How does this sound?

Get that song on tape! Errr... disk?
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pullover
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How does this sound?

Post by pullover » Thu Nov 16, 2006 7:11 am

http://www.myspace.com/haandthemutations 
I recorded everything on a Fostex VF160 with only vocal overdubs and the left guitar solo (was going to be a sax solo but we fired our sax player).
The drums were recorded in the bedroom and had 3 mics; 2 overheads, and a kick mixed live to 2 tracks with a yamaha mixer.
The bass was miced in the closet from a fender rumble 100. Right guitar was a telecaster through a boss super overdrive into a 59 Gibsonette, in another closet. And the left guitar was my Jazzmaster through a big muff into fender deluxe, whick I covered in blankets in the living room. All of these were mixed individually with my behringer mixer.
Everything was mixed down using Kristal audio on my computer.
I have mixed other peoples stuff, which I thought sounded good, but when I mix my own stuff, I get too involved and overthink it. I am basically wanting advice on how these recordings sound from an outside source. Any comments good or bad will be appreciated.
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Re: How does this sound?

Post by Orang Goreng » Thu Nov 16, 2006 7:41 am

First of all, I really like your stuff (the first part of the third one not so much). I hear some similarities with the stuff I'm trying to do (but aren't really succeeding at, at the moment).

It could be me, but it sounds like one of the guitars (or both) has an intonation problem. There's something not entirely in tune w/ the guitars in all tracks. Ít's mostly the one in the right speaker that has the problem (I think. I can never remember how I wired my speakers).

The bass in "get back" needs to come way up in the chorus (again, IMHO). At first I thought there wasn't a bass in there. You should get Sookwinder to play a dramatic overdriven B3 solo on that one, BTW. The track just screams for an organ.

I'm missing a bit of the lows in the drumkit. That might just be your preference. I would probably prefer to hear the bass DI'd, or mixed mic'd/DId. It gains some clarity that way. I prefer the clean guitar tones over the distorted ones.

Edit: I just sent you a MySpace request thingy.
Last edited by Orang Goreng on Thu Nov 16, 2006 7:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How does this sound?

Post by pullover » Thu Nov 16, 2006 8:52 am

Thanks Orang Goreng, as soon as I saw your myspace profile I recognized it. I don't know if it was from the other forum or this one, but I have browsed by your profile on there before. I like the "Good Ship..."

It helps to have more ears on this, it certainly was lacking kick. I eq'd the drums a bit, turned up the bass on "Get Back", and am re-uploading the songs one by one. The right guitar is the one that does the solo on get back; it wouldn't suprise me if it had intonation problems since it's a telecaster, but I do think that both of us are kinda playing different dissonant cords against the other (I play all my bar chords kinda like a Csus2 X35533 which is probably a bad habit to do ALL the time). It could be as simple as pressing on the strings too hard with thin strings, I don't know. Your not the only person to say something about it, the sax we axed said something about it too. We'll have to slow down and figure out what we were doing next practice.
On get back I had an accordian with distortion on it, cause the organ we had belongs to our sax, but the female vocalist and I were the only 2 people that liked it, so it got voted out. Anyway, I will probably be trying to fix some of the muddiness that comes from eqing the drums next.
Thanks again!
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Re: How does this sound?

Post by Orang Goreng » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:18 am

pullover wrote: but I do think that both of us are kinda playing different dissonant cords against the other (I play all my bar chords kinda like a Csus2 X35533 which is probably a bad habit to do ALL the time).
That's not it (sus2 chords sound great with everything else). It's most obvious in single-note lines and in places where the instruments play certain notes in unison...it almost sounds like a detuned chorus effect in some places.
It could be as simple as pressing on the strings too hard with thin strings, I don't know.
Could it be the infamous 'stratitis'? Pickups too high?
On get back I had an accordian with distortion on it, cause the organ we had belongs to our sax, but the female vocalist and I were the only 2 people that liked it, so it got voted out.
Damn, I would have loved that!
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Re: How does this sound?

Post by pullover » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:41 am

Orang Goreng wrote: That's not it (sus2 chords sound great with everything else). It's most obvious in single-note lines and in places where the instruments play certain notes in unison...it almost sounds like a detuned chorus effect in some places.
...
Could it be the infamous 'stratitis'? Pickups too high?
It sounds like its the tele, I will check it's set up. It had Chrome 11's on it and the other guitarist put some thinner roundwounds on it, and I bet it just needs to be set up. Everything is probably out now, since the chromes are so much thicker than other strings.
Orang Goreng wrote:
On get back I had an accordian with distortion on it, cause the organ we had belongs to our sax, but the female vocalist and I were the only 2 people that liked it, so it got voted out.
Damn, I would have loved that!
It sounds better on paper, I suck on the accordian. My wife said that it sounded like Daniel Johnston playing on it. She said it was a cool sound but wrong for the song. It's still on there just really really really faint.
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Re: How does this sound?

Post by Maggieo » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:51 am

Daniel Johnston is RIGHTEOUS!

The mix sounds pretty good, aside from the tuning problem and lack of bass that OG already mentioned.  Overall, I think the biggest problems come from a bit of a claustrophobic sound- there needs to be a bit of air, some space in the sound and a bunching up of frequencies in the midrange.

Try cutting different freqs in the midrange and boosting the middle-low bass freqs at the mastering stage and maybe think about adding some reverb to either the vocal and/or guitar tracks and then remixing with the wetter signals.

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Re: How does this sound?

Post by pullover » Thu Nov 16, 2006 10:29 am

Maggieo wrote: Daniel Johnston is RIGHTEOUS!

The mix sounds pretty good, aside from the tuning problem and lack of bass that OG already mentioned.  Overall, I think the biggest problems come from a bit of a claustrophobic sound- there needs to be a bit of air, some space in the sound and a bunching up of frequencies in the midrange.

Try cutting different freqs in the midrange and boosting the middle-low bass freqs at the mastering stage and maybe think about adding some reverb to either the vocal and/or guitar tracks and then remixing with the wetter signals.

(I sent you a friend request, too.)
Thanks Maggieo, I cut the compression off of the whole mix, and added reverb to get a bit more air. I also cut the drive down a bit which should affect the boominess in the mid-range. I am going to work on these some more and re-up them tonight.

Thanks for the Friend adds too everyone! If you want to check out my other project you can go here, http://www.myspace.com/winterpanic it's just me enlisting some of my friends to record with me. Less a band thing and more a "hey, will you play on this" type thing.
Last edited by pullover on Thu Nov 16, 2006 10:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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