Give opinions on my guitar and drum tones for pop rock(Vox AC30/my own drum samples)

[brianhood]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/536384/Tom Foolery/Tom Foolery amp test 3.mp3


The guitar amp is a Vox AC30 with a Fulltone OCD pedal running in front of it. The guitar used for tracking was a Fender Thinline Telecaster.

For drums, i used my custom 7.5x14 maple snare, mic'd with a beta 57 on top, sm57 on bottom, Rode NT5's on the overheads, and AT4040/AT3035 as room mics(did a decent job as stereo room mics since i don't have another matched pair besides overheads). Tons of room mic and overhead in this snare sample. The snare also had a Remo Powerstroke 3 head.
Toms were just my crappy mapex pro m series 12" and 14" toms. same mics as the snare except sm57 on top and bottom.

The kick sample is actually just slate kick 10. I've had terrible experiences trying to make my own kick samples(go figure).

I'm trying to slowly get out of the metal mindset with recording these types of bands. Let me know if i'm doing a decent job of it. I still think i'm nowhere near commercial sounding, as i hate how this stuff sounds compared to bands like paramore, all time low, hit the lights, or even set your goals.


Also, this is a completely rough mix. No manual pitch correction done yet, no volume automation done, and no effects added yet. We just finished tracking today, and i started on reamping. Just wanted a bit of input before starting out again tomorrow.


***************EDIT**********************
Came back to this mix 6 months later and re worked it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/536384/Tom Foolery/It's a Wonderful Life(new mix).mp3

 

[gabriel g.]

You are on the right way, but I think you think to metal
Do you know what I mean?
Like the snare has a very high-frequent decay.
The guitars are to "fat" and to loud.

Vocals sound excelent!!!

The drums need more room and more room compression...

But as I said you´re on the right way.

cheers bro

 

[DeclanWhite]

ahhh snare is WAY too bright and not enough body for this. needs way more meat. kick also has a weird boxy metal kind of tone that doesnt fit with this kind of genre.

guitar is great! as is the rest of the mix.

fix the snare and change the kick and you'll be laughing

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

How did you manage to get an ac30 "growl" so much? That's awesome, I've only tried it once, but with no pedal nor boost before it, that might have been why though

 

[Erik Monsonis]

You are on the right way, but I think you think to metal
Do you know what I mean?
Like the snare has a very high-frequent decay.
The guitars are to "fat" and to loud.

Vocals sound excelent!!!

The drums need more room and more room compression...

But as I said you´re on the right way.

cheers bro

Agreed 100%

 

[Shaun Werle]

I admire the real amp and you using your own drum samples. I think the snare is to beefy. Toms sound awesome!

 

[alan1990]

the guitar is perfect but the drums are to clickie need more room

 

[oroinvictus]

It sounds like the guitars could be panned a little farther apart to me, apart from that everything sounds good to me.

 

[JeffTD]

Everything's great but the drums - way too thin/metal, use more room/fatter samples/parallel compression/bus compression, and maybe try not filtering the OH's like you'd usually do.

 

[rlcramer]

Wow dude - those vox sound great.

But I agree 100% about the drums.

Bobby

 

[lolzgreg]

Yeah. The drums really mess this one up.

Get a room mic heavy in there. Compress the hell out of it. Take a tiny bit of low end and high mids out of the guitars and let them breathe more with the bass providing more of the foundation.

The whole song needs more ambience.

 

[flashGX]

Great sound on the ac30, theyre awesome for this sort of thing!

I definately feel like u could pan the guitars a little more tho!

Kris

 

[DeclanWhite]

I admire the real amp and you using your own drum samples. I think the snare is to beefy. Toms sound awesome!

you're insane

 

[Joshua Wickman]

The drums problem have been touched on but dam them vocals sound great! I know you said no effects but, any verb or anything on them at all?

I did the guitar tone as well!

 

[Dollarosa]

vocals are awesome

Try bringing up some of the lows in the overheads (125hz) after you have high passed them to get some of the natural drums coming thru. I would bring the highs down in the snare and add some depth but cranking the mids a little, also add a plate verb onto the snare. The kick needs some lows (80hz) and probably compress with a fast attack to make it less clicky sounding. Boost the room mic, but low pass it, so that you are just adding the lows and mids to the drums. Add some parallel compression to snare, kick and toms. Guitars sound great!!!

Push the bass up a little

 

[brianhood]

ahhh snare is WAY too bright and not enough body for this. needs way more meat.

I think the snare is to beefy.

This is why i love this forum



I'll definitely be making adjustments to this mix once the band comes back. They just ran out of time, and i had Carridale coming in the day after them, so no time to finish up

The drums problem have been touched on but dam them vocals sound great! I know you said no effects but, any verb or anything on them at all?

I dig* the guitar tone as well!

haha yeah dude. Right now the vocals just have compression, de esser, eq, and autotune with default settings lol. I'll be going in to align and pitch correct everything by hand, as well as adding any necessary delays and reverbs to vox when they come back to finish up another day. I also just put a compressor on the vocal bus to help with layered vox dynamics since i didn't have time to do automation. Very very ghetto right now


I'll post a new mix once it's finished up. I have a bad tendency to make snares too bright. I hear pro snares and how much "crack" they have, and start adding high end. Definitely will try to correct that. I'm probably going to just mix my samples down like Slate samples so i can use my own "Z5" samples to adjust room volume to taste.

 

[DeclanWhite]

haha, my only complaints are the snare and kick. listen to more paramore! mix is bitchin, especially in the part building up to the chorus, so pro it gives me goosebumps!

 

[Nuno Filipe]

I think the guitars are a bit honky, the snare bright and thin and the kick is buried in the mix. Just some small things that could be better IMO.

 

[DeclanWhite]

actually.. snare sounds alot like some of matt squire's work (especially The Cab)

 

[joelplagues]

hey brian really like what you did hear.

the kick is great for this style. It could have a little too much of the batter head but it fits this style well, as I dont feel like kicks should be prominent in something like this.

im gonna agree on adding some low end to the snare its just not hitting me right in the mix.

hope to hear some more carridale soon