Rate my Mix!

[Wes Mantooth]

Been a while ILF, happy to say I think this the most enjoyable forum on the internet. Hope to spend more time here and contribute what I can.

Has there been a thread for feedback on our recordings? I did a really lazy search and didn't find anything. Hoping this could be a place where people could go to get feedback on their recordings. Anyone with opinion should weigh in, I don't care if you've never listened to music in your life!


So I headed up recording my bands' EP, doing the mixing and mastering too. I need some neutral ears on this from people who aren't afraid to hurt my feelings, this is the first complete project I've taken on and I want to learn more. A lot of the issues with the songs are just that we were lazy when tracking and did not have great rooms so some stuff won't be ideal but we're not re-recording too much except maybe a vocal take or a guitar track, eventually we just have to move on and improve on the next release.

So if anyone would be so kind as to give me some feedback on this first song, I'd really appreciate it. Whether it's something more objective like phase issues or certain instruments being too loud/quiet or just subjective stuff. We're not going for the most hi-fi song and our vocalist likes lots of saturation and drive on his vocals but I'm still trying to make it sound full and with some edge to it. We're all pretty satisfied with this but I'm always looking for feedback.


https://soundcloud.com/suede-pacifier/money

[actual]

I'd say there's a bit too much reverb, particularly on the vocals and drums, maybe not the wet/dry mix, but the room size and decay. Have you EQ'd your reverb, as in removing the lows-low mids going in and the highs going out? I'd also try to make the drums stand out more, perhaps parallel comp the drum bus NYC style, parallel the kick and give it some saturation, and some more sub and high end (on the kick track, not the parallel), without making it too clicky. Maybe do the same with the snare, but with some mids around 800-1.5k. If possible, I'd spread out the overhead(s). The guitars could benefit from a bit of 'air', boosting above 4-5k would do that. Also be wary of competing frequencies in the low mids to mids.
This is just what I would do ofc, but hope some of it might be helpful. Otherwise nice song, reminds me of Wavves.

[Wes Mantooth]

I'd say there's a bit too much reverb, particularly on the vocals and drums, maybe not the wet/dry mix, but the room size and decay. Have you EQ'd your reverb, as in removing the lows-low mids going in and the highs going out? I'd also try to make the drums stand out more, perhaps parallel comp the drum bus NYC style, parallel the kick and give it some saturation, and some more sub and high end (on the kick track, not the parallel), without making it too clicky. Maybe do the same with the snare, but with some mids around 800-1.5k. If possible, I'd spread out the overhead(s). The guitars could benefit from a bit of 'air', boosting above 4-5k would do that. Also be wary of competing frequencies in the low mids to mids.
This is just what I would do ofc, but hope some of it might be helpful. Otherwise nice song, reminds me of Wavves.

This is exactly the kind of advice I have been looking for, thank you!

We did a bad job tracking drums and the drums don't actually sound very good in the first place but upon listening, they do need some energy andI've never been 100% satisfied with the snare sound. I'll try out your suggestions!

And yeah, vocalist loves his verb, I just gradually lower it each draft and he never notices.

Thanks again for the advice, I'll try it out this weekend!

[crochambeau]

Agreed on the reverb. But a lot of the space I heard sounds like loose microphone technique and room reflection that made it to initial print. Are you adding reverb during mix? I'd be curious as to what it sounds like completely dry.

Regarding drums, were this on my plate I'd run a tap off the drum submix through a low pass filter (I dunno, 800 hz?) into some circuitry (with EQ) being POUNDED THE FUCK OUT and then ever so gently mix a little bit of the blown out mess back into the drums. If you can isolate the snare channel maybe reamp that through a guitar amp fronted by some OD? Obviously a tattered mess isn't for everyone, but sometimes if you reduce something to jagged, throbbing noise you can lay the reverb gloss coat on that and buy yourself some room texture without smearing your initial take too much.

[Wes Mantooth]

Agreed on the reverb. But a lot of the space I heard sounds like loose microphone technique and room reflection that made it to initial print. Are you adding reverb during mix? I'd be curious as to what it sounds like completely dry.

Regarding drums, were this on my plate I'd run a tap off the drum submix through a low pass filter (I dunno, 800 hz?) into some circuitry (with EQ) being POUNDED THE FUCK OUT and then ever so gently mix a little bit of the blown out mess back into the drums. If you can isolate the snare channel maybe reamp that through a guitar amp fronted by some OD? Obviously a tattered mess isn't for everyone, but sometimes if you reduce something to jagged, throbbing noise you can lay the reverb gloss coat on that and buy yourself some room texture without smearing your initial take too much.

The raw recordings sound pretty bad, bad room with a lot of reflections and little absorption and the drum kit is pretty cheap and dull sounding to begin with so it takes quite a bit to coax something from them. Thankfully we have a better space and can learn from the dozens of mistakes we made in tracking. Reverb is only added to the vocals and maybe the guitarists had some amp verb on theirs.

Added a blown-out submix, low pass at about 1khz to the drums and it definitely thickened things up a bit, I'm going to use that more often! Took down the verb on the vocals to simulate a smaller space, they were a little over the top on a lot of sources I listened through. EQing helped too.

We could go back and re-record everything but the band is ready to move on and record new stuff and they're mostly satisfied with how everything is sounding, mostly we're trying to fix the drums and get everyone to agree on a vocal sound. Can't wait until our next attempt so I can fix the tracking problems we had.

[Psyre]

still have that Corrigan'd Phantom Ring??

Welcome back!

[Wes Mantooth]

:hello: still have that Corrigan'd Phantom Ring??

Welcome back!

You know it!

Bout to post my updated board in a bit but never once thought of letting it go. My guitarist used it with another fuzz for a different song and it sounds so damn cool, a little tough to mix but it sounded too good to ditch.

[Psyre]

So glad to hear! Was just thinking about it within the past couple months oddly.