My bands first EP, need outside opinions, alternative metal(ish) maybe?

[Fama]

Hello

My band is about to release it's first EP. Tracked it ourselves (played live, it's also quite sloppy, so be warned) and I mixed & mastered it myself. I'd be grateful if you could listen to the songs and give some outside opinions on them before I send them out to be printed.

You can comment on the playing and songs themselves, but I'm mainly looking for mixing related things, since I'm not gonna change anything about the songs themselves (I'm gonna touch a few things editwise though, didn't have time to correct them totally before I posted here, one example is the beginning of song n. 2, the snare/tom thing is out of time because I messed it up).

I can't quite classify the band in any genre, but I hope you like it The singing is in Finnish.

Here are the songs:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10138888/Song 1.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10138888/Song 2.mp3
(sorry about the intro)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10138888/Song 3.mp3

I hope I didn't mess anything up in the rendering, I'll fix it later if I did.

Thanks

 

[Fama]

Sorry to be bumping so soon, but this really is quite urgent. Even something like "sounds ok to me" would be nice.

Thanks

 

[Warking5000]

I must say, from the first example, I have feeling it needs a bit more high end on the guitars, maybe boost some of the high end and cut some of the low end? Also have you done a high pass and a low pass on it? the drums sound fine to me.
the vocals i'd pull down into the mix just a touch, as the drums are getting slightly lost in the mix.
But i'm not much of an expert, rather i'm quite the beginner, so i'd listen to anyone else over me haha.
But that's just my opinion, the songs pretty good, songwriting-wise to my ears.

 

[Fama]

Thank you, any input counts HP/LP around 100 and 10k (don't know how steep the passing in ReaEQ is, though). My biggest problem could be the low end, since I'm mixing on open headphones, and they don't reproduce bass very well.

 

[Warking5000]

I've got just a small speaker set up with a subwoofer and it sounds just slightly muddy to me with guitar, that's all i've got to nag about really.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Here are some thoughts that first came to mind:

- The rhythm guitars need definition in the first song. They're really mushy at times.
- In the first song, the lead guitars are really loud.
- The low end of the mix is a bit all over the place. It's a hard one to nail
- The vocals are really up front and feel kinda dry.
- The drums are pretty fine, but they get a bit lost in the mix at times because the overall lack of clarity.
- I don't want to be a dick, but the playing is really sloppy here and there, which IMHO is the biggest problem here. The basis of a good recording is tight playing, which is something that can't be stressed enough.

Nice to hear some Finnish vocals here, though! Good luck with the EP!

 

[Fama]

Thank you Yeah, if I would do it again, I would (and we will do it for the next EP) record everything individually so we get it tight. This was recorded live (although I spliced them from multiple takes and edited the worst mistakes out). I do like the organic feel, although it also means we play like crap at times. Also, I think we now play better than we did when we recorded this (almost 6 months ago).

Yeah, I actually noticed the lead guitar thing, they weren't that loud earlier and I don't think I touched anything, but yeah, I'll fix that, thanks for the note.

I'll try some multiband compression on the low end, and maybe checking if it's mono/if I can make it a little bit more mono.

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

 

[MAXMEDLOW]

sounds pretty good to me man. i wouldnt say it sounds professional, but for such an odd style of music, i think its sometimes nice to have an unprofessional recording. although, the piano could be quieter IMO