Looking for a little feedback

[Starving The Dogs]

I've been working on this recording thing for about 6 months now, and I think I'm up to the level of just starting to suck at it, maybe in 6 more months i'll reach the definitely sucking at it stage. Give up some feedback guys. This song "It's All a Game" is the most recent thing in my arsenal, so it's the best reflection of where I am skill-wise at the moment. Please hold nothing back. I'm a grown man, I can take it.

Thanks,
Don

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...?bandID=448860

[brandondrury]

What are you using? This strikes me as an all-in-one box stand alone type of recording.

Remember that all this mixing crap subjective so keep that in mind.

I totally understand what you mean by almost sucking. I graduated to sucking a whlie back and I'm still trying to get promoted to "slightly better than sucking".

The first thing that strikes me is I don't like the reverbs being used, especially on guitar and vocals. (It may be be the same reverb on both). The reverb is tad overdone on the vocal. It may just need to be knocked down a tad. When in doubt, I say be conservative on the reverb.

In the drums it sounds like you relying a lot on close mics. If you have overheads, room mics, or anything else that'll put a little bit of cymbals and space in there, I'd certainly bring them up. The kick seams pretty good on these monitors. I generally hate it when a snare sounds like the close mic is too loud. That's what I'm hearing here.

Guitars weren't tracked well. I'm not sure how you recorded these, but I have a feeling that it was the amp or direct thingy. They are really lacking some midrange thickness. It sounds like the guitars had a ton of fizz and not enough "girth" too them. Girth being something like 500-800Hz...maybe lower. You'd just have to see. In my experience you can't fix shitty guitars unless you re-amp them. EQ is not the solution unless you've EQ'd them already and you are turning off your EQ.

These guitars sound like they may have been tracked like many of the Line 6 and other amps that get brought into my place. A "real" amp will give much better results, but not if it is set with to be fizzy and weird too.

Guitar sounds aren't really gotten on the mic side of things. They are gotten by the player and whoever is controlling his tone knobs (hopefully you and not him). Mic placement is important, but not nearly as important as the tone settings.

Brandon

[Starving The Dogs]

When you say all-in-one box kinda thing, i'm not exactly sure what you mean, but i'll break down my setup for you...

Starting at the soundcard -
MAudio Delta 1010
Mackie 1202 VLZ-Pro 12 channel board
(I don't have any outboard pre-amps, I just use the ones on the mackie, but they're very low noise, maybe a slight hiss, but you can't hear it in the mix. On individual tracks with quiet parts - like vocal tracks - it's audible, but I generally surgically remove it.)

Mics-
MXL990
MXL V63M
AT PRO 24's (pair)
SM58 (3)
SM57 (2)
AT2020
While none of these mics is high dollar, I think I have a pretty good assortment, I don't have a ribbon yet, but a Royer R121 is really calling my name, the wife aint gonna let me drop the 1200 bucks on it though, so I have my eye on a Sennheiser MD421 MKII U4 instead. Damn I hate to settle. :>( I'd probably just screw the 1200 dollar mic up anyway.

I need to solve a 60hz hum problem that I have, but I feel it's due to the wiring in this old house (thank you Bob Villa). Any suggestions? I can knock it out with software but it robs the tracks of some natural frequencies along with the hum, I'm not sure why, aside from the bass instruments. But it does. Or maybe it's because i tHINK it does?

For software I have-
Cool Edit Pro 2.1
and Ableton Live light which came with the Maudio card (but I haven't used it)
Waves Platinum edition bundle (which is everything - almost)
Steinberg Wavelab 5.0
and some other stuff....(soundforge, Acid, T-racks...ets)

So aside from the guitars (which I will re-track), you think the snare is too hot, not enough overheads ( or room ambience - too close sounding) The reverbs are too thick (i listened to the solo'd tracks and you're right- I forgot less is more) anything else? Oh yeah you agree that I suck. lol

when I finish these changes i'll repost the link so we can listen to the differences.

Thanks Brandon

The guitars were done direct, good ear. I'll stop that shit right now.

[brandondrury]

I'm a stickler for direct guitars. I hate them. ....however, I've been fooled before. They were used on Def Leopard's Hysteria and I didn't know that until I read it a few months ago. There is a thread on here talking about it somewhere. So it can be done.....but it's generally not the way to go unless you are looking for something specific.

We actually have a lot of the same gear. I've got a couple Delta 1010s. I've got the Waves plugins. I've got a Mackie board that is used ALMOST exclusively for monitoring. I still need it when tracking full bands. I'm not convinced it's terrible like many people say. I've gotten many compliments on guitars tracked through the Mackie and I've been spit on for guitars I've recorded through my Vintech 1272s. The very best tone I have ever gotten on guitar was with a 57 and a Presonus M80. I can tell you right now that the tone had little to do with the 57 or the M80. It was all the SG and modded Marshall Plexi (and a really thick grill to knock the fizz down).

Use a real amp and get it to sound good in the room. Slap a mic on it without a whole lot of thought and you'll be money. The hard part is getting the amp to sound great in the room. A whole lot of things have to come together to make that work just right. It's not always easy.

I've got the Royer. After owning it for a year and a half, I've grown to really like it. However, it's been a slow go. It isn't as life changing as many people say it is. Having the right amp at the right time is most important by far!!

Drums

Drums are a bitch. I'm still fighting them all the time. I'd definitely crankup the overheads if you have them. I go through phases on this. Sometimes I want a lot of cymbals. Sometimes I don't. It depends on the band, the music, and the drummer. I have no doubt that, in my opinion, the overheads where way too low in level.

Play with reverbs and see how big and stupid you can make that snare sound. The biggest thing I noticed is it wasn't exciting. A big part of that is snare tuning. Tune that snare so it really cracks. You almost want it to sound pretty thin on the top mic (without EQ) depending on what you are going for, of course.

There are a lot of snare tricks that I know. I've learned a few from the big dogs. I've got an upcoming article that should really discuss this. With drums, don't be afraid to abuse them with compression. Just make sure it doesn't sound like shit.


Overall

I'd say definitely back off the reverbs a shit ton. In fact, I'd do one mix with absolutely no reverb just to see how good you can make it sound. Then go from there. The guitars were not nearly in your face and I attest that to the guitar reverb as well.

At this stage in the game, you are just learning how to suck. (I've about mastered the suck stage without any signs of moving up myself). You may want to slap 5 or 10 of your favorite songs on your recording computer just to listen to occassionally. Don't match their tones because it doesn't work that way. However, if you can average out all 10 songs, you can match their vibe...if that makes any sense.

Brandon

[Starving The Dogs]

Cool, one big problem I have is the room, it has a sloped roof, but the dimensions are 14 x14 square so I have a big problem with standing waves in the low HZ range, I don't know what it is, but you can hear it bad if you get in the corners. The bass will kill you, maybe even stop your heart, I dont know, so I keep the volume low when I monitor and it seems to help. At least you didn't say anything about bad balance frequency-wise. I always check it on different systems.

One question. You ever tracked guitars down a real hallway? I'm thinking about trying that, because of the room node. I always get a real boomy sound on the scooped tone from the amps, that's kinda why I was trying the direct thing. I have a hallway outside this room just begging me to try it, but what about mic placement in that case? Same as in a room? all the way down on the far mic with a delay to balance it out? hmmmmm, maybe i'll just play with it a little and see what works.

Don

[brandondrury]

I have is the room, it has a sloped roof, but the dimensions are 14 x14 square so I have a big problem with standing waves in the low HZ range

I don't know you, but I'm going to act like your an old buddy. You are being a pussy! ;D Seriously, there are only two kinds of rooms. There are rooms that have at least $30k in acoustics and mega pro treatment done with guys with calculators and there are the rooms the rest of us mix in. The problems you have right now have nothing to do with low end. Actually, I'm not sure if I noticed the low end being weird at all.

Don't get me wrong, acoustics is a big deal, but my mixes are zillion times better than they were 2 years ago and I'm in the same room with the same piss poor acoustics treatment. The difference in my ears and in my ability to get closer to the sound in my head with the tools I have.

Here's a recent blog I wrote dealing with this specific issue:
http://www.recordingreview.com/artic...ors-Lying.html

Again, no offense, but I think many people use this acoustics in the control room thing as an excuse. More than likely, the problems are about 6% acoustics and 94% you. At least that's my rratio. I was down at Wagener's. The low end in his room was totally fucked. He knew it and he had done some decent treatments (but nothing hardcore). He just learned the shitty spots and dealt with it. That fucker is one of the best mixers in the world. Even in his acoustically shitty room (compared to the Massenburg room http://www.recordingreview.com/forum...hp?topic=829.0 ) he's cranking out mixes that his mastering guys often have to do NOTHING to.

So focus on your problems. Right now I think you are mixing with 50% resolution. That means you are sort of like opening your eyes underwater in a pool or something. You can sort of see stuff but not details. The more you do this, the more you tear your hair out, and the more you hate your life your vision will improve. By vision, I mean the ability to not only hear problems in your mixes, but also having the knowledge to fix them.

Brandon

[brandondrury]

One question. You ever tracked guitars down a real hallway? I'm thinking about trying that, because of the room node. I always get a real boomy sound on the scooped tone from the amps, that's kinda why I was trying the direct thing. I have a hallway outside this room just begging me to try it, but what about mic placement in that case? Same as in a room? all the way down on the far mic with a delay to balance it out? hmmmmm, maybe i'll just play with it a little and see what works.

I've never recorded guitars down a hallway. I don't really have any hallways in my house or in the places I've hauled my rig.

Don't even ask what it sounds like! Try it and post the files!!! There is little point in trying to predict what this shit will sound like. Just hop in the trenches and go to war!! Mic placement? Try the same as you usually do. I expect the tone of the close mic to be quite different. Obviously, a room mic is going to sound way different (and maybe perfect). Generally, a fairly close room mic is going to add something way cooler than some stupid Waves reverb.

I always get a real boomy sound on the scooped tone from the amps,

Yeah, that's because you've got the low end on 8. (More than likely...everybody does). This is what I was talking about getting the amp sounding great in the room. Very seldom do I ever hear big boy guitars with the lows on 10, the mids on 2, and the highs 9. It's almost always the opposite. The low end is usually way down. So is the high end. The mids are what make it work. It's the mids that make the tone. Metal is a little tricky. Even metal guitars have quite a bit of mid, you just have to know where to scoop them (I haven't figured it out yet either).

It took a lot of screwing up to learn this . Try recording guitars with the lows on 2, the highs on 2 and the mid on 8. Just see what happens.

[Starving The Dogs]

YES!!!

Not about the pussy part, I mean. The knowledge to fix them is what I'm talking about. And yes, that's what I need, i know. And yes, thats' why I'm asking you all this shit. And yes, you got it right on the money about the room. I know it sucks. I know it ain't gonna get any better, and I know I have to make the best of it and learn how to get what I want out of it without 30 grand worth of acoustic treatments that would probably set me back at least 30 grand, and still not fix my mixes for me. Plus I'd be broke.

Hell, I'm broke now, so no big deal. So just give me what I want, which is the secret key to making a mix sound like a live performance on steroids, but better, and then I can make a ton of money and retire, and consult on records for Bob Rock, and Michael Beinhorn, and we can all lay on the beach while the spice girls bring us margueritas and strip.

Anyway, good points Brandon, I'll get on this shit starting tomorrow and hopefully by next weekend we can see what all your advice has cost me. Hopefully I'll owe you money.

Thanks Bro, go record something
Don

[Starving The Dogs]

excellent article on the monitoring by the way

[DogpitStudios]

Hey Starving The Dogs,
Could you make your mix on soundclick mp3 downloadable rather than just streaming. I can never seem to get that damn soundclick flash player to work.

Thanks,
Ben