Mix for comment and guidance please

[AndyClarke]

Hi everyone.

I've gotten this track to the point of its first initial mix and wondered if you could pass comment and maybe give pointers before I do any more work on it.

https://soundcloud.com/the-gifted/masqu ... al_sharing

Content warning: 40 year old man carrying on like an angsty teenager!

Thanks

[PS, if the opening sounds off, Soundcloud appears to have cut a fraction of a second off]

[BWC]

I like it!

Personally, I would trim a few repeats out of the intro. Also, while I find the sound of the vocals interesting, I would clean them up, and lift them up in select places for more contrast. I've only listened once (on a modest system in an untreated room), I'll listen again later with my headphones and see if anything else (more specific) jumps out at me.

[RichardT]

It's very good. For me, the vocals need to come up a bit and the sound needs to be drier - there's a bit too much reverb / delay on most of the instruments for my taste.

[AndyClarke]

Thank you both for your feedback.

Appreciate your comments on the vocals. I always struggle (if that's the right word) to get my vocals to sit in the mix how I like. When I bring them up I feel they start to sit above the mix rather than part of it.

I find when I record a vocal like this, where I'm belting out a rather "screamed" vocal, it has an unpleasant harsh edge in the top end which I have to EQ and compress out, but also cuts out what the vocal needs to cut through the mix. So I need to work on finding the balance.

the sound needs to be drier - there's a bit too much reverb / delay on most of the instruments for my taste.

I think this is a very good point, I maybe have been heavy handed with the delay, which is leading to a muddiness I'm finding when I've listened to it on some different headphones this morning.

I'll be spending this afternoon doing some tweaks based on the feedback I get today. So I'll keep you updated on how I get on.

Thanks again.

[RichardT]

Do you have a dynamic EQ? If you applied that to the vocal, you could set it so that it curbs the HF only in the louder sections. Or you could use a multiband compressor to get similar results.

[Aaron Straley]

Vocals should be louder and the mix sounds muffled and muddy, I'd like to hear more clarity and crispiness

[OneWorld]

Hi everyone.

I've gotten this track to the point of its first initial mix and wondered if you could pass comment and maybe give pointers before I do any more work on it.

https://soundcloud.com/the-gifted/masqu ... al_sharing

Content warning: 40 year old man carrying on like an angsty teenager!

Thanks

[PS, if the opening sounds off, Soundcloud appears to have cut a fraction of a second off]

I have no experience engineering wise, well not useful experience, so I can only comment as a casual listener, It is not a genre I am enamoured of, I can take it or leave it. FWIW here are my comments....

I sort of like the background, though more definition would be good

I can only make out about a few words amongst which were f*ck, the others "I........too" and that's about it

I like a tune with a bit of variation, though again, the same thing over and over might be a characteristic of the genre and so is meant to be as it is?

Overall, I would aim for more clarity.

I like that synth sound, and you've used it well.

I used to have an old but good quality PCI card synth. I sold it when the Yamaha SW1000XG, but since then I have never managed to find a synth that sounded as beefy, and anyway, they stopped making synths on a PCI card eons ago. Anyway, whatever it is, it sounds good

[AndyClarke]

Thanks again for your comments everyone. I've been working on the track for the past few hours and made some good progress, and managed to deal with the "muddiness" issue in the instrumentation (or so I hope).

I have decided I'm going to re-record a lot of the vocals as I'm not overly happy with them. I instinctively back away from the mic when I'm belting it out, so lost the proximity effect and "body" leaving me with a thin and harsh sounding vocal. Going to try some different mics as well and experiment a bit, currently using an AT2020 for my vocals, but I have a £20 T-Bone mic whose cheapness can actually add a bit of character. Might also try singing into a cheap kick drum mic I picked up a while back, see how that comes out.

[OneWorld]

Thanks again for your comments everyone. I've been working on the track for the past few hours and made some good progress, and managed to deal with the "muddiness" issue in the instrumentation (or so I hope).

I have decided I'm going to re-record a lot of the vocals as I'm not overly happy with them. I instinctively back away from the mic when I'm belting it out, so lost the proximity effect and "body" leaving me with a thin and harsh sounding vocal. Going to try some different mics as well and experiment a bit, currently using an AT2020 for my vocals, but I have a £20 T-Bone mic whose cheapness can actually add a bit of character. Might also try singing into a cheap kick drum mic I picked up a while back, see how that comes out.

Seems you're going through that phase where we come to understand that singing teeters between a hard won skill and a gift, and often, the singers that inspire us (or in my case think to myself "I can do that" - How wrong I was LOL)

Even those singers that make a big deal about being howlers and screechers, can actually sing in tune. Once you can get stuff in tune, you've broken the back of it and can then concentrate on getting the right balance/sound etc Best of luck, half the enjoyment is experimenting and who knows you might even just drop on just the right result that shows you off at your best.

Keep us posted

[Drew Stephenson]

Typing as I listen, not my genre so take with a pinch of salt (also see the disclaimer in my sig)

Intro is a bit long for me.
I like that pulsing synth sound.
Vocals could come up a bit.
I'm not getting a lot from the stereo width available, there's a bit of different instrumentation in the L&R channels in the breakdown around 1:50 but I think more could be done for a bit of ear candy. Works well in mono though.
With everything being heavily distorted it does mean there's an almost constant fuzz going on. On some of the quieter sections it might be worth trying a couple of cleaner sounds in there so that the ear gets a bit of a break and the tracks with distortion can really bite.
Going back to the pulsing synth, it comes in after a few seconds, then plays all the way through. I'd look for a couple of spots for it to drop out to add a bit of dynamics.

Hope that's of use.

[AndyClarke]

Thanks again for your comments everyone. I've been working on the track for the past few hours and made some good progress, and managed to deal with the "muddiness" issue in the instrumentation (or so I hope).

I have decided I'm going to re-record a lot of the vocals as I'm not overly happy with them. I instinctively back away from the mic when I'm belting it out, so lost the proximity effect and "body" leaving me with a thin and harsh sounding vocal. Going to try some different mics as well and experiment a bit, currently using an AT2020 for my vocals, but I have a £20 T-Bone mic whose cheapness can actually add a bit of character. Might also try singing into a cheap kick drum mic I picked up a while back, see how that comes out.

Seems you're going through that phase where we come to understand that singing teeters between a hard won skill and a gift, and often, the singers that inspire us (or in my case think to myself "I can do that" - How wrong I was LOL)

Even those singers that make a big deal about being howlers and screechers, can actually sing in tune. Once you can get stuff in tune, you've broken the back of it and can then concentrate on getting the right balance/sound etc Best of luck, half the enjoyment is experimenting and who knows you might even just drop on just the right result that shows you off at your best.

Keep us posted

I will definitely be sure to keep you posted, and I'll share more of the album I'm working on as I look for more guidance.

On what you've said, I think I'm more in the phase of having been doing this for 20+ years and my voice is not what it once was. So I'm now having to find new approaches, being unable to do things the way I could in my late teens and twenties. It's an irony I guess that, as I've become much better at engineering and producing my music, I've gone the opposite way in being able to perform it (as well as I used to)

[AndyClarke]

I've done some work on the mix based on everyones feedback. New link to where it is now. Some vocal sections are missing altogether, these are the ones I want to re-record, as the current takes just aren't working.

(I am noticing a loss of quality after uploading to Soundcloud, so please bear that in mind).

https://soundcloud.com/the-gifted/masqu ... al_sharing