Thoughts, opinions, suggestions? Punk/pop song.

[AmongstTheLiving]

No vocals yet. They're being done on the 6th. Minus comments about the band itself, what would you change about the mix/sonic qualities of the song? Having just now compared this to some other albums of like genres, I know the kick and bass need some more balls. I'm hating the overheads. Had to use RNP's due to catastrophic equipment failure. They don't sound smooth like they normally do when things go my way, and I'm having difficulty dealing with them. What would you do if this was your mix?

Edit: Revisions on the mix made:

Added more low end to bass and kick.

Finished editing guitars and bass.

Brought down OHS a little bit.

Brought up HH.

Added Reverb and Delay to lead guitars.

Edit #2:

So I came to the realization that the reverb I thought I had on the guitars wasn't on these mp3's. It turns out I had the verb routed to my mains, but not my main mix. DOH!

Brought up snare a touch.

Reduced compression on guitars.

Reduced main mix limiting slightly.

Adjusted bass low end to try to get it "more punchy."

[AmongstTheLiving]

Any feedback would be great. Good or bad. I want to hear it!

[Dean Roddey]

Hard to tell how it'll end up when it has the vocals, but I like it. It raw but not sloppy.

The bass is light, at least on my wee speakers. I'm assuming in a song like this the bass is relatively bright and so it's not because the bulk of it is too low for these speakers, so I assume it really actually is a little low. But at the speed of this song, more might be too much, I dunno. I do hear the growl of it, but not much body and punch.

In terms of content, I guess it could be a bit more original, I dunno. If someone had told me it was an early Green Day track I'd probably have believed it. Of course the vocal could always make the difference there. The guitar style in particular is definitely from that playbook.

Not that I'm blazing new stylistic trails myself, but I figured that's feedback you'd want.

[AmongstTheLiving]

That's actually kind of where this band wants to sit. They've been playing punk rock for probably 8 or 9 years and are tired of not selling records. They want to get more radio play without "selling out." I'm happy to say I really feel the vocals sell this band.

Though I failed to mention this, I'm trying to keep this mix a tiny bit light on the low end side due to the fact this is most likely going to end up on a 7" split. I am still looking for an appropriate balance of levels. Overall levels probably shouldn't be so loud either... Here's another question, would this be an appropriate mix to go on vinyl or should I mix it like I would mix a cd? Or is that something decided in mastering? I've mixed for vinyl before and something went wrong because the whole song was distorted. I think that it was the mastering engineers fault, but I don't know. I'm new to vinyl.

[memphisindie]

I like it!
Can't wait to hear the vox.

[AmongstTheLiving]

So on this last revision, I feel like since I've got the bass sitting in the right place I've kind of lost some of the detail of the kick drum... Maybe roll off the bass slightly sooner? Snare sounds better though. Guitars bite harder now. I would still like more input on possible improvements for the song so far EQ, mix, compression, or otherwise.

[memphisindie]

I still like it, it's clearer now, and it reminds me of the sunday matinee at CBGB in my youth.
Vox?

[Dean Roddey]

I'm not sure I hear much more bass, though there's more balls to the guitars and I personally like them better, though it might not be what's best for a song in this genre, I dunno. And yeh, the kick is now kind of losing the battle.

[AmongstTheLiving]

Vocals are scheduled for next monday. I started working on the song that's to be paired with this one. What a fking nightmare. The song is really fast so the drummer is hitting the snare very light for most of the song. I thought maybe I could salvage it by sampling, but its so quiet drumagog isn't even coming close to be able to track it accurately... I might try to convince them to scrap it... Its not nearly as good of a tune or even played as well as this one anyway. We'll see what happens in the next couple days.

Back to the current tune, maybe I'll throw the subkick back in the mix. Its completely removed right now.

[rhythmic5]

wow! sick!!! i love it dude, though I think you should definitely sample the snare from the chorus and stick it in the parts of the verse with the weak hits, since it seriously needs louder hits in some areas of the verse (especially the first verse, can hardly hear the snare hits sometimes)

for my taste at least, i would dip the 250hz range in the guitars and the bass just to make sure things stick out in car stereos, and maybe turn up the 4-5khz range in the guitar, depending on how the vocals sound just to make them pop a little more

really good stuff though thumbsup

[Bob Olhsson]

I agree the kick needs more definition.

The kick and bass sound like they are fighting each other a bit. One solution might lie in eqing the bass a little differently so that it sits a bit above the kick in tonality and stays out of the way without losing the ability to hear what it's playing. I'd probably also try the reverse approach with the bass below the kick.

[eyesliketv]

Im jealous!! this sound sgood man! just needs vocals.....