Fledgeling engineer would greatly appreciate any opinions on song, sounds and mix

[loosejaw]

Hey Guys, my band Loosejaw just finished recording and mixing this, and man i am really diggin this mix and just need to share it, i recently traded in a bunch of crap on some new mixing gear, a great river eq2nv, a drawmer 1968, and and Allan Smart C2, and i dont know WTF but its really kickin my ass.

I would love to hear what you gentlemen with alot of mixing experience think, and please be honest i can take it and enjoy any advice that will help me to be a better engineer.

all opinions on anything welcome

this is off to the mastering lab next week :-)

thanks for your time thumbsup

L.J.

[kats]

Hey...is this Marty singing/druming....I'd recognize the style anywhere !

PS good tune

[loosejaw]

Originally Posted by kats

Hey...is this Marty singing/druming....I'd recognize the style anywhere !

PS good tune

lol...small world...who are you?

[kats]

Tony from Paragon

[Glenn Kuras]

This stuff is just cool.. Nice to hear someone thinking outside the box!!!!

[loosejaw]

Originally Posted by myfipie

This stuff is just cool.. Nice to hear someone thinking outside the box!!!!

Thanks very much for the compliment....glad to hear you dig it as is...

[djui5]

The mix is really flat, the verse and chorus don't change a lot.

Also, everything seems to be sitting pretty safe. Crank something up and make it a bit more exciting.

Also the drums sound a bit box overall. The guitars are just kinda "sitting there" if you know what I mean.

There's something weird with the left side too, like something's out of phase. It sounds like something on the right is out of phase with something on the left, and it's pretty drastic.

[AlexLakis]

The song is kinda empty and unexciting, in my opinion. The guitars are definately not there for me at all. The drums are boxy sounding to me, and there's something unsettling about them. The synth pad (strings?) sounds out of place when it comes in randomly. The song is neat, and the vocals are good, but I'm not feeling the arrangement yet. Just my opinion.

[loosejaw]

Originally Posted by AlexLakis

The song is kinda empty and unexciting, in my opinion. The guitars are definately not there for me at all. The drums are boxy sounding to me, and there's something unsettling about them. The synth pad (strings?) sounds out of place when it comes in randomly. The song is neat, and the vocals are good, but I'm not feeling the arrangement yet. Just my opinion.

Its cool man, the only way it gets better is by critisisim. a couple of you think the Drums are boxy...i agree, but i wanted to keep them up close and punchy, do any of you have any opinions on how to do this? I kinda liked them, but i am a bit boxy as well lol..i am sooo basement lol

as far as guitars, i would love suggestions too, fwiw, we are not a guitar driven band and although we like guitar, we definatly like to hold em back a bit...any suggestion on making them better?

thanks also for the synth pad tip, there were a couple listens i felt the same way but wasn't sure. i like the randomness, but there is one time, it leaves a little early and leaves it a bit empty

we kinda like that empty simple sound, but maybe there is room for more instrument melody...we like the arangement, simply because its kinda the way we do it, its kinda unorthadox, but its different and thats what we like about it, although i really enjoy diifering opinions on this as it keeps me thinking if you know what i mean.

thankyou all for your time and thought, very valuable to me

L.J.

[loosejaw]

wow, i just had a listen to the mp3, and it really kinda sounds shitty, any energy the track had was lost in the conversion, leaving the blaring weaknesess more blaring, thanks for your comments, back to the mix...

L.J.

[AlexLakis]

Having a sparse arangment is cool, but it attracts more attention to the minute details of each instrument. The more "empty" the arangement, the more "dead on" the sound/tone has to be for each part. You can get away with a little bad drum tone if there are tons of heavy electric guitars drowning out the overtones. But in an arangement like this, you really have to spend more time on each individual tone, and make sure it sounds as pleasing as possible.

As far as the drums go, you can bus your drums to a stereo track, then put an EQ on it. Sweep across the mids until you find the frequencies that are strongly contributing to the drums overall "boxiness," then cut it a bit to taste. You can go back and cut this frequency on individual problem drums if you wish as well. This would be a good place to start, tho. The trick is to use a Q that is narrow enough to not suck out too much of the sound/tone/balls, but one that is broad enough to not sound unnatural.

The guitars are lacking...purpose? You mention you like "holding them back," and that's just what's happening. They sound like they're being held back. A person who plays guitar who listens to your music is going to think so too, most likely, as is most of the general public (who are mostly guitar fans). LET THEM LOOSE! It's okay not to overplay, or detract from the feel of the song, but I don't think that's the case here. I think they need a few more decibels, and some presence. Try EQ again. Try bringing out some frequencies that you find pleasurable in them. It will fill out your sound a bit more, and make them sound more "involved" in the song.

Don't stop what you're doing as a band. Be unique. Be yourselves. As always with music, everything is based off of opinion, especially when it comes to arrangement. As far as mixing goes, we can attempt to be somewhat more technical and broad-based, but it still all boils down to what you think sounds good. Take suggestions, try out new things...but when it comes to decision time, trust your ears, and your vision as a band.

EDIT: He, you beat me to it! It takes a while to type anything out with a 4 month old in the room. Keep us updated with any new mixes!

[Mystical]

Is this Terry by any chance? Nice tune it's pretty cool and reminds me of that old calfifornia punk band the Adolescants. I think the recording needs to be a little dirtier and maybe rework/mix those guitars a bit differant.

ps: what did you use the C2 on?

[loosejaw]

Originally Posted by Mystical

Is this Terry by any chance? Nice tune it's pretty cool and reminds me of that old calfifornia punk band the Adolescants. I think the recording needs to be a little dirtier and maybe rework/mix those guitars a bit differant.

ps: what did you use the C2 on?

thankyou all for the excellent suggestion, i cant wait to take another run at it...really :-)

Yes this is Tery...who is this?

I used the c2 on the mix...great river eq into 1968 into c2... using the comps to just toch the mix..they definatley made this better, i just love the 68 into the c2...i only got them at the mix point, bu experimented a bit with the C2 on vocals...WOW

L.J.

[Andreas G]

The song has definately something coolish ...but I agree with the boxy issue. I think this song needs way more punch and power.. yes, maybe something dirty. BTW I was surprised that the C2 and 1968 did so less for the punch'n'power. Thinking on my 2 buss comp... well that's really a different thing. Anyway back to the song, I agree with the other posts... lots of good advices to improve this song!!

Andreas

[loosejaw]

Originally Posted by Andreas G

The song has definately something coolish ...but I agree with the boxy issue. I think this song needs way more punch and power.. yes, maybe something dirty. BTW I was surprised that the C2 and 1968 did so less for the punch'n'power. Thinking on my 2 buss comp... well that's really a different thing. Anyway back to the song, I agree with the other posts... lots of good advices to improve this song!!

Andreas

make no mistake, the drawmer into the C2 is magical...my mix is just weak, this is my first time recording all digital, usually my drums and bass are to tape and make my job easier...i really thought this mix was rockin til i listened to the mp3...sounds pretty flat, but when i listened to the wave i thought it would lend itself to a good master...but now with all these excellent comments i am gonna make this thing really rock

L.J.

[bcgood]

I really dig this tune. It has a Devo like quality to it, very 80's. I just listened to the song through my Sennheiser HD 280 pro headphones. The whole mix sounds a little undynamic to me. It's very listenable though, but could use a little separation between the various instruments and more breathing room. I think the vocals sit fairley well in the mix. I would be interested to hear other tunes from the band, do you have a website?

bcgood

[kats]

As far as the drums go, you can bus your drums to a stereo track, then put an EQ on it. Sweep across the mids until you find the frequencies that are strongly contributing to the drums overall "boxiness,"

I think I would work the snare first as it's the biggest culprit. You'll probably get away with very little eq on the bus afterwards - probably a little more air on the drum bus will give the whole mix a bit more life (off memory here - not near my monitors). But it sounded to me as if the drum room is too dry and your loosing some sparkle.

Looking forward to your CD though...Marty played me some pre production stuff and I thought the material was really really good!

[Andreas G]

Originally Posted by loosejaw

make no mistake, the drawmer into the C2 is magical...

How did you set your comps? Especially the C2? To get more kickass punch I'd set it so, that it improves most the kick. I don't have a C2 but a SSL style comp on my 2 buss... I played a little with your song and endet with the longest attack a short release (not the shortest, so that the kick nicely came out) 1:10, max gainreduction around 7dB, I did also some eqing and slamed all to hell... but there was no ITB processing at all! (only a dither). I think this may go in the direction for more punch. Hope that helps a bit... and please post more from your cool, odd stuff, I really dig it!

Andreas

[loosejaw]

I cannot thankyou you all enough, u were all so right about the mix...flat, boxy drums, i remixed with this in mind using pretty much all of your suggestions and could not be happier...thankyou all so much, I am posting the remix , please if you have any more suggestions mix wise let me know as we are just touching stuf before we send it off for mastering.

To answer some of your questions, we donot have a website yet, we have been writing and developing our sound for a year and a half and have an albums worth of material with the beds recorded and now the 3rd song almost ready to be mastered...then we are going to start shopping it while we finish recording and mixing the record...all we want is enough money from a record company to make a really great video for one of the songs :-)

as far as compresors, i ran both basically set to the softest setting, with the crush button on the C2, and we love the sound like that, tell me what you all think on the remix, or have any other compression ideas...THANKS AGAIN slutz, u all really saved our mix

L.J.

[kats]

Nice Andreas! It has alot more life.

[loosejaw]

Originally Posted by Andreas G

How did you set your comps? Especially the C2? To get more kickass punch I'd set it so, that it improves most the kick. I don't have a C2 but a SSL style comp on my 2 buss... I played a little with your song and endet with the longest attack a short release (not the shortest, so that the kick nicely came out) 1:10, max gainreduction around 7dB, I did also some eqing and slamed all to hell... but there was no ITB processing at all! (only a dither). I think this may go in the direction for more punch. Hope that helps a bit... and please post more from your cool, odd stuff, I really dig it!

Andreas

Wow Andreas...thanku so much...the work you did sounds realy freakin cool man...wow....now we are going to have mix option anxiety...this sounds really fat!!! awesome


L.J.

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by Andreas G

How did you set your comps? Especially the C2? To get more kickass punch I'd set it so, that it improves most the kick. I don't have a C2 but a SSL style comp on my 2 buss... I played a little with your song and endet with the longest attack a short release (not the shortest, so that the kick nicely came out) 1:10, max gainreduction around 7dB, I did also some eqing and slamed all to hell... but there was no ITB processing at all! (only a dither). I think this may go in the direction for more punch. Hope that helps a bit... and please post more from your cool, odd stuff, I really dig it!

Andreas

Man that sounds nice. That definitely kicks it up a notch. More details about your eqing and equipment if you will? 2nd mix is nice as well. Good stuff, get a site up loosejaw!

bcgood

[loosejaw]

Originally Posted by Andreas G

How did you set your comps? Especially the C2? To get more kickass punch I'd set it so, that it improves most the kick. I don't have a C2 but a SSL style comp on my 2 buss... I played a little with your song and endet with the longest attack a short release (not the shortest, so that the kick nicely came out) 1:10, max gainreduction around 7dB, I did also some eqing and slamed all to hell... but there was no ITB processing at all! (only a dither). I think this may go in the direction for more punch. Hope that helps a bit... and please post more from your cool, odd stuff, I really dig it!

Andreas

Andreas, i really like the direction you went with this, the compressing is pretty extreme, my second mix has more life, do u think i should let the mastering house take it the rest of the way as there gear probably destroys mine...

L.J.

[Andreas G]

Originally Posted by kats

Nice Andreas! It has alot more life.

Thank you kats!

Originally Posted by bcgood

More details about your eqing and equipment if you will?

EQ Siemens W295b lowend left +6dB, right +3db, mids left at 5,6K +4db, mids right 3,5K +4db, then in two micshapers... topend + 3db at 20K, low end +1 dB at 16Hz (after the intro), then into a polygram compressor (see my first post), I also added a little stereo-chorus, picked from the left aux send into a PCM70... all pretty odd isn't it

Originally Posted by loosejaw

Andreas, i really like the direction you went with this, the compressing is pretty extreme, my second mix has more life, do u think i should let the mastering house take it the rest of the way as there gear probably destroys mine...

Dear loosejaw,

in my first post I bit you a bit, sorry for that but I want you to work more with your comps... this is really cool high end stuff. But please don't try to do the mastering houses job until you're absolutely sure what you're doing! It's not only the gear... it's the MEs skills that counts. When I played with your song my goal was only to bring out the punch! You may have noticed that the vocals are a bit thin or harsh now... I didn't care for that, you may have also noticed that the mix became loud as hell, this was just a byproduct! I didn't care for that either. I just wanna show you how important is punch and power for THIS song, as a direction or a as starting point for your work.

Your second mix is much better but watch out for harshness and sibilant vocals. You may also try the C2 on drums and the 1968 on 2 buss.

Andreas

[loosejaw]

Your second mix is much better but watch out for harshness and sibilant vocals. You may also try the C2 on drums and the 1968 on 2 buss.

Andreas[/QUOTE]


thanks for everyones great advice, especially you Andreas, here is the final mix of Jilly Rappaport, alot better than the first one i showed you all, thanks for putting it into perspective for me...

Cheers

L.J.

[dim light]

I dig the low end on the last mix! The vocals sounds a little too hyped in the high end . or I would like the high end more warm and round without sounding muddy. Some good analog EQ on the vocals. The hhat also need some love.

Cool song - I like it!

[kats]

Good job loosejaw. Good call on letting the ME smack the rest of it thumbsup

[loosejaw]

Originally Posted by dim light

I dig the low end on the last mix! The vocals sounds a little too hyped in the high end . or I would like the high end more warm and round without sounding muddy. Some good analog EQ on the vocals. The hhat also need some love.

Cool song - I like it!

Once again, thanku, i gave another listen to vocals and I agree with you so i went back to the mix and toned down the vocal, and its much better...thanks again to all your suggestions...just wonderful input all around, i am really feelin this mix, if anyone has time let me know what you think...your right Kats at $200cnd per hour, we'll let the ME take this the rest of the way...I think this is a good mix

L.J.