my first attempt at a polished matt squire-esque commercial pop/punk/rock sound

S

solphilcox

Member
Jan 4, 2010
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Nashville
********EDIT*********

here is the raw pro tools session for anyone who wants to mess with it or have a shot at mixing.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4165896/WHO I WAS BEFORE original unmixed session.zip

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just recorded an EP with a band I recently joined playing guitar, and we recorded an EP. production wise we were going for the obvious Matt Squire/Paul leavitt/chris lord-alge sound, and I think it came out really good for what limited resources we had. drums are 100% real, no samples whatsoever. bass recorded with modded 1968 fender bassman head through 2x10 cab. keys and strings are the only things we programmed.

here's a couple of tracks, each with a different sound and different guitar tones. first up is the matchless dc-30/1966 fender bandmaster (closed back 2x12 bandmaster cab with greenbacks):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4165896/WHO I WAS BEFORE.mp3

here is another track with an orange rocker 30 for rhythms, matchless for leads:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4165896/WHERE YOU WANT ME.mp3

let me know what you think!

thanks a bunch
 
sounds great man. the mix breathes really well. congrats on making a natural recording that sounds killer. care to share the processing for everything?

my two cents: the snare could use a little more bite, same with the kick. vocals seem to stick out a bit too much, not necessarily a bad thing.

you guys remind me of the academy is. good tunes. keep it up.
 
ah you guys are too kind!! vocals were a fucking nightmare to notch, i need to learn some tips bad for this kind of thing, m. squire seems to do ungodly things to vocals that make them insanely loud but never out of place, i think it must be the compressors he's using. i'm currently using smack and the stock bombfactory that comes with pro tools complete production toolkit, anything you want to recommend for under a couple hundred bucks?

here's what i used:

sm7b on vocals
shure pg52 on kick
sm57 on snare and both toms
mxl studio design 993s for overheads (cheap knockoff condensors)
pg52 on bass gtr cab


processing was pretty much shitloads of gating on the drums to get the transients with a lot of overheads mixed in for the room sound. the snare i used was a 14x6.5 knockoff worldmax black panther-a-like tuned insanely low. only compressor i really used was the bombfactory with all buttons pushed in on snare, with a 4 setting on the kick and 8 on the oh's. reverbs were after the bombfactorys in the chain, with a little bit of smack at the end. used two parallel drum buses, one hard compressed and reverby, one dryer with a smiley face midrange scoop EQ. guitars are completely dry except for a lowpass and bit of smack tape compression on the bus. bass has next to nothing on it. mastered with TC electronic X5 from the powercore firewire.

thanks! any tips on getting vocals to sit right? the academy is... is a perfect example of what i want it to sound like actually so anything would be helpful.
 
As you can see in my footer, I'm looking for this kinda stuff to practice mixing. Even though I like your mix, mind if I (and anyone else interested here) has a try?
 
solphilcox said:
yeah man for sure, give me a few days and i'll rip all the plugins off the sessions and bundle it up for you. watch this space!
Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks! :kickass:

Oh, and when you do post the links, you may want to click on the post topic in my footer as well, as I know there are people there interested in mixing this kind of stuff subscribed to that thread as well. You may get more hits putting it in both places.
 
analgrinder333 said:
Need more work on vocals for really shine imho...
Click to expand...


my thoughts exactly, i just can't seem to get clean vocals to ever sit in a mix. i tried smashing them, not smashing them, eq notching... everything.

any suggestions of how i can get that clear but not dominant 'straight down the middle' sound on my vocal tracks? i'm thinking something like the vocal mixing on this:



doesn't sound like there is even any reverb or stereo field on the vocals, it's just so crisp and clear.

signal chain ideas?? i have the pro tools complete production toolkit with several decent comps.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
aye thankyou sir! we had a lot of fun with the gang part, just us 3 guys and some extra friends, with one mic out in the hallway tracked four times.

the snare took a lot of work, the room we recorded in (concrete garage) just sounded like total shit, and the drum itself isn't the best out there. the snare track on it's own sounds horrendous, but i just trial-and-error'd it until it sounded good in the mix with the OHs. not using samples was a massive learning curve for me, it really helped me tune my own perception of what actually sounds good/bad (the most important skill for any engineer IMO).

but i am literally begging somebody for some vocal mixing tips though, I just really haven't got a clue about what makes a vocal sound good in a mix and what qualities it should have, let alone what to do with compression and EQ etc.

is it a standard tactic to bus everything but the vocal to one bus, and insert an EQ and take a scoop out of the upper midrange, then send all vocals to one bus and boost the EQ that has been cut from the main bus? i'm failing so hard at this right now.
 
Well I'm sure if you get around to posting the wav's there are some of us that would be glad to offer up some mixes for practice. I'm sure there are some people here that are good with mixing pop'ish vocals. I'm a newbie so I can't promise anything... but there's gotta be someone here that knows what their doing. :lol:
 
yeah, by all means, post up the bundled files. i'm willing to bet i could help out on vocals. i'd say that your vocals do have a similar "up front" vibe to the sample you posted, but those ones had a little more high-end, a little less mid-range
 
it sounds good though... definitely an all time low vibe going on. one more thing that stuck out was the kick could use some more attack
 
am making note of all these tips, appreciate it.

i'm out of town for a few days but will get wavs asap.

just to clarify, are yall wanting a track of just the instrument mix, and then one of all the vocals consolidated? there are like 10 different vocal tracks on each song, individuals might be a bit of a mission.
 
I don't know about everyone else, but for me, it might be good to have a track of all the instruments separately and a few of the vocal tracks consolidated and separated. That way I can get some practice balancing the instruments and raising or lowering items here or there to fit with the vocals better spacially. if that makes sense at all. I just want practice mixing a whole project like this so all of the instruments separated would be nice, and maybe one vocal track? idk. Just my 2 cents. But whatever you do it'll be fun to mess around with for sure. Thanks!
 
dude ! this is realy realy good stuff here :)
the mix sounds great ! couldnt know the drums arent sampled ! good job :D

the guitars sound great , what did you used ?

besides that , the songs itself realy awesome ! cant stop listen to WHO I WAS BEFORE :)
 
hah thanks man! wicked cool props :)

we used telecasters on everything, mainly just a home-made custom partscaster (mexican neck, warmoth body, duncan vintage stack pickups) and an original 1972 thinline tele. We also used a PRS DGT for some thicker rhythm parts (like on 'where you want me')

amps were mainly all a 1994 matchless DC-30, usually pushed with an original 1982 tubescreamer or an analogman king of tone overdrive pedal. some clean parts and lead parts were a 1966 fender bandmaster (one i picked up in oregon, best bandmaster I ever heard). as i said in the OP, we used an orange rockerverb for some stuff too, mainly for the thicker tracks with the PRS.

drums were an acrylic 3 piece SJC custom kit, with assorted craigslist bargain cymbals. (AA, AAX, zildjian A custom etc)

oh and guys who want to have a go at mixing - should be getting the files today.
 
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