Tell me what you think of the mix

[IceBryce]

Here is a band I just finished with.

 

Let me know what you think.

Comments on production preferred as that is all I have control over.

 

www.myspace.com/echowpg

[AluminumNeck]

I am gonna be really honest. It doesn't sound very good. the performance need work you can here them falling apart. The vocals are extremly drony. The balance in the FQ range is godaweful.

 

Its bad. The drum sounds are anemic. The bass guitar is nearly inaudiable. The guitars are tweetering away and the vocals are on top of everything in a fundementally bad way.

[Lee Knight]

I like it. I get what you're doing. It's a little like Grandaddy's Sumday album. I think you could stand to get you first couple verses tighter vocally though. And they are out too far forward. But I think the general gist of it is kind of happening.

 

I understand the vocal drone is part of the style and I do like it but you need to reign in some of the pitch issues a little. When the song developes at 4 minutes or so and the vocals start to stack... OK... there it is. I think you need some of that soaring quality a little earlier on.

 

And I agree you could stand to get better sounds on the guitars and drums. But still , you're capturing a cool and totally viable vibe to me.

 

Take more time with your main vocal.

[Mostly_Harmless]

maybe use an autotuner and some reverb and lower the vocals to make them fit a bit better in the mix?

[IceBryce]

All very legit concerns. Keeping mind that you cannot bleed a stone the vocals are as good as I could get spending hours tracking and yes... auto tune is at large here.

 

ALSO: if when you comment you could list which songs you are listening too that would help alot.

 

The problem with the drums is they were tracked in a room about a wide as the kit and this causes some crazy reflections so I had to pretty much go in and use samples to clean it up.

 

The concern about the vocals being up front I can understand. The artist wanted the mix to sit this way.

 

Phil I am going to assume you were listening to Hello with the end part there when the delay hits with the "I forgive you part" Ya it does lift it a bit makes it warmer.

 

They were going for the angels and airwaves thing.

[IceBryce]

 

I am gonna be really honest. It doesn't sound very good. the performance need work you can here them falling apart. The vocals are extremly drony. The balance in the FQ range is godaweful. Its bad. The drum sounds are anemic. The bass guitar is nearly inaudiable. The guitars are tweetering away and the vocals are on top of everything in a fundementally bad way.

 

 

 

Not sure what you mean by FQ?

[AluminumNeck]

shorthand for Frequency.

 

 

Not sure what you mean by FQ?

 

[AluminumNeck]

if you don;t have a good tracking room for drums buy a cheap alesis kit electronic and a set of steve slate drums etc, ezdrummer,BFD and eliminate this from your issue pile. Its far cheaper then building a top notch room to record drums.

 

 

All very legit concerns. Keeping mind that you cannot bleed a stone the vocals are as good as I could get spending hours tracking and yes... auto tune is at large here. ALSO: if when you comment you could list which songs you are listening too that would help alot. The problem with the drums is they were tracked in a room about a wide as the kit and this causes some crazy reflections so I had to pretty much go in and use samples to clean it up. The concern about the vocals being up front I can understand. The artist wanted the mix to sit this way. Phil I am going to assume you were listening to Hello with the end part there when the delay hits with the "I forgive you part" Ya it does lift it a bit makes it warmer. They were going for the angels and airwaves thing.

 

[Synonym Music]

 

I think you need some of that soaring quality a little earlier on. And I agree you could stand to get better sounds on the guitars and drums. But still , you're capturing a cool and totally viable vibe to me. Take more time with your main vocal.

 

That's what I'm getting. A lack of energy, pitch problems - the drummer doesn't feel into it. I think the choice of vocal mic was poor as well. This applies to all of them.

 

I don't agree on this squeeze blood out of a rock thing with the vocals. They could sound a fair bit better with some work (mainly pitch, time, tone, FX).

[IceBryce]

 

That's what I'm getting. A lack of energy, pitch problems - the drummer doesn't feel into it. I think the choice of vocal mic was poor as well. This applies to all of them. I don't agree on this squeeze blood out of a rock thing with the vocals. They could sound a fair bit better with some work (mainly pitch, time, tone, FX).

 

 

How would suggest going about fixing the pitch, time, tone, and fx?

.

[scaryfried]

One tip I've got is get rid of lots of the lower FQ's on the guitar and the high FQ's on the bass - this is to clear up room for the vocals and drums to sit.

 

I actually liked If You Like, not a bad song at all. Like mentioned before, could be a bit tighter though. In this song, when it hits the chorus there could be a better build up though, maybe the guitarists play harder or something?

[Synonym Music]

 

How would suggest going about fixing the pitch, time, tone, and fx? .

 

Use melodyne, time correct, multiband compress and notch out with a paragraphic, and build climaxes appropriately. It hurts the energy of the song having vocals so far out there, but I don't hear that you have enough of a bed even if the vox was kept in check, so that's not the only reason things seem a little flat. It's the drums to some extent.

 

I'll say this... I want to axe murder singers that over-pronounce. If I can get away with a little time compression and rarefaction on words to bring that down a tad, I'll try it out and A/B. Occasionally it helps.

[IceBryce]

At first it was hard to hear the this sucks and bad mix. but the more i read that you actually are willing to back it up I see what maybe I can do. I am going to try melodyne and see if I can fix up the pacing.

[Lee Knight]

 

At first it was hard to hear the this sucks and bad mix. but the more i read that you actually are willing to back it up I see what maybe I can do. I am going to try melodyne and see if I can fix up the pacing.

 

 

It doesn't suck. There's more good in it than most. I like it. Work on the comments and you've got some cool stuff.

[IceBryce]

its tough because early on I had some better mixes but the client wanted changes to what we hear now. How do you win those wars?

[Synonym Music]

 

At first it was hard to hear the this sucks and bad mix. but the more i read that you actually are willing to back it up I see what maybe I can do. I am going to try melodyne and see if I can fix up the pacing.

 

The reason I mentioned mic choice is because of the reedy voice. I have a reedy voice. Duncan Sheik has a reedy voice. David Archuleta has a reedy voice (and he had Humberto Gatica helping out!) I don't know what the best choice is in these cases, but I don't feel FET condensers help anything. Is that what you used? I'm hearing that reediness even past the fog of myspace encoding...

 

 

its tough because early on I had some better mixes but the client wanted changes to what we hear now. How do you win those wars?

 

Make them gain perspective. I always pull out Makes Me Wonder by Maroon 5 if an artist believes their vocals need to be loud, or if I want to hear a lot of fader riding, Nobody Wants to be Lonely by Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera (*shudder*). I dunno... They both make me want to turn the volume up. I suppose on the other side you have Johnny Cash; all vocals all the time.

 

There's still a very big difference between vocal up mixes (usually +1 or +2db for lead vox) and vocals stomping everything else. There's hardly anything popular with the levels he's wanting. I sometimes ask what an artist listens to and then compare those directly to their song - not in an effort to undermine, but in an effort see a larger picture. Is their voice "buried," or is it simply in harmony with everything else? Does radio favor loud vocals, or does it favor balance? Or going even further: is a part too complex, or are they singling it out? Rhetorical question 2 will bring out a lot of misconceptions. I've heard that "Vocals can never be too loud," "That's what labels want to hear," etc. All sorts of delusional nonsense.

 

I got that way when writing. It was all about loud drums with me, which was made worse in my earlier years when I didn't have decent monitoring. Never played drums, ever. Just liked them. They were always what I started with. But I got over it fast when I started working on other people's music. I'd want slightly loud drums and they'd want slightly loud vocals, and I guess we met somewhere in the middle to create a balanced mix. Eventually I got to that meeting point by myself before I sent off a revision.

 

I've also cheated and put the vocals a few dB past what they already wanted to exaggerate the skew. Then it just sounds bad no matter what, and they'll usually relent a bit on the vocal level.

[IceBryce]

Ill keep that in mind for the next record. I used a condensor Mic on his voice. AT something or other and another condensor not sure what it was. I tried a 57 but it was even worse.

 

Its the tone of his voice just isnt that good.

[Lee Knight]

 

its tough because early on I had some better mixes but the client wanted changes to what we hear now. How do you win those wars?

 

 

 

Give them what they want, not what they ask for.

 

If someone says "Turn up the vocal", they really just want to be moved by the vocal. To have it hit them with impact. That might not necessarily be achieved by simply turning the vocal up. It might, but it also might throw the whole balance off. Maybe what they really want is focus. Compression, early reflections, mild mid boost...

 

It's your job to interpret their needs but not to be lead astray by the means that they communicate them. I'm frequently saying, "Tell me what you want, not how to get it."

 

And I'm clear to them this is not a defensive response but a means of getting closer to their vision. They're usually right about the things they want, and usually wrong about how to achieve it. Learn the difference.

[IceBryce]

I see. Well put... well put indeed.

[Synonym Music]

 

Give them what they want, not what they ask for. If someone says "Turn up the vocal", they really just want to be moved by the vocal. To have it hit them with impact. That might not necessarily be achieved by simply turning the vocal up. It might, but it also might throw the whole balance off. Maybe what they really want is focus. Compression, early reflections, mild mid boost... It's your job to interpret their needs but not to be lead astray by the means that they communicate them. I'm frequently saying, "Tell me what you want, not how to get it." And I'm clear to them this is not a defensive response but a means of getting closer to their vision. They're usually right about the things they want, and usually wrong about how to achieve it. Learn the difference.

 

That is well put.

 

Don't do it with hacks, though.

[scaryfried]

 

Give them what they want, not what they ask for. If someone says "Turn up the vocal", they really just want to be moved by the vocal. To have it hit them with impact. That might not necessarily be achieved by simply turning the vocal up. It might, but it also might throw the whole balance off. Maybe what they really want is focus. Compression, early reflections, mild mid boost... It's your job to interpret their needs but not to be lead astray by the means that they communicate them. I'm frequently saying, "Tell me what you want, not how to get it." And I'm clear to them this is not a defensive response but a means of getting closer to their vision. They're usually right about the things they want, and usually wrong about how to achieve it. Learn the difference.

 

 

Great tips.