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Hello folks- As a musician who's currently in two active bands, I've always had that inkling to put out a solo album but never really had the technology knowledge to do so. I'm an old fart so I've been thinking about this since around 1990... fast-forward a few decades and now that it's entirely possible for someone to do it themselves, I'm giving it a shot. Here's a sample tune of where I'm at. Although most of my material is gonna be on the techy side, this one is more of a groovy romp. (I literally wrote this one from a discarded riff from another tune; I wanted to see if I could write a whole song around a single riff idea.) Although commenting on the tune itself is fine, I'm much more interested in comments on the Production. It has taken me a long time to get this sounding the way it does, and now I'm at a wall; it's not 100% what I want but I feel it's so nicely balanced I'm afraid to touch anything. So I figured I'd ask people I don't know- do you like the way this sounds? It's not properly mastered, I'm just using a limiter to test with. It definitely sounds flatter on some systems and I'm not sure if that's something I need to tackle in the mix or in the master. When the time comes I'll probably get the whole thing professionally mastered. There are also no vocals in this version, there will be eventually (my next big hurdle, I've never recorded vocals before. How hard can it be, right?) https://soundcloud.com/narkybark/swing034
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Jul 1, 2014 03:32
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 11:03 |
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I am not a pro audio guy, but the tone and EQ is really great. Vocals would be a good opportunity to really fill that bright foreground part of the EQ I think you're missing. The song's got just a bit of that 'radio' kind of tone, where it feels kind of faded and not really razor sharp like a lot of more polished big albums are. Very tight playing though, which does loving loads for the sound. If you're having trouble telling how flat it is, I might recommend investing in a Studio Monitor like those sweet M-Audio boxes or maybe a pair of studio headphones like K240 Studios by AKG. 70 bucks on Amazon, I own 3 pairs and they're absolutely excellent at complete tonal transparency.
its curtains for Kevin fucked around with this message at 03:17 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 3, 2014 08:56
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Composition is rad as gently caress. I agree with the above poster in that the only thing that's missing is something in the upper midrange, which vocals could certainly help to fill out. The drums aren't overbearing and the riffing is clear and articulate. If this is the direction you're headed, I'd buy the album that this is going to lead to. Great work!
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Jul 3, 2014 16:42
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I really love it, the only thing that gets me is that it seems really compressed so I found it a bit fatiguing to listen to.
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Jul 4, 2014 23:19
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Thanks guys. I agree about the "radio" tone and that's what I was talking about when I said it felt a bit flat. I do intend vocals to fill up some of that space, and in fairness I probably should wait until some vocals are in there before I can really judge. I think part of it is also the lo-rent way I'm "mastering" it. The original is much quieter across the board but a little more dynamic. This is why I'm going to let a pro do the final mastering since I think I need to get that space filled out properly. I may also try to get the guitar tone a little more aggressive but I kinda like the clarity. Fine line. This tune is probably going to be the most "standard" out of them in terms of composition and riffs, like I said it's more swingy than anything else. I'm tempted to put a different tune up but I'll save those for later. Oh, I forgot to comment that I am listening to it through KRK rokit-8's. And it sounds really nice through them. It's when I listen through small headphones, computer speakers, car speakers, etc. that some aspect seems to suffer. Actually, I was amazing how different it sounded compared to the speakers I was using before the monitors. They were putting mild reverb on everything and I never noticed! Oh, AND one final thing, I do have some hearing damage in the 3K range, so I'm always worried that I'm boosting that area too much to sound good to my own ears. Maybe that plays into the whole flatness thing too, hmm...
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Jul 6, 2014 19:50
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For what it's worth, the song sounds great coming out of my laptop speakers. They're lovely speakers though so ymmv
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Jul 7, 2014 03:36
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Can I suggest uploading your unmastered version? At some point, you've definitely over compressed (I'm guessing at the mastering stage), and it would be much fairer to judge just the mixed version.
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Jul 27, 2014 19:35
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There's so much stuff you could try but it really depends on your taste. A handful of things I might consider with this recording are: 1. double-tracking the bass and panning one centre-left and one centre-right, rather than just riding the centre. 2. adding a dash of clean reverb to the kick and snare respectively. Personally I feel it's really the drum's that're flattening this piece out 3. As everyone's been saying, the compression needs tweaking. what i said about double-tracking and panning the bass part can actually help you find a lot of space for cutting the compression there and opens up room for the guitar As for it sounding weaker on some systems, that's pretty typical with a lot of even pro-mastered metal. Try listening to anything with a 5-string bass through junk computer speakers; pointless. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum springs to mind. But generally your target audience are the kind to care about sound quality anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much about that as what I'm hearing through my MDRs is pretty great! Everything above is just suggestions; as i said to start with, it's all about your taste and you being happy with it. Those are just some things you can experiment with.
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Jul 30, 2014 19:23
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Thanks for the ideas. Everyone's comments as they are will make me revisit a few things, including making sure I'm not sucking out too many mid-high freqs. I should probably wait until throwing some vocs in to make a better judgement and adjustments. The bass is only single tracked, although I did split the signal for processing. It's true that it is set dead center. I've known other local bands that have double-tracked the bass and I didn't think the difference was worth the hassle, but perhaps the reason you mention is enough to try it. I do have compression on the bass tied into the kick drum; I was under the impression this was a normal practice. I have added verb/delays to all of the hit drums; you definitely hear it with the drums alone but less so with the band. I did scale it back from my original setting since it seems like techy metal tends to have a drier sound. One thing that may be hurting me is that I do have some pretty severe EQ settings to carve out individual drums, to separate all the instruments. Maybe I should relax that a bit...
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Aug 1, 2014 03:33
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 11:03 |
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First off, great job! This well done for home recording and for the tech metal genre. I especially like the bass tone you got. Some thoughts: I know you said you just added a mastering plug in to add some polish and bring the volume up, but yeah it'd be great if we could hear it w/o any post production. And not to hurt your feelings, but leave the post productin to a pro. I have been self recording for years, and I still pay the big bucks to have someone else master. You are going a great job with the tracking, so let that shine by having someone else put the polishing touches on, second set of ears, better monitors, yadda yadda. I was curious if you have a global room reverb happening on the whole mix, or just seperate thru aux or single plug ins on each instrument? Feels like just a little too much verb for the genre. Or too large of a room setting. You have nice tight guitar sounds, but they kind of get blurred when everything is playing. I know it might suck to hear since it sounds like you worked so hard in good guitar sounds, but either bring them down just a touch or maybe use a low cut filter to cut everything under at least 40 if not 60hz. A single guitar might sound a little thin then, but once you add a second, plus bass, drums, etc everything is fighting for that low end space. You' debate surprised at how much low end is cut in metal guitars if you soloed them. Also, the drums seem a little low in volume IMHO but hey, I am a drummer  I assume you are using triggered drum samples, like BFD or whatever? NarkyBark posted:I have added verb/delays to all of the hit drums; you definitely hear it with the drums alone but less so with the band. I did scale it back from my original setting since it seems like techy metal tends to have a drier sound. One thing that may be hurting me is that I do have some pretty severe EQ settings to carve out individual drums, to separate all the instruments. Maybe I should relax that a bit... Again, maybe you won't need to use such extreme EQ on the drums if you dry them up, and look cut some of the extreme lows on the guitars. Don't worry, it'll still sound heavy! Check out Nile records for some "warm " and not overly hyped (well in comparison to most techy metal) drum sounds at still have a ton of clarity during faster parts. Edit - plus when you get it mastered the compression will tend to bring out the reverb as it flattens the levels of everything, which is why going a little drier than you think a "professional" recording sounds will actually get you to that point after the post production. Hope that makes sense? Interstitial Abs fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Aug 1, 2014 |
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Aug 1, 2014 13:38
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