First paying customer - 17 year old rock/metal band

Not a fan of the clean vocals at all, sounds really pitchy. Guitar solo actually sounded kind of weird to me as well? Tuning issues, bad intonation or overbending the strings while playing or maybe playing out of key? Other than that pretty good man. Sometimes it sounds like you went too far on the verb to me though on the vocals.
 
I think the tuning bit might be your ear - no offence. Definitely no overbending, tuning issues or bad intonation... the guitar was set up professionaly before tracking and there were no issues between the main track and double track - so no tuning problems. Also, all guitars were recorded DI for reamping and we really scrutinized them to make sure everything was super tight and in tune.

Verb on the vox is just a basic large room verb at 2 seconds, sounds neither dry nor wet to my ear. Bought the vocals back a touch as they're not exactly amazing but it was their first recording experience so they seemed a touch inhibited. I'm sure they'll feel a lot more comfortable next time! :loco:

Yeh - out of tune singing has to be made in tune though. The lead singer had some pitching problems at times but backing vocals were mainly good. Strange how it tends to be like that actually.

Thanks for listening though!
 
I think there's something wrong there in the solos. If the guitars were professionally set up, it must be the playing.

Edit: The vocals are too wet. Increase the dryness, use parallel comp if you haven't. Try using a gated reverb. Even better, send the delay signal into the reverb aux.
 
haha yeh. Its weird cos they listen to stuff like Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, Mastodon, Metallica and loads of hardcore stuff...

Thanks for checking it out!
 
It's not bad, but I'm not a big fan of the snares...needs more bite. Was it a sample or live?
The rhythm guitars sound somewhat hollow. Amp/chain?

It has a very nice frequency balance though. The bottom end is nicely controlled.


I'd recommend singing lessons or a copy of "The Zen of Screaming" for the vocalist. He needs help!
 
This is all pretty ok. Dont like the snare too much and there is a ton of verb on the vocals. And yeah he needs help on those screams but they are almost there.
 
The vocalist needs a lot of practice, but then again he's only 17, so it will come in time if he takes care not to damage his voice.
Like OZ said, the frequency balance is pretty good, and it's definitely a tight mix. Weakest points are the vox and rhytm guitar, but all in all its quite good!
 
hey guys thanks very much for the positive input and constructive criticism. Yeh, they know their vocalist needs to work a little bit on his technique and I'll be recording another track with these guys soon so I'll post again to let you know how its progressing.

I think I did have the rhythms down really good, nice and chunky, but then I got too worried about making them present; boosted a couple of dB around 6-7k and they didn't really need it in hindsight. I guess that's a mistake I'm glad I've made...only been recording for 6 months after all! Chain for guitars was Peavey 6505, 57 an inch from the cone into my audient asp008. Used the sonalksis MB comp and digi 7-band EQ. Massey tape-head on the double-tracks.

Drums are mainly natural tones. Triggered tones are sat back around 8dB from the natural tones. I'm personally quite happy with the drums and so are the band, but I'll definitely look to be a little forceful with the triggered tones for my next client.

What do you guys make of the master? I'm really happy with it...clipped using PT HD converters, thermonic culture compression, API EQ with UA cambridge for some surgical cuts, then a massey limiter. UA mastering MB comp too - I find those lows really tight but still fat! I didn't do the mastering, mind!

Side note...just purchased some NS10m's in great condition for £310!
 
ah thanks very much, that really means a lot!

I usually find myself dipping around 1.5k...maybe that's where I went wrong. I only heard upper mid harshness around there...

I want the guitars for future projects to be really dense yet tight in the low mids and really present but smooth in the highs, I'll crack it soon hopefully.

Once again, thanks for checking it out!
 
The lack of 1,5k energy might be what-s causing the hollowness in the sound. Try OZ's advice and see how it turns out. If you feel you need more highs during the mixing try to boost a couple of dB's above the cut-off frequency of your low-pass filter. So if you low-pass the guitar at 10k, try boosting 12-14k just a bit and see how it sounds.
 
Cool. Guitars were low passed at 12k. Next time i'll try bringing that back a little then boosting in the region you said. Thanks a lot for all the great advice!
 
Try Low Passing lower actually
Low pass at 10khz
Then load up another instance of EQ next in the chain and put a shelving boost of a few db at 10khz. You get shimmer without the harshness. Just one of the helpful nuggets of information I've found on here.

The whole mix sounds like it could benefit from some compression on various parts.
The vocals sound really weak and distant and the drums sound fairly un-mixed. Bass sounds really good though.
 
AEL89 said:
I think the tuning bit might be your ear - no offence. Definitely no overbending, tuning issues or bad intonation... the guitar was set up professionaly before tracking and there were no issues between the main track and double track - so no tuning problems. Also, all guitars were recorded DI for reamping and we really scrutinized them to make sure everything was super tight and in tune.

Verb on the vox is just a basic large room verb at 2 seconds, sounds neither dry nor wet to my ear. Bought the vocals back a touch as they're not exactly amazing but it was their first recording experience so they seemed a touch inhibited. I'm sure they'll feel a lot more comfortable next time! :loco:

Yeh - out of tune singing has to be made in tune though. The lead singer had some pitching problems at times but backing vocals were mainly good. Strange how it tends to be like that actually.

Thanks for listening though!
Click to expand...


NP man! But yeah, it's definately not my ear. If these were scrutinized for being in tune and being tight then you're just a lot less picky than I am. No worries though -- a lot of times I can't get peformances I'm completely happy with either though because of time/budget constraints ect...
 
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