The Returners - The Beast Within, take a listen!

[drakewire]

This track lacks analogue soul.... it just sounds fake... Good song, but the production is terribly cold and it lacks any low end... There is definitely good musicianship going on here, but the production sounds like you are playing in trapped hospital room with padded walls. I would recommend accentuating the low end to give it a more modern sound by perhaps using a real pultec style EQ or even the plug ins to really drive some low end sound. A good starting point would be to cut (filter)everything under 30 raise Boost 75 to 80 till you get some bottom end I think for this track you need about 3 to 4 DB. then Raise the 167-240 range enough with the Q so that you get a good bass sound without rumble on your speakers. I suspect that you dont have the great of monitors because of many peaks in the high ranges.... I personally dont believe in overly compressing a track but that might be a way to get some warmth to it...

.... Over all, I believe you can get good sounds on a Digi set up, but to me all their stuff sounds the same without great outboard gear to feed into it...
Best Wishes,
Devon Drake

[FattMusiek]

Thanks for listening. Blunt is your style I guess, which is cool with me. However, I believe our opinions on what sounds good is different. What I hear when I listen to this song, which may not be modern, is what I heard in my head before any of those virtual faders came up. In that regard, it's a complete success for me.

I do feel you on the outboard gear thing. I have none - only default LE plugs and a couple free ones. Also, this is really just a mix. I really just suck ass at mastering, especially my own music. Given my mixing environment (speakers and room), the balance to me is just right. I can only do so much. I feel like your suggestions would benefit a mastering engineer who is mastering my mix. But man...there are all these rules...you have to do everything a certain way...or else it's not modern.

[drakewire]

I was just talking to another guy the other day who said a very similar thing... I told him Cold recording is still cold recording. BTW, you are using very modern gear and I didnt say it was bad, I just think that if you go down to your local Circuit City, pop your cd and other commercial releases who have been professionally recorded in the Home Theater Section and listen to it on a multitude of speakers you will hear what I am saying...
And sure, a mastering engineer can add warmth to the mix, but at the expense of sometimes other really cool things going on here in the the track. I am not blunt, I am honest, its what this forum is about. Showcase etc for feedback...

[FattMusiek]

I'll try to incorporate your suggestions next time around Drake. I don't know, I stopped trying to make my band's shit sound commercial a long time ago. A commercial album has a huge budget, a great engineer, great gear, great mixing environment. Basically everything is done right from the start. Seems futile to me, personally. That's not to say you can't get very near professional recordings at home, but A) I like miking instruments and B) I was tired of downloading plugins I could not afford.