Shoegaze / Indie Space Rock song, first mix

[metamatic]

Hi
this is my very first mix and production on a real project, and any tip and useful criticism would be greatly apreciated
Keep in mind that some mixing choices have been made to fit the style (e.g. plenty of delay/reverbs on guitars, vocals not cutting through too much etc..)
thanks you very much
regards

[metamatic]

bump

[tvboy123]

I really love the song. Sounds good to me. I used to be really into the shoegaze/early 90's emo/indie scene and this could fit right in. I know this is gonna sound ********, but it's kinda cool not being able to hear what the singer's singing, it kinda makes it a mystery. I remember when I first heard the promise ring singing (run down the waterfall), i was like...what the fudge are they singing about, but i just loved the feel of the song. Anyways I like it =] sorry I couldn't give any constructive criticism.

[AfterViewer]

SOMA, and yet kept me on edge the whole way through. Ending nails it down. Only thing I would think to do is graduate the intro volume for the first 15 seconds or so as this is a demanding piece of music to listen to and you don;t want to alarm the audience from the get go. Very nice. I am always listening to music tracks up for review with a pair of Sony Studio headphones on so i feel I am getting a pretty good first impression take on this end. My own music is finalized for export in the same manner.thumbsup

[metamatic]

thanks for your comments!
I'm glad the mix hasn't any real bad issue or evident pitfall standing out, that was what i was afraid of.
AfterViewer i agree about the intro starting with too much impact, i'll try to tame it a bit and gradually reach a steady level when the main riff comes in (just curious, what do you mean by "SOMA", sorry i'm still a bit dumb at english).
Any more technical insight related to mixing? What would you change/improve?
thanks

[Ry-Fi]

I'm a big fan of the genre, and I gotta say... This sounds great! I think it sounds exactly like it should. There are no obvious mix issues that make it unlike almost everything else I've heard from the early 90's UK shoegaze scene, as far as I'm concerned. Good stuff

[AfterViewer]

SOMA: http://somafm.com/listen/

[Dean Roddey]

I really like it. I also am a fan of this type of music. Maybe I was a shoe gazer before shoe gazing ever was invented or something. I'm listening on crappy speakers, but nothing jumped out and interrupted my enjoyment of the song.

[rainsinvelvet]

As a guy who played A LOT of shoegazer stuff for a long time I think this sounds about right. Actually, it sounds pretty darn good. Personal preference would have been a deeper sounding snare, but hey- thats personal pref. right?

Nice work all around!

ERic

[tombak]

Bravo.


Start of rant:

I've disliked the words "shoegaze" for 20 odd years now. Worst genre name ever.

:End of rant

[Ry-Fi]

I wholly agree with you! I absolutely hate the term and feel stupid using it. Even being generous and granting that maybe a few musicians performing this kind of music live tended to stand pretty still and avoid too much eye contact with the audience, it's still a completely ridiculous and overblown label to be applied to an entire genre!

I would liken it to calling rock'n'roll "sweat'n'smell", or pop music "autotunism", etc... How ridiculous.

I prefer the terms "space rock" or "dream pop", but, knowledge of the term "shoegaze" is pretty limited as it is; just see how many people know what the hell you're talking about when you use one of those other terms...

[metamatic]

I totally agree... the term was actually coined by the british music press (you know, they had to label such a scene) and almost all the bands disliked it... it stuck through the years but to me it's just a form of psychedelic rock...but hey, still 80% of the time during gigs i keep an eye on my stomp boxes!
Anyway thank you for listening, your comments mean a lot to me!

[AgustinZubillaga]

Try a bit more compression on a parallel drum bus, the snare especially needs it. Use a fairchild/distressor/1176/emulation if you have one. really smash it and blend it with the original. Fast attack and release times.

Try tuning up the vocals a bit, not so much as to make it noticeable, just to tidy things up a bit.

nice song

[metamatic]

thanks Agustin. The drum is actually already processed using parallel compression, but on the whole kit. I have a PSP MixPressor Squashed on the parallel bus set for fast attack/relase.
I'll try to blend some more of the compressed bus in, maybe sending more snare to the bus, but in that case i would close the OH on the bus couse in the last minute the cymbals would mess everything up (yes.. the drummer loves long smashed cymbals drones...). I'll also try different compressor emulations. thanks for your tip!

[greatgreatriver]

Bring backs memories - love it!

[Dean Roddey]

Ignore suggestions to auto-tune. This is one suggestion that should just be required by law. You are a human, so sing like a human with pitch deviation. It worked for ten thousand years before auto-tuning came around.

[AgustinZubillaga]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

Ignore suggestions to auto-tune. This is one suggestion that should just be required by law. You are a human, so sing like a human with pitch deviation. It worked for ten thousand years before auto-tuning came around.

The difference was that producers pushed singers to their limit to get them to sing in tune, nowadays they/we just autotune it, it's cheaper and faster, and you can just concentrate on the emotion of the performance during tracking. If I had a singer that sang in tune all the time, I would not need it, just like in the old days (i.e. The MF*ing Beatles and Michael F*ing Jackson!). Just like you don't track with an out of tune guitar, you don't just leave a pitchy vocal, either you retrack it or autotune it, period.

[Dean Roddey]

Originally Posted by AgustinZubillaga

The difference was that producers pushed singers to their limit to get them to sing in tune, nowadays they/we just autotune it, it's cheaper and faster, and you can just concentrate on the emotion of the performance during tracking. If I had a singer that sang in tune all the time, I would not need it, just like in the old days (i.e. The MF*ing Beatles and Michael F*ing Jackson!). Just like you don't track with an out of tune guitar, you don't just leave a pitchy vocal, either you retrack it or autotune it, period.

That's not true. There are lots of great records that have less than perfect pitched vocals. The belief that music can't be good unless it's perfect is really mostly a modern thing. There was nothing in his performance that would warrant auto-tuning it.

[tvboy123]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

That's not true. There are lots of great records that have less than perfect pitched vocals. The belief that music can't be good unless it's perfect is really mostly a modern thing. There was nothing in his performance that would warrant auto-tuning it.

I have to agree with dean, I think in some genres of music it is important to have vox that are perfectly in tune. But with this style of music and other forms of indie I think it's important to have the vox completely natural, to add some sort of rawness and emotion to it. I'm pretty sure bands like sonic youth, mineral and sunny day real estate didn't use autotune, i may be wrong that they didn't use some sort of tuning on vox, I know tuning plugins didn't get introduced until 1997 with autotune which was after this sorta music's hey day, but I just think with this style of music you can be a bit more slack. The feeling you portray is the most important. I think nowadays people are too worried about pitch being perfect and completely in time etc. etc. which I feel takes out some of the life and soul of a song. Music's art, it's a bit like if everyone drew super realistic, it would get boring. Throw some monet into your music lol.

[metamatic]

Yes.. the slightly out of tune "feeling" is actually a double tracked vocal not perfectly matching the main track (mainly on the verse tails)... but i liked the sort of detuned chorus effect it gives so i left it in. I'm not a fan of pitch processing too anyway... if it is out of tune, i would sing it again. This works of course if you have plenty of time... But this could not be true for everyone 's tastes.. to some people not perfectly pitched vocals could be really disturbing!

[metamatic]

TvBoy: talkin about slack vocals... Dinosaur Jr. wouldn't be that great without J. Mascis "personal" style of singing in my opinion!

[tvboy123]

Originally Posted by metamatic

TvBoy: talkin about slack vocals... Dinosaur Jr. wouldn't be that great without J. Mascis "personal" style of singing in my opinion!

I agree man! And I think ur vox on this song suit it down to the ground! Reminds me of some nada surf stuff =]

[metamatic]

Ahhh! Think we're really into the same stuff