My first recording with no programming

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Hi!
I just finished mixing a song we recently recorded. It's the first mix where I used absolutely no virtual instruments, programmed drums etc. Download here:

http://www.syliin.com/musiikki/Syli - Poltin.mp3

The lyrics are in Finnish, hope you don't mind. I'd like to hear some feedback from you guys, since I haven't got much experience with recording drums and vocals.

Here are some points I can recognize myself:
- The playing is sloppy as hell. We didn't use a click (why, oh why?) and the guitars were recorded at the end of the day, when we were already tired as hell and in a terrible hurry.
- The vocals aren't too great either. They were recorded only for reference, since our singer/bassist was supposed to record them later with proper equipment but that went to shit.
- The overall mix has probably some pretty basic, bad glitches, since I had to do the mix without proper monitors. Only cheap hifi-speakers and a pair of worn-out phones.
- The guitars didn't turn out very well. The recorded sound was pretty muddy, and we didn't have time to quad track the rhythm parts.

So, anything else that should be pointed out? And if you have any questions, I'd be pleased to answer Cheers!

 

[LSD-Studio]

...

Here are some points I can recognize myself:
- The playing is sloppy as hell. We didn't use a click (why, oh why?) and the guitars were recorded at the end of the day, when we were already tired as hell and in a terrible hurry.
- The vocals aren't too great either. They were recorded only for reference, since our singer/bassist was supposed to record them later with proper equipment but that went to shit.
- The overall mix has probably some pretty basic, bad glitches, since I had to do the mix without proper monitors. Only cheap hifi-speakers and a pair of worn-out phones.
- The guitars didn't turn out very well. The recorded sound was pretty muddy, and we didn't have time to quad track the rhythm parts.

So, anything else that should be pointed out? And if you have any questions, I'd be pleased to answer Cheers!

you haven't left that much
some personal preferences from my side:
I like loud drums and would make kick and snare more prominent in the mix.
you could tame some of the low mids in the guitars to gain back some clarity and make some space for bass guitar, that way you could reduce bassguitar at around 90hz and leave some room for the kick down there...boost bass lower instead...
put some brilliance into the clean guitars (like 2.5 and 8kHz or so...just try) and make it more interesting (chorus?)
nothing big, just some slight adjustments to give the instruments their space and place in the mix.
I don't think the mix is bad...actually it's pretty good for a first mix !
just some cleaning and slight level-changes and you're there.


I didn't listen to it over a proper system though, just once thru cheap headphones, so i might be a bit off

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

you haven't left that much
some personal preferences from my side:
I like loud drums and would make kick and snare more prominent in the mix.
you could tame some of the low mids in the guitars to gain back some clarity and make some space for bass guitar, that way you could reduce bassguitar at around 90hz and leave some room for the kick down there...boost bad lower instead...
put some brilliance into the clean guitars (like 2.5 and 8kHz or so...just try) and make it more interesting (chorus?)
nothing big, just some slight adjustments to give the instruments their space and place in the mix.
I don't think the mix is bad...actually it's pretty good for a first mix !
just some cleaning and slight level-changes and you're there.


I didn't listen to it over a proper system though, just once thru cheap headphones, so i might be a bit off

Thanks a lot, mate! I'll definately have a look at those. And yeah, the drums are indeed too weak. I think I screwed them up when running the mix through a mastering comp, so that too still needs quite a bit of work.

 

[deathtotaliban]

the guitar tone sounds really weird at the beginning. it has like a scratchy tone. try was LSD said with the low mids on the guitars, compression or eq. the drums are bad maybe lower the OH's and up the snare and kick, or maybe leave the overheads but still get that kick and snare louder. the vocals seem to fade in and out volume wise, either ride the fader or compress it to flow better. overall its not that bad, i'm sure u can work it out

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

the guitar tone sounds really weird at the beginning. it has like a scratchy tone. try was LSD said with the low mids on the guitars, compression or eq. the drums are bad maybe lower the OH's and up the snare and kick, or maybe leave the overheads but still get that kick and snare louder. the vocals seem to fade in and out volume wise, either ride the fader or compress it to flow better. overall its not that bad, i'm sure u can work it out

Thanks for the advice! The guitars have C4's with Andy's preset on them, and by trying different comps and tweaking I couldn't get them to sound any better :/ Gotta to try equalizating more, though. As for the vocals, I know. As I stated, it was a quick reference recording on their part, so they were really hard to work with. They were recorded with a SM58 and we just kept the first takes, since we didn't mean to use them in the final mix. Have to try manually tuning the volume envelope, thanks for the pointer!

EDIT: And oh yeah, you're absolutely right on the drums. I'm a big fan of loud kicks and snares as well, and like I mentioned, I fucked them up with the master compressoring. Originally they were louder, guess my ears were too tired already so I didn't notice it at first

 

[Black neon bob]

the guitar tone sounds really weird at the beginning. it has like a scratchy tone. try was LSD said with the low mids on the guitars, compression or eq. the drums are bad maybe lower the OH's and up the snare and kick, or maybe leave the overheads but still get that kick and snare louder. the vocals seem to fade in and out volume wise, either ride the fader or compress it to flow better. overall its not that bad, i'm sure u can work it out

I agree, allthough i think the guitars really are cool sounding imho... they are totally different then the norm, but it sounds cool to me..

yeah, compress those vocals a bit... they sound like they have some weird verb on them as well, could be the room they were recorded in as well, but they do sound a bit weird every now and then...

otherwise, cool song dude... i like japanese vocals!

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I agree, allthough i think the guitars really are cool sounding imho... they are totally different then the norm, but it sounds cool to me..

yeah, compress those vocals a bit... they sound like they have some weird verb on them as well, could be the room they were recorded in as well, but they do sound a bit weird every now and then...

otherwise, cool song dude... i like japanese vocals!

Thanks! Yeah, the verbish effect is the room the vocals were recorded in :/ I'm really disappointed that we had to settle with the scrap vocals, but our singer is having a baby with his wife any day now so I think he can be excused just this once

Japanese vocals