Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - demo of my own band

Reggie Love · 3rd October 2005

I kinda think I knew that

but anyway...

Please feel free to tell me to f*ck off but here goes...

There is nothing wrong with using whatever kit you can afford but there are some basic issues you need to deal with here...

1) Lead vox. Double tracking, echo and verb. Either you believe your lead vox can sing or you don't.

The lead vox as they stand are such vocal mud I can barely make out the lyrics after 3 listens. If you are going to use double tracking, use the second track quietly to support the first if you absolutely have to. Preferably use several vocals takes and pick the best sections of these to make your final vocal take to start off with. It takes a long time for people to get their technique together enough to do great single takes.

2) Compression. Various pumping in individual parts is competely buggering the mix balance.

3) Backing vox. Hard left / right panning is not a good idea and subjectively they actually seem higher than the lead vox. Less FX on the lead maybe a little verb on the backing vox to sit them in the mix and deal with the level and their location in the stereo image. The location of the backing vox does not necessarily have to be literal...

4) Audio Artifacts. There is an awful and obvious one at 00:33, sounds like someone clicking a camera off or cracking their knuckles. Lose it...

5) Guitars.

I'm sorry but the guitar sounds really let this high energy track down!!! (Believe you me, I quite like this song). No crunch, no chunk, nada!

6) Mix. It's hard to say what to do with this without hearing the original uncompressed tracks. Compression is messing up the mix. Go back to basics and resort to normalisation and expansion to see what can be achieved. I'm guessing however that original recording levels were none to great. You might want to look to these in your next project.

Things I really like about this track...

Nice raw sound, you have left in various timing issues and glitches and just got on with the mix and production. This mates nicely with the sytle of the track and creates a nice energy to the sound. I like the very basic keyboard sound alot. Why go for huge techno lead? Keep it simple but maybe just use some very subtle FX to give it some sense of space in the mix.

Keep working on this one...

3rd October 2005	#5
Reggie Love Gear addict Joined: Sep 2005 Location: Knebworth Posts: 338	I kinda think I knew that but anyway... Please feel free to tell me to f*ck off but here goes... There is nothing wrong with using whatever kit you can afford but there are some basic issues you need to deal with here... 1) Lead vox. Double tracking, echo and verb. Either you believe your lead vox can sing or you don't. The lead vox as they stand are such vocal mud I can barely make out the lyrics after 3 listens. If you are going to use double tracking, use the second track quietly to support the first if you absolutely have to. Preferably use several vocals takes and pick the best sections of these to make your final vocal take to start off with. It takes a long time for people to get their technique together enough to do great single takes. 2) Compression. Various pumping in individual parts is competely buggering the mix balance. 3) Backing vox. Hard left / right panning is not a good idea and subjectively they actually seem higher than the lead vox. Less FX on the lead maybe a little verb on the backing vox to sit them in the mix and deal with the level and their location in the stereo image. The location of the backing vox does not necessarily have to be literal... 4) Audio Artifacts. There is an awful and obvious one at 00:33, sounds like someone clicking a camera off or cracking their knuckles. Lose it... 5) Guitars. I'm sorry but the guitar sounds really let this high energy track down!!! (Believe you me, I quite like this song). No crunch, no chunk, nada! 6) Mix. It's hard to say what to do with this without hearing the original uncompressed tracks. Compression is messing up the mix. Go back to basics and resort to normalisation and expansion to see what can be achieved. I'm guessing however that original recording levels were none to great. You might want to look to these in your next project. Things I really like about this track... Nice raw sound, you have left in various timing issues and glitches and just got on with the mix and production. This mates nicely with the sytle of the track and creates a nice energy to the sound. I like the very basic keyboard sound alot. Why go for huge techno lead? Keep it simple but maybe just use some very subtle FX to give it some sense of space in the mix. Keep working on this one...