menJop

Okay, karma time. As the guidelines for this thread suggested, I wanted to give a bit of feedback before asking for some. So now it's time to (hopefully) get some back. http://www.geocities.com/phillyguy_1/Dosed.mp3 By way of background, I'm principally a guitarist; I've been playing for nearly 25 years, at varying levels of seriousness (pretty serious the last couple of years). This is a Chili Peppers tune that I did principally as a guitar layering and mixing exercise. I think it's among the two or three best finished products to come out of my spare-bedroom studio. There are 7 guitar tracks here, all of which were played on a FrankenStrat that I put together from various bits (but it's basically a '57-reissue -- pickups, body, bridge). I recorded it direct, and added the amp tone later using Cakewalk's Amp Sim (this was before I discovered the joys of ReValver). There's a whopping 14 tracks of backing vox here, most of which only come in at the very end. The bass and piano are a Roland XV-5050, and the drums are Drumkit from Hell. The whole thing was recorded and mixed on Sonar. I'd be very interested to hear what people think of this, most especially what I could be doing better. It's basically a sound-alike of the original, or at least, as close as I could get it, so an A-B comparison might be interesting if you have the By The Way CD handy. Compliments are always welcome, but I think criticism is more useful in improving one's skills. So fire away! BTW, I'm not a singer. You have been warned Thanks in advance to anyone who gives this a listen. --John

C Jo Go, Really nice track. Just gave it a couple of listens, and here are some comments: I agree that the guitar is a bit bright -- sounds great, but could use some eq (2k-3k? a guess). The mix is a bit hot -- clips around 1:48, 1:58, 3:09. Overall, could use some eq to get the various parts out of each other's way. I'm just nit-picking; much as I'd like to offer some constructive criticism, I can't find much to criticize. It sounds awesome. --John

elamberth -- The first thing that jumped out at me was that the track's peak amplitude is less than -9dB. You'd gain a lot (no pun intended) by using more of the available headroom. See my previous post for details of my monitor chain, and disclaimers about my experience level Random comments: Nice groove. Cymbals may have clipped somewhere along the line -- they sound a bit harsh. Guitar tone is nice -- love that clean one especially. The track might be served by a more natural drum tone (less gated-sounding, although the gating is well done). For a track like this, I think the bass and drums should more out front. You might consider a little more bottom-end on the bass as well. Overall, pretty nice.

Ken, Undone -- I just gave it a quick two listens. My monitor chain was Cool Edit for playback, through a Pulsar 1 sound card, into a Samson Servo 120 driving Samson Resolv 65s. The system seems to translate reasonably well to the other systems I test mixes on, but is a little lacking in the bass department. I'm an amateur whose experience is mostly limited to solo projects in my home studio. Random comments: Cool track -- are you guys from Ireland? Nice kick, but the snare sounds a little loose Guitar sound is very cool -- especially those layered guitars towards the end Toms could use tightening up (compression/less room mikes?) Middle bit (lead) just clipping (also at about 4:10), basically the two places where it gets really loud. Overall, I think it may be a bit too dynamic, but that may be from listening to too many overly-hot radio masters. Great guitars -- or did I mention that? Bass is nice, right where it needs to be. Lead vox sit very nicely in the mix. I agree with Lee that the vox could use a touch of air, but it sounds darned good as is. That's about it. Great track -- I enjoyed listening to it. -John