum mic set-up was painfully primitive. One mic over the drummers head and one on the bass drum. The sudden jumps in volume are down to the mic stand not being very stable but next time we'll try to have a better set-up. He is an amazing drummer and listening to him record it he absolutely nailed it. The recording process screwed him over.

 

Did you just place the mics randomly or did you try to do it to get a good stereo sound like the method usually implies?

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Did you just place the mics randomly or did you try to do it to get a good stereo sound like the method usually implies?

 

Stereo wasn't an option. We placed the overhead one where we thought it would pick up the most sound.

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Some Fender amp spring reverb have like 3.5secs of reverb time.

 

One example would be that Dub/Reggae guitar stabs will sometimes have that length spring reverb plus compression to get even more out of it.

 

If you heard what I mean, you'll understand. It isn't so much the reverb time, rather the characteristics such as the attack and reverb level. It just sounds off in context of the song we're recording.

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If you heard what I mean, you'll understand. It isn't so much the reverb time, rather the characteristics such as the attack and reverb level. It just sounds off in context of the song we're recording.

 

Its always about context.

 

Working on one song recently with a piano (Well 3 technically) which has a 7sec reverb time into a compressor set to like -30dB for the threshold and a 1ms attack time (Or less, can't remember what the plugin was capable of).

With sensible settings, just doesn't sound right.

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