Pop Punk Pre Pro (New Found Glory, Four Year Strong)

[sam guaiana]

Hey guys, just looking for some feedback on the music production on this song.
It's a pre-pro demo version, and definitely not the final version. The drums are Steven Slate, and guitars are all Eleven. Bass is Ampeg SVX.

At the moment, this is instrumental, but I will be posting newer versions as this goes along.

Thanks a lot!

Sam

[borderline3]

sounds pretty good man! i think the mix lacks some punch and dynamics but with the guitars and bass being direct in just for pre-production that's really understandable. drums sound great. what kit did you use? what kind of processing on the drums/drum bus?

as far as the songwriting goes. it sounds really good to me. everything really has a solid place. can't wait to hear how the vocals fill things in.

[tvboy123]

Hey sam! Really diggin' the mix. I'd be chuffed if my tracks came out like that teehe. Very nice and clean sounding, nice crunch on the guitars. I've always thought of catalyst by new found glory as being a really nicely mixed album in my opinion. This track should be sounding pretty fat after it's been mastered. Good luck with it

[sam guaiana]

Thanks for the kind words guys
@borderline3, I think I used the CLA Hybrid kit. On the parallel buss, I EQ'd it a bit to clean it up, then compressed it with a smashed bombfactory 1176 and a slammed Massey Tape Head.

[borderline3]

ahhhh =[
the slate EX kits don't have the CLA kit in them at all, i guess that's the upside to buying platinum. sounds great again man!
care to share what snares and kicks are in the CLA kit, i'm going to try and piece it together in EX with what i have

[sam guaiana]

The CLA kit has Kick 17 and Kick 1B blended, and the snare is the Slate Custom Snare and Snare 20 blended.

I'll be putting up a new mix in a couple days or so. Thanks again for the feedback guys!

[AnnihilationRob]

sounds well mixed but the guitar tone is weak. it doesn't have the bite or high end crunch i want to hear. i dunno if it needs more gain or if it was crappy pickups on the guitar or something? not sure what to tell you. hey check out my mix and tell me what you think. its another pop rock song sorta similar-ish to this one.

Why does this sound better with multiband limiting...?

- rob

[sam guaiana]

Yeah we're in prepro right now, I wasn't focusing on tones as much as overall songwriting. The guitars were a Squire Tom Delonge strat with old strings into my BLA 002r, with Eleven on it, and the bass was a Fender P with quarter pounders and awful dead strings through Ampeg SVX.

I noticed your thread the other day, AnnihilationRob. I really liked the Multiband mix, but I'm a fan of multiband compressors even though I don't own one hahaha.

[ohmicide]

i think the kick is a bit too loud and the guitars just don't sound very good

[karp47]

why the **** is everyone commenting on how it sounds? its clearly stated that its a DEMO and NOT the final version.

so, to answer your question, I think it sounds really good production wise, I reckon that it i will come out really well once finished, only thing I wasn't a huge fan of was the intro, seemed a bit disjointed from the rest of the song. and thats pretty much the only thing i can say about it, i really like it, very catchy and sounds a lot more professionally written than a lot of the other similar stuff that is around!

[karp47]

on second thoughts... i like the intro... i think.... maybe its just the first 5 seconds or so... i don't know... it does lead on really well though. haha!

[sam guaiana]

Thanks Karp!
A little tidbit, we dropped the demo into halfstep with elastic audio and did some rough vocals on it. I plan on uploading it soon.

[Stevedresser83]

This is all and only my opinion

Drums - I don't think enough compression. I think it needs par comp or more of it if its there. Send just the kick snare toms to this bus and let them hit -12 reduction. Blend in just a bit. Also may need more individual compression. Quick releases all around pretty fast attack just dont kill the transient. I think the kick needs more 50-60hz and the snare needs a tad 200-300 hz. I'd also put a small, short ambience verb that adds some character to the snare. Toms dont sound panned.

Bass - needs more bite (distortion + somewhere around 1k) I like multing the bass a few times but however you choose to do it...

Guitars - more low mids and more high end. Maybe a little 450 boost to give some more balls + a tad of 8k. Are they compressed? Sometimes L1'ing guitars and bass adds some balls to it. Don't be shy about gain reduction.

I'm going back to bed gnite

[karp47]

Originally Posted by Stevedresser83

This is all and only my opinion

Drums - I don't think enough compression. I think it needs par comp or more of it if its there. Send just the kick snare toms to this bus and let them hit -12 reduction. Blend in just a bit. Also may need more individual compression. Quick releases all around pretty fast attack just dont kill the transient. I think the kick needs more 50-60hz and the snare needs a tad 200-300 hz. I'd also put a small, short ambience verb that adds some character to the snare. Toms dont sound panned.

Bass - needs more bite (distortion + somewhere around 1k) I like multing the bass a few times but however you choose to do it...

Guitars - more low mids and more high end. Maybe a little 450 boost to give some more balls + a tad of 8k. Are they compressed? Sometimes L1'ing guitars and bass adds some balls to it. Don't be shy about gain reduction.

I'm going back to bed gnite

haha, classic, yet another person telling you how a 'pre-pro demo' should be mixed...because I mean...its so important that a demo sounds perfect

[Stevedresser83]

thats what i get for replying drunk in the middle of the night! Well now you know where to start when you mix it

[sam guaiana]

Hey steve, thanks for the mixing tips. Those are all things I would generally do to mix a song, but this is literally stock presets and CLA kit run through a touch of parallel comping. Nothing is "real" on it if you will, so I didn't really mix it. We are laying down a second demo in my home studio soon, and then going to my other studio when we have three songs to record a three song to release for free.

[sam guaiana]

Round Two!
Here's a new demo, it's in half step, has loud vocals (not the actual vocalist) and is still not mixed well at all. Please don't remind me, I know

Also, I have put up a new song! Please comment on this one too!
I'm not 100% feeling the 1st bridge in this song (part at 1.48 to 2.10)

Drums are steven slate, guitars are eleven and sans amp, bass is sans amp.

I tried mixing this one a bit better, and threw Ozone 4 on for that "my demo sounds awesomely crushed, yet fairly digital" feel. It's still no George Clooney...

Thanks again errybady!

[karp47]

hey bud, demo update sounds good, a few things I would say, (purely constructive)

chorus needs to be a bit more obvious and stand out from the verse and
a few more harmonies wouldn't go astray, they always come out well in this genre of music!

the new song sounds really good, the intro immediately grabbed my attention!

[sam guaiana]

Hey guys, one more mix, we actually tried to mix this one a bit, but its still a demo. We have a new vocalist on it.
In a short period of time, we will be shopping the demos around to various producers, so any more ideas that anyone can help us with would be super appreciated.
Thanks again!

[karp47]

sounds really good, the vocalist suits it to a tee.

the only things I would say are:
at about 58 seconds it loses a bit of its impact until about 1:20, it wouldn't hurt trying to change up a few things here.

the part from about 1:50 - 2:40 is a bit too long and doesn't really do the rest of the song justice, it sort of seems a bit too much of a 'filler'

apart from that though its really good, did you use eleven for all the guitar? seems like a worthy investment.

[borderline3]

sounds great to me!
great work sam!!!

[sam guaiana]

yeah all the rhythms are eleven, and the lead/octave riff is sansamp.
Eleven LE (part of the MPTK2) is one of the best investments I've made for my studio.

[karp47]

so you don't have the eleven rack unit? I have never really played around with eleven le, always just assumed it was a bit of a filler, definitely going to give it a go now.

[sam guaiana]

Oh god no, I think the Eleven Rack is a joke.
I have a modded 002r, and ran the guits direct in through an LA-610, put on two custom tones, bussed them to a cleanup EQ, Tape-Head, and Bombfactory 1176.

[musicjohnny]

Originally Posted by sam guaiana

Oh god no, I think the Eleven Rack is a joke.
I have a modded 002r, and ran the guits direct in through an LA-610, put on two custom tones, bussed them to a cleanup EQ, Tape-Head, and Bombfactory 1176.

I like the tone man! Would you mind sharing what amp model you were using in eleven and/or any eq/comp tips you've got for getting that tone?

[sam guaiana]

Thanks man! I know that they are both JCM 800 models, with the black cab (I don't remember which model). One mic was a 421, and one was a 57. I then bused them, rolled off the lows, scooped out a tad around 500, boosted a tad around 7k, smashed them through massey tape head, and heavily compressed them with the BF76.

[musicjohnny]

Yeah I like that 800 model too! It actually sounds really really close to the real JCMs I've miced up! Nice job with it!

[j4callen]

Question about the Steven Slate drums: Do they come with an interface you can sequence the samples in? If not, what was your method for arranging the drums?

[EddieTheRed]

Sounds great, man! I'm really liking the intro, too . . .

ignore tha haterzzzzzzzzz

By-the-bye, does anyone else think Four Year Strong is a STRANGE band?

[sam guaiana]

To j4callen,

Steven Slate drums runs in the Kontakt 3.5 player. You put the plug on a stereo instrument track, load up a kit you want, and then program the midi. I usually draw it all in by hand, I can do it pretty quickly too. You can route it out to aux tracks as well to mix it, but I prefer to mix it in the kontakt player, except for parallel compression.

Hope I helped.