Punk band...

[frist44]

here's a song I recently went back to mix through some new gear. Any opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Brandon

[Curve Dominant]

Sounds absolutely bitchin'.

The vocals...try mixing them more up front. I want to hear the lyrics more.

There's a really compelling song in there; you have to bring that out.

Put those vocals OUT THERE!!!

F&cking beautifuyl recording though. HOT!

[eberrong]

The song is great! I really liked it. The recording and mixing sounds good too. I think you have a bad MP3 conversion though. Try using 192kHz bitrate, that seems to keep enough of the detail for evaluation purposes.

[NeoVXR]

low mids are weak. smaller consumer devices may sound thin with the song.

mp3 - of course - but...
you need to get personality WITHIN 10kHz for this type of music.
for my taste it is too flat.

the ride cymbal is not very musical but creating a noise floor that takes away the dynamics and clarity from other important stuff like gits and voice. you could set its impact higher or lower in frequency, and also try an expander+soft limiter for it.

the left git is always playing behind. with a shatter-reverb (like a smaller club with brick walls, but at low rev-volume) you can melt it into the rhythm.

[NeoVXR]

this is what I remember of punk...

have fun, it's thrashing and oldfashioned and noisy and beer dripping out of every note!
sorry too much bass, so what for a quick hack...
but makes the folks thirsty when played in the pub, and thats what the band is paid for.

one day they should do something about the timing

[frist44]

hey thanks for the suggestions. I should've encoded it at 192. Sorry about that. I don't have the original file on me here or else I would post another.

I've had problems with the low mids in the past, specifically not getting enough of it. I'm still trying to come into my own with my mixes, I'm feeling better about it though. I've been really trying to learn frequency content and the space most instruments lie in order to be able to find some good space for them. This mix was something I revisited from the past and overall I like this one a lote better.

I do appreciate any comments, even if you think it totally sucks. That's the reason I post it so I can get some constructive criticism.

Brandon

[Erich Arndt]

i don't think the vocals really need to be louder... it's not that they're too quiet, there's just too much up and down about them... i'd say compression on the vocals, and then slightly up on the high mids and compression on the whole mix.

all together a good song, keep it up. if i heard this on the radio today i would say to myself, "this song isn't blowing me away, but i bet if i went and got the CD, there would be a lot on there that WOULD blow me away." the song didn't knock me on my ass, but it was by far good enough to make me want to pay attention in the future.

[NeoVXR]

I hope the victims of my noise understand what I am telling:
brandon has a more beautiful sound, but I have the HOTTER BAND!!
I would like to hear what the musicians and their fans think about that.
higher audio quality is less forgiving, often emotion grows from chaos.
again the "diminishing returns", it will be much more effort to be so funny on a more transparent sound. the better you become in sound, the more "holes" open up in the music and playing, and you end up editing. just that punk is all about playing rough and directly, as my experience told me. edit more than a few hits, and the flow is broken.
a very interesting question is, how "dry" people like it in your scene or sub culture, and how much it should resemble live playing.

dont say it's not quite sophisticated, to make a crowded and noisy mix and mastering...

*** try to stay quite clean, just bring up the guitars to shine brighter, vocals less sharp and more steady, and print it without compression or distortion. then, with mastering, you can have as much noise as you want. be aware that the reverb during the breaks will become stronger.

I think, regarding bus saturation, it needs a world expert and very good gear, or better to avoid it. "half mastering" is not helpful, but I think a ME will listen to your compressing attempts to understand what you think, and then do it in a better way, starting from clean.

[frist44]

hey everyone,
thanks for all the good advice. I agree that the song is the not the best thing to hit the Earth. The singer is super dynamic and I didn't have the compressors that I do now to keep it under control. I tracked with a dbx 160x becuase nothing else I had was fast enough to catch the transients. During mixdown, it got probably another 4 db from an La2 plugin. The newly added distressor will help this next time. I think the guitars as NeoVXR mentioned need a little more high end. That was in my experimental phase with eqing guitars. I did a terrible job and getting a good sound from the start, so i was basically attempting to sacrifice what little sound was there. Granted the high were cutting my head off without the eq, afterwards, they didn't have enough. Next time I'm going to spend much more time getting a good sound from the start so I don't run into those problems.

I've been thinking about looking into a 2buss compressor. Something to keep it all together. To me, that's how my sound most often differs from productions that I like. My tracks seem to have more separation than what I want. I am going to try a phoenix DRS-2 on the 2 buss next weekend and see if that helps at all. Granted it's not a compressor but it is bassed off a summing circuit.

thanks again,
Brandon

[frist44]

So I took everyone's suggestions and remixed it. I think I'm much closer to what I want. The vocals are up some and the high end is more present. I realized that the reason i wasn't getting enough highs in my mixes was because I was monitoring too loud and naturally the highs are the first thing that get harsh, so i would inevitably turn them down. I monitored pretty quiet only turning up to figure out the low end.

any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Brandon

[NeoVXR]

much better
more transparent, and more room for GOOD mastering.

if you want 2 cents more:
stereo image is strange in these instrumental parts (1:13...)
sometimes the voice compressor is kind of "spitting". maybe you could tune the attack, or try a softer knee, or a different tool at all. also cautiously a de-esser possible..
vocals are quite loud now.
guitars can be brought up in the mastering, as my dirty lo-fi example shows. (they are loud and bright now but the whole is somewhat sterile. with good mastering it may be ok this way.) its up to what you are planning further.

good luck!

[silverdisk]

Sounds good (1st mix).. my fist inpression is that some of the peaks are a little on the pointy side, but, like others said its reay for some good mastering.. but, i would like to more about how you set this up?, you said you tracked the vocals through a 160, what about the treatment of the other instruments? as far as mic preamps and comps and or eqs? just curious...

[frist44]

here are some of the things I remember from the session:

vox - Blue dragonfly - Great River MP-2NV - dbx 160x

guitars - 57 - (L) Great River / (R) TG-2

bass - Great River DI - dbx 160x

kick inside - 421 - vintech 72

kick outside - d112 - vintech 72

snare top - 57 - great river

snare bottom - something crappy - great river

toms - radioshack mic - sytek

Overheads - CAD m179 - Sytek

Room - Royer 121 - Sytek


On mixdown, the kick got an RNC, snare got a distressor and dbx, vox got la2 plug, bass got 160x

Everything was recorded into Nuendo through an HD24XR and mixed down through a Soundcraft 600 back into Nuendo.

The master 2-buss went through a phoenix DRS-2.


Brandon

[silverdisk]

ok ffirst44,
heres MY (low res non-world class) stab at mastering this tune

c4 upward exp lows and low mids

downward compress mids


upward expand high mids, mighs

L1 , with longish release


Only small changes so you might have to A/B, but, any comments ffirst or anyone? much appreciated this is definaltely fun song to work with !!!.. ;^)