Rock Mix

[Deege]

Now, before I post the song, I want you all to know that I am using SUPER cheap equipment. I hope one day to have a gigantic arsenal of equipment at my disposal, but for now, I work with what I have (which is extremely budgeted gear). I figure, I'll do my best trying to make some crappy local bands sound decent and then, maybe by the time I can afford better mics, preamps, etc, then I'll know what I'm doing a bit more.
The band really isn't all that talented except the guitarist, IMO.

This song was recorded with the following cheap-as-hell gear:

Mixer: cheap Behringer mixer (with crappy preamps and all lol), into a Terratec EWS88MT soundcard.

Overheads: 2 cheapo Behringer ECM-8000 measurement mics

Kick: Shure Beta 91 inside, home-made 6inch speaker outside (Thanks M. Wagener, great tip!)

Snare: Studio Projects C1 on top, SM57 on bottom.

Toms: REALLY CHEAP CAD tom/instrument mics, which I hate. Used the cheapo "bass drum mic" as floor tom mic. Due to track limitations I submixed the overheads and tom mics into one stereo track, so I couldn't do much to the toms, EQ or compression-wise

Guitars: SM57

Vocals: I chose an SM57 for her voice, didn't like the C1 with her voice for some reason.

Bass: Direct...

Ghetto-mastering: IK Multimedia's T-racks

I used Adobe Audition 1.5 and lots of different plugins, as well.

This was all done really quickly in a few hours time, so I am happy with it but I'm interested in what everyone thinks. Be honest, but keep the lousy equipment list and lack of real preamps, and the fact that I am very new at this in mind when listening LOL

It's a cover of "One Way Or Another" by Blondie, but heavied-up a bit

[Andreas G]

Nice job... reminds me on Blondy.

...when I did my first mixes... oh my god... better I forget about... at least it was a lot of fun

to your mix... a bit to much low end (kick? and toms), left guitars may be a bit "roomy" but that's more a matter of taste, the singer I whished to hear a little up more in front. (arangement therefor is not so helpful, guits and vox play in the same register)

Fix this, and IMO you'll have a decent mix.

btw: the key is not in your gear, it's in your mind (so make your mind strong and not not your pocket poor ) o.k., o.k. before I'll get killed, the last 10% of quality is reserved to high end gear... but you won't get it if you don't know how.

again nice job...

Andreas

[NeoVXR]

hi deege,
ok this a cover.. but nice!
for vocals you could try some multiband compression, but NOT the modern flattener style. just to bring up some more meat, and to soften some upper mid shouts that are standing too much out from the mix.
the snare has a reverb that sounds too much amateur. somewhat too much and plastic, while the general direction might be ok. the "plastic" possibly comes also from the mic and the eq (Q too high). recently I tried the "ambience" plugin, it is free and I like the sound, but somewhat difficult to tweak. short reverb time, short delays, lowpass...

[Deege]

Thanks for your input guys. I'll do what I can to try to make it better soon...but for now I have an ear infection :(