demo of my own band - any suggestions regarding the mix?

[mr jkn]

Hello,

Recorded my own band a month ago in a veeery lofi-studio, and mixed it at home in cubase. Gearlist:

micpreamps: behringer ultragain on all tracks
mics: vox - sm57, bass - through sansamp, drums some shure´s and a couple of bland chinese ones.

All guitars through "ta-daa!" Behringer V-amp

keyboard: casio cs_1000 through "cough" behringer again.

The tracks ended up a bit thin sounding and over-compressed, but overall I´m quite happy with the finished tracks.

Would be more than happy if you have any suggestions on the production!

[mr jkn]

correction:

the casio cz 1000 was recorded through the di in a studio projects vtb-1.

[Reggie Love]

Can't get your track to download...

[mr jkn]

Originally Posted by Reggie Love

Can't get your track to download...

hmm, doesn´t seem to be a problem downloading from here...
try right-click and "save target as".

try again

(what browser do you use? I have had some problems with firefox - uploading..)

p.s. using behringer gear almost exclusively on this demo is NOT a statement from my part! just for the record... We´re poor fellas. By the way, I´m playing guitar and doing some backing vox on the song.

[Reggie Love]

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...

[mr jkn]

I´m not telling you to f**k off. The actual lentgh of your response and the effort you made to analyze the track shows that you care. Big up.

Very constructive criticism!

The two things I´m most unhappy with are the compression and the guitars. The guitars are killing me! Hate them!

Maybe one should let someone else mix the track, it is psychologically hard to keep the distance from your own music, it´s like becoming deaf or something.

[djui5]

Originally Posted by mr jkn

Maybe one should let someone else mix the track, it is psychologically hard to keep the distance from your own music, it´s like becoming deaf or something.

Yes it is, and yes you should.

I can hear a lot of potential in this track...it just needs a proper mix. Check your pm's

[mr jkn]

Originally Posted by djui5

Yes it is, and yes you should.

I can hear a lot of potential in this track...it just needs a proper mix. Check your pm's

Good point. Couldn´t stay off Cubase though! So I uploaded a new version..
djui, u got a pm any minute

[Reggie Love]

Well, well things are improving considerably, you now have the makings of a good basic mix here... Well done!

Your vocalist sounds much better without all those extra FX now. On the whole he sits nicely in the mix without sounding detached from the rest of the band but he does duck very slightly occasionally. I would not resort to any further compression to solve this rather a little, gentle fader automation and - only if you need it - soft limiting should do the trick.

I'm afraid the guitars are still the weak point of this mix. This is an "Indie" type sound so you're not looking for heavy metal grating here but introducing a little more roughness to the sound plus some judicous EQ to make the sound cut through should help with the driving feel of the track.

In terms of the Keybs, I can see what you have tried to do with them and this does add a little interest, but I was talking more about using a few light delay tricks to improve the stereo spread. I can PM you some to try if you want me to. In doing this you may have to EQ the Keybs so they sound a little thin in isolation but this will avoid them washing the rest of the tracks out.

Drums on the whole seem pretty good level wise, although there does seem to be a little cyclical compression pumping. The kick and snare might benefit from a little EQ to improve their general tone.

If Djui was offering you a mix in those PMs, I'd take the offer, plenty of people use a spearate and independent mix engineer to get a final mix and I always find I learn alot when I hear the treatment other people give to my sounds.

You're definitely heading in the right direction.

You might also want to start thinking about some more "artistic" decisions now. For example:-

1) Would the spoken middle section benefit from some form of FX treatment?

2) Would the spoken middle section benefit from some extra music / FX to add to the way it separate the start/ middle and the end of the song?

3) You have your basic sounds drums, guitars vox etc... Are there any sounds or samples in short snippets that can be inserted to add a little interest and polish to the track?

My recommendation would be to leave the track alone for 48 hours and rest your ears then come back to it, have a listen yourself, identify any further issues that you can here, then make a to do list including your own thoughts and any of the ones mentioned here that you agree with before diving straight in...

Alternatively, if you have the option, try and get someone else to have a go with the mix.

[mr jkn]

Thanks again for the input, you guys made pick up the mix again! This time I actually did thru my headphones, just for a change - and I didn´t want to disturb my girlfriend looking at Desp. Housewifes.

Feels good that you think I made progressions..

I know, Reggie, what you refer to when you wrote about the keyboard - gonna check that further on. The guitars seem to kill me though, I´m very afraid of pushing them to upfront, b´cause they seem to squash the whole picture if I do. Practice I suppose...

This may make me seem stupid, Reggie, but what is "cyclical compression"?

+ Thanks for the input regarding, and the suggestions about, the vox in the bridge. Essential.

[Reggie Love]

You don't sound dumb at all, I was probably being a bit pompous when I used the word "cyclical" with the phrase "compression pumping"...

If you listen to your drums you can hear that the track pumps and ducks very slightly at regular intervals, it's only particularly noticeable in the intro phrase. This may be a product of too long a release time on your compressor... I'm reasonably certain this is the case, because you can actually hear your compressor change between 01:15 and 01:16, listen to what happens to your hi-hat at 01:16 compared to the previous hit...

[JustinPhelps]

I love this song..Is this a cover or an original? I love his accent.

Nice stuff.

Justin

[mr jkn]

Originally Posted by JustinPhelps

I love this song..Is this a cover or an original? I love his accent.

Nice stuff.

Justin

An original of course! The drummer is our "melodic" mastermind, he comes up with these catchy tunes almost on weekly basis. We started the band a few years ago and noone, except the drummer, had ever touched an instrument. He on the other hand could play on everything so he taught us all (we were in our midtwenties then). He said like "You will play guitar, you there, - pick up the bass, hmm you will sing, and you - switch on the keyboard! I drum."

And every week he would come to reahearsel with a new song. Further on, our bassist who is really really good at maths studied harmony and songs structure, and has come to arrange some of our songs from a mathematical point of view.

Our singer is swedish, but has a cool way of writing lyrics in english. This particular song was written as a celebration of the swedish soccer-team.