nosamiam

Good ear! Yes, our room is pretty much untreated. That's something we're going to work on before we do any more recording. I used a pair of MXL SDC's as overheads, a Studio Projects LDC for snare/hat back a little bit and toward the bottom (didn't use the pad and they ended up liking the sound of the overdriven mic) and an AKG D112 on kick. I think treating the room will go a long ways towards making it sound better. It took a LOT of EQ to get those MXL's to sound decent. Our guitarist is quite opinionated, kind of rash, and he's been playing for a really long time. This sometimes adds up to quick judgements from him that aren't always sound. He's a "slap a mic in front of it, no effects" purist kind of guy. But he always comes around eventually. We just have to sneak in some nice touches and then tell him how we achieve them. He's a pleasure to work with really, and he really makes us work on our diplomacy. Drum kit tuning? What's that? J/k. Our drummer has only actively tuned his kit once from an online guide I printed for him! But he's lately taken a big interest in sounding better. He just really doesn't know where to start. Thanks for the tip about the cymbals!!! And thanks for the guitar EQ tips. I'll definitely try to incorporate them. We do have much better songs and this is our only instrumental. We just thought this would be a good song to get our feet wet since it's a relatively simple one. Thanks a lot for suffering through our song and offering the pointers. We had a really short suspense date, and the mix is due tomorrow, so I'll take another crack at it and then I'm off to bed.

Yes! Just the kind of stuff I was looking for. Thanks! I shouldn't have too much trouble widening the drums. I've got a lot of room to pan. The guitar is actually a 12-string (which our player uses exclusively) going into a Laney tube amp, close-miked with a 57. The spring reverb is the one on the amp. He tends to use it a lot (the reverb) during rehearsal and gigs. His background is in garage and if I asked him, I imagine he'd say its part of his signature sound. Should we record him dry, do you think, adding reverb later? Or maybe even record direct (he hates the idea) and then re-amp the track to try to convince him that maybe less works better than more?

My band got asked to be on local compilation CD, so we picked one of our more "throwaway" songs and recorded it at home. This is my first attempt at tracking/mixing and I was hoping to get some feedback. What do you all think? What does it need? http://www.theheliumtapes.com/sounds/Caligula.mp3