Members stage7 Posted April 15, 2006 Members Share Posted April 15, 2006 My band just recorded our first demo, which I did all the tracking and mixing for. It's rough, especially since we had 3 weeks to do the whole thing, with 2 hour practices twice a week. I'm looking mostly for comments/advice on how to improve the sound on any future tracks, but any constructive criticism is welcome. The files can be found at myspace These tracks were recorded on a Korg D16XD, rough tracks mixed in Sonar 2, final tracks on the D16XD. I used a shure drum mic kit, 2 Audio Technica 2020's for overheads with a Nady RSM-2 for a room mic, SM57s on the snare. Guitars were done with a SM57, Sennheiser e609 silver, AT2020. Bass was recorded with a combo of DI from a Gallien-Krueger 700-RB, AT2020, and SM57. Vocals used a AT2020. I also used a PreSonus blue tube for the snare and vocal tracks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ebrecordings Posted April 15, 2006 Members Share Posted April 15, 2006 drums: the drums need tuned badly. i'd change out the head on the kick with an aquarian superkick I, take off the back head, load that thing up with a pillow, then place the kick mic inside pointed directly at the beaters. i'd tune the snare up tighter, maybe lower on the bottom head, i'd have to see what kind of snare it was, this is the best part of your drum sounds, but it still doesn't quite fit right. i tihnk it needs some more body. guitars: it's sounding like you used solidstate guitar amps. if you don't have good tube amps, get some, or borrow some next time you record. for this kind of stuff, you're not going to get a killer guitar tone unless you have some good tube saturation. the mics/preamps/recording setup hardly matters at all if your equipment doesn't sound good. so put some better amps in front of it vocals: they're a bit loud, but this is mostly due to the guitars sounding so thin. other than that, it sounds like you tracked them pretty well. bass: i couldn't distinguish the bass sound hardly at all. this might be due to old strings, and not enough drive going in. i record this kind of music all the time, and i've found the best thing to get a clear bass on this stuff is new strings, try that next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ebrecordings Posted April 15, 2006 Members Share Posted April 15, 2006 did you record with that mesa in the pictures? because it doesn't sound like it at all. if you did, try not scooping the mids so much, maybe back some of the gain off, and put the 57 right on the speaker cone, maybe off axis at about 45degrees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted April 15, 2006 Members Share Posted April 15, 2006 I listened through computer speakers - really crappy tiny ones - but the vocals also struck me as being a little loud and the guitars surprisingly thin. I can't really tell you about the bottom end at all since I can't hear any bottom end, but I could hear the kick prominently. As far as solid-state guitar amps go, Terry Date and people like Pantera and Prong use solid-state amps with distortion and get really great, in-your-face distortion, so it's clearly possible to achieve great distortion with solid-state guitar amps. I also prefer tube amps, but I think that's more of my personal aesthetic than anything else (although that said, I think it's easier to achieve ear-pleasing distortion with a tube amp). But regardless, the other poster is right - you absolutely have to get your sound right at the source first before anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stage7 Posted April 15, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 15, 2006 Originally posted by ebrecordings did you record with that mesa in the pictures? because it doesn't sound like it at all. if you did, try not scooping the mids so much, maybe back some of the gain off, and put the 57 right on the speaker cone, maybe off axis at about 45degrees. Thanks very much for the responses! Actually, we used a marshall solid state for the distortion... the mesa is mine, which I brought over for the guitar player to use, but he liked his amp better for overdrive anyway, we ened up only using the mesa for cleans lol. Yeah, the strings on my bass are definitely too old, I'll have to keep that in mind next time. would an extra dB or two on the overdrive parts help at all? I definitely agree with the drums needinga serious tuning, the reason they didn't for this was because of the time restrictions... 2 hours to record scratch tracks for 6 songs and set up mics, 2 hours to record final drum tracks, 4 hours each for guitars and vocals, and the bass tracked outside of practice time. UstadKhanAli: As far as the kicks go, that was at the request of the band.... they really want that "clicky" sound from modern metal cds, and that was about as close as I could get on such short notice since I've never tried to get that sound before. I went back and forth with a Trivium CD as much as possible but I definitely didn't get it as close as I would have liked. Anyone have advice on processing for that particular sound? Something very similar to "Prey To Become" on Mr. Bruck's myspace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted April 15, 2006 Members Share Posted April 15, 2006 Originally posted by stage7 UstadKhanAli: As far as the kicks go, that was at the request of the band.... they really want that "clicky" sound from modern metal cds, and that was about as close as I could get on such short notice since I've never tried to get that sound before. I went back and forth with a Trivium CD as much as possible but I definitely didn't get it as close as I would have liked. Anyone have advice on processing for that particular sound? As you mentioned, tuning the drums would really help. From my experience, you can't have too much bottom end on kick drums for this sort of fast kick playing, so I think you've got that right (please bear in mind that I'm listening to your music on cheap-ass tiny computer speakers, making my advice next-to-useless!! ). Just make sure that it blends with the bass, as you guys previously discussed. I'm gonna go out on a limb here, take a guess... A lot of times that the bass isn't too prominent in the mix, it can sometimes be because you are monitoring too loudly, and then when you listen back at lower volumes, the bass can sometimes disappear. Getting the bass to sink in with the rest of the music is always a bit of a challenge, but totally worth the effort. Now, again, I'm *guessing* because I have no clue what's going on with the bottom end, but I can't really hear the bass much. The only other comment I have for now is that you have some cool songs! P.S. And yeah, changing yer strings is the single easiest and cheapest way to improve your bass sound. Same with guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ebrecordings Posted April 15, 2006 Members Share Posted April 15, 2006 Originally posted by stage7 Thanks very much for the responses! Actually, we used a marshall solid state for the distortion... the mesa is mine, which I brought over for the guitar player to use, but he liked his amp better for overdrive anyway, we ened up only using the mesa for cleans lol. Yeah, the strings on my bass are definitely too old, I'll have to keep that in mind next time. would an extra dB or two on the overdrive parts help at all? I definitely agree with the drums needinga serious tuning, the reason they didn't for this was because of the time restrictions... 2 hours to record scratch tracks for 6 songs and set up mics, 2 hours to record final drum tracks, 4 hours each for guitars and vocals, and the bass tracked outside of practice time. UstadKhanAli: As far as the kicks go, that was at the request of the band.... they really want that "clicky" sound from modern metal cds, and that was about as close as I could get on such short notice since I've never tried to get that sound before. I went back and forth with a Trivium CD as much as possible but I definitely didn't get it as close as I would have liked. Anyone have advice on processing for that particular sound? Something very similar to "Prey To Become" on Mr. Bruck's myspace. it doesn't matter what he says, he's used to the solidstate sound, so he probably wanted to use that. but that mesa would improve that recording tenfold. it is possible to get good sounds with a solidstate, but it takes a very very good solidstate amp to do that. if you want more advice, you can hit me up on aol instant messenger. i keep it open while i'm working. my sn is ebrecordings Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members paulskirocks Posted April 15, 2006 Members Share Posted April 15, 2006 just 2 cents from a guitarist... a lot of the time i find that the tone i think i want from my amp doesn't sound right in the recording... i tend to play to a tone i am used to, especially when jamming alone, which usually involves sucking out the midrange... lately i have enjoyed more mid and less bass in my recordings, and have gotten full tones from my line6, which is solid state... one idea would be to isolate the mesa amp and run a splitter to both amps, if you have another mic and preamp, and dial up the mesa differently... then you will have two different sounds to work with without messing with what the guitarist is used to hearing when he performs... paulski oh, i like the songs, by the way... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stage7 Posted April 15, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 15, 2006 Thanks again for the responses I'll have to convince the guitar player to use a splitter next time. I knew I wasn't crazy with thinking a duel recto sounded better than a marshall solid state..... Also if anyone wants to listen to a higher quality version than the crappy myspace streaming audio I've hosted them on the band's (horribly incomplete) website. I personally feel that Welcome to Silence sounds/is mixed the best Government Insane , No Baggage , Welcome to Silence , Angel In My Hands , Fictional Tears , World's Edge Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stage7 Posted April 16, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 16, 2006 Some further questions for you guys... 1. Would it be better to mix the bass in stereo rather than having a mono signal sitting in the middle? While I was mixing this, whenever I compared to a commercially released cd I noticed positioning of my instruments could be pinpointed to exact locations, rather than areas. I think this at least in part might account for the guitars sounding thin as well, although the amp is definitely one of the main factors. Would narrow stereo signals panned left and right help the guitar too? 2. Given the equipment I have, did I make reasonable choices for mic'ing the instruments? I also have a MXL 990, Shure 849, 2 Shure PG81's, and a Behringer B1 that didn't make it into this recording. I'm pretty much past the point of worrying if I could have done more with the time I had to get this thing out, but now that I have as much time as I want to play around I'd like to see how much better I can do with what I've already got tracked. Thanks again for all the responses, and ebrecordings.. I'd love to chat more with you about this on aim sometime, unfortunately I was all over the place yesterday.. mostly my grandparent's house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted April 16, 2006 Members Share Posted April 16, 2006 Regarding the guitars, you might want to read the two other posts in this forum that discuss tracking the guitars twice. I personally like to track the guitars twice, using different guitars, amps, mic positions, mics, etc. to achieve a thicker sound (sometimes - obviously depends on the song). As far as the bass goes, you can pan this around and see if that gets you where you want to go without having to resort to stereo. See if you like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stage7 Posted April 16, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 16, 2006 Thanks very much for the advice. Yeah, I did at least 2 takes of all the dirty guitar parts, and different mixes of the mics for the left and right tracks. I'll have to make sure to try moving them around and switching out mics next time. What I'm specifically wondering is if I should try using a stereo effect like stereo reverb to add width to the sound and make it more realistic, or will this just muddy up the mix? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dead matt Posted April 18, 2006 Members Share Posted April 18, 2006 a slap delay may add some desired fatness to a git track. A/B the dry tone against the effect and you should notice that the effected track has a wider prescence. btw I haven't listened to your cut, just browsing at work and thought I'd comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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