everything sounds dead weak and out of tune...

[FIXXXER]

i don't know if i do just suck at playing/recording/mixing
but everything i record sounds, weak and lifeless.
i own pretty good gear/instruments so i can exclude this.

waht could it be?

-poor and weak songwriting?
-bad playing, singing etc. ?
-bad mixing?
-me being a fucking neurotic?

i also doubt that it's just the bad mixing, as some live recordings
do not sound that great but THERE is a lot of "power" in them.
i also think that my old stuff sounds much more lo-fi but
there is life in it. ny never stuff just sounds like robots played it!

could it be the VST drums?
i do a lot of velocity stuff and i like to move cymbals a little bit around the grid,
kicks and snares are exactly on the grid as it sounds sloppy to me as soon as i make minimal changes to these...

my recordings also always sound "not in tune" for me.
the funny thing is, i can't tune a guitar without using a tuner,
but i always hear tones that are not in tune, so i end up recording
every phrase using a capo and retuning my guitar the whole time.

sometimes i think that i also make everything sound to polished,
if needed i record 100 takes until it sounds right to me. i also edit
extremely, not in a "make it tight" way, more like having every take
absolutely clean, for example i cut repeating parts not exactly,
i cut them a little bit longen and then i set fade in and outs,
i thougt this makes things sound more natural, thern just cut them to the grid,
maybe i am completely wrong with this?

maybe i am just to self critical?

what do you guys think? any suggestions?
it really makes me go crazy and once again
i am thinking about selling all my stuff and quit

cheers
S.

 

[Loki Laufeyiarson]

How about some samples then?

However:

i also think that my old stuff sounds much more lo-fi but there is life in it.

This does make me think you're mostly editting it to death or overthinking it.

 

[Machinated]

having stuff in tune is a huge pain. if it sounds out of tune, tune around the notes/chords you are playing. also, use the tuner as a guide, but play each chord and listen for the tuning - im usually tuning my bottom string slightly flat, and some chord shapings seem to change things, even when the intonation is good.

ALSO, some people play out of tune, either by the way the hit the strings with a pick, or by bending the notes slightly.

I HATE TUNING.

 

[FIXXXER]

thanks for the replies guys!

@Loki Laufeyiarson
here's two examples, old track recorded in 2008,
and the new version i did some days ago.

OLD@dropbox

NEW@dropbox

editing it to death, yeah that's what i've been thinking the whole time,
the problem is, even if i do 100 takes, take the best one out and edit it
the take still does not sound OK to me, WTF?

@Machinated
i always tune to the nearest "spot".
if i play notes on the first few frets i tune the open strings,
if i play higher notes i set a capo on the deepest note i need
and then tune everything. works ok but still sunds like shit.
it could be my playing technique also, i used to choke the neck
for a long time, but i practised and still trying to play easier.

if you listen to the soundfiles, i think the celan guitars and the
high melody guitars at the end sound extremely out of tune.
i don't think that i played wrong notes, well i hope so...

cheers
S.

 

[Loki Laufeyiarson]

Did you set up the guitar properly then? Intonation and all? Is it the right guitar/gear for the part? How is your picking/fretting (when releasing tension on the fretting hand, some people tend to also pick with less power)? Have you played this stuff over and over until it's dead to you?

 

[FIXXXER]

the guitar is set up correctly
and it's not a cheap guitar, i thought maybe the fret
distance could be messed up but it should not be like that on
a custom built guitar i think.

yeah, i played it about a thousand times now,
just did a new recording on the melodic parts
and they sound much better now, but still out of tune.

everything sounds lifeless, that's a much bigger
problem than the tuning i think.

cheers
S.

 

[Plankis]

The lead thing before the solo seems to be sharp. I have to do a quarter bend to find your notes. So it's either the intonation or you fretting technique. Your playing that lead thing on the b string right? Check the intonation on that string, 12th fret vs 12th natural harmonic. If they seem to sound the same it got to be your fretting technique, maybe you got so into it that you started to press the string too hard against the fretboard therefore pushing it out of tune?

Were the takes recorded at different the session? Maybe you managed to fuck up the tuner, it's reference isn't 440hz?

When I got these kinds of problems were I wonder if it's in tune or not. I use something that I know is always 100% in tune everytime, MIDI! Write the part in MIDI, check if it sounds good together with your lead guitar, if it doesn't do a retake with that midi playing. If it does, retrack the rythm.

 

[FIXXXER]

The lead thing before the solo seems to be sharp. I have to do a quarter bend to find your notes. So it's either the intonation or you fretting technique. Your playing that lead thing on the b string right? Check the intonation on that string, 12th fret vs 12th natural harmonic. If they seem to sound the same it got to be your fretting technique, maybe you got so into it that you started to press the string too hard against the fretboard therefore pushing it out of tune?

Were the takes recorded at different the session? Maybe you managed to fuck up the tuner, it's reference isn't 440hz?

everything was recorded in one session, tuner was set to 440.
i also checked the intonation and made few corrections, as far as
it is possible on a guitar. i think a guitar with normal frets
can never be 100% right in intonation right?

hmm, must be my playing "technique"
i often use to press strings too hard,
still working on this.

cheers
S.

 

[Plankis]

I'm satisfied with my intonation when the 12th fret and 12th N.H have the same value. I don't know if that's 100% accurate but my tuner doesn't react any different to the different 12ths at least. And I'm guessing your playing on the 10-11 fret on the b string on that lead, so it should be pretty much spot on there if the frets aren't bad.
I definitely should not have to do a quarter bend to find your notes.

Found your thread in the rate my mix-forum: You use the Axefx's tuner right? It's pretty good, you can definitely get the intonation so close that the tuner doesn't land on a different spot and you shouldn't be satisfied with anything else.

 

[FIXXXER]

yeah i am using the axe-fx tuner and also the sonic research ST-200, both are very good i think.
checked out the guitar setup again, everything seems fine, must be my bad playing.

what about the other things? the tuning is not the only problem i have,
i've been redoing the drums for days now, changing stuff and trying to get the drum "closer"
to the rest, playing wise. maybe the track itself just sucks?

cheers
S.

 

[AboutBlank]

Haven't heard the tracks yet, but imo thats a progress thing(that you've heard and played the song 1 million times makes it even more worse).

You go from dirty to ultra polished to a little less polished but with controlled dirtyness and so on. It's just your own development and the changes of your taste.

 

[Plankis]

I think you need to redo the rythm tone completely, it just sounds so narrow. Drums may need a bit more room, but the guitars are the real problem. I don't know how much editing you've done, but that might have its part in the songs stiffness. It's not a song that really needs to be machinetight, so I really don't see the need to slip anything. So don't look at the grid when deciding if it's tight or not, sum the guitars to mono and listen that way. If it wasn't good enough: take a break, give it another shot when you feel refreshed, you will nail it eventually.

 

[FIXXXER]

@AboutBlank
this is the 4th attempt so far, recorded tis one 5, or 6 years ago, sounded completely different, then
made another version 4 years ago, then another one in 2009 and now i am trying to get it "right" again.
maybe i should just leave the track as it is and write some new stuff. i also did big changes in every version,
i always like to vollpacken my tracks, 100 harmiones are not enough for me!
hope you'll find time to check out the tracks, maybe you can give me some hints.

@Plankis
in this case i did no slip and stuff, just cut out the best parts and repeated them,
maybe i should try to play along a few times and record longer takes. for some
reason i tried to make this song too heavy, maybe i should go for a more rock sounding track.

i'll take a break from this one, get new strings
(recorded this one with fresh strings and they got worn out in two days as i played the whole day trying to nail it :/)
and start all over again.

cheers
S.

 

[CubanDude]

In my opinion you're not very good at programming drums They just don't fit the song really good... Well.. they're not bad, but neither good

And yeah.. You're rhythm tone is kinda narrow.. It's just not "breathing" enough...

 

[FIXXXER]

that's true!
to me my drums sound like
"ok, now i play the kick and a crash, then two times the sanre,
one the tom, then some hi hat and maybe a few more kicks then"
i had a version of this where i used more rock dounding guitars with less gain,
sounded much better except on the "breakdown" part, maybe i should just kick this one out.

any tips on the drums?
i thought i made some progress in programming as
i got some very good tips here, guess i was wrong

cheers
S.

 

[Terminus]

Some of the guitar stuff is just one part, there's not alot of harmonies going on, I didnt hear much in the way of leads except one or two parts. I mean it's a solid rhythm and all that but it needs more stuff going on imo. Drums don't sound badly programmed to me, maybe a little blah but that always depends on the vocals (which are also absent ). The solo part could have some double bass going full on. I'm the kind of person who'll add synths into this stuff too, but I realize some people arent into that though. Biggest thing I would suggest is vox, man. And maybe watch some Dirk Verbeuren vids hah. Maybe try to write in a faster tempo? That's something I do when my mind blanks on riffs.

Anyway just suggestions dude, good luck with it. I'm still interested in doing some vox for your stuff, just did some for another guy on the forum this past week, I'll try to get back to that one song I already was messing with of yours this weekend and redo/finish it.

 

[John_C]

haven't listened to the clips as i've lent my monitors to someone for the weekend but........
For me, the biggest changes in making things sound "strong" was really getting good with compression, in particular getting those attack times dead on.

 

[FIXXXER]

@Masterbeast
yeah i like it also when a lot of stuff is going on but i tend to overfill everything,
so i tried to keep it simple this time. i often get tons of ideas while recording
and then want to have it all in the track, ends up being a complete mess!

i'll try to do the vocals in the next few days, maybe it will sound more satisfying then.
dirk verbeuren, seems to be a good drummer, the metal foundry SDX contains midi played by him,
the tracks sound very strange to me, played too sloppy for my taste but i'll check him out again.

anxious about the vocals dude, this will turn out nice i think!

@John_C
compression, i think i basically know how it works but i can't get
anything useful using the cubase 5 stock compressor plugins, they all
sound "lo qaulity like" to me. wish i could get the softube compressor,
seems like a real good "compressor for everything" plugin.

cheers
S.

 

[BL1NDSIDE-J]

I'm a complete noob to recording but to me it just sounds like you've lost all interest in the song. I look at alot of my older stuff and am like wtf? So I just move on and try to write something better instead of polishing a turd.

 

[ahjteam]

OLD@dropbox
NEW@dropbox

To me it sounds like it's a combination of songwriting, playing and mix. the whole package is just a bit boring sounding