Please, tear this apart! Rock mix

[Jordon]

This is a "final" mix of the rock song I posted a week or so ago. These guys are young, the singer being the oldest at 19 and the drummer the youngest at 15 (that kid is a machine, too bad this song doesn't show it off.



I already feel the vocals and shaker (haha yea, egg shaker!) are a bit hot in the mix, and due to my shitty master, it may be lacking some low end. These kids are on a tight budget after doing 7 songs with me, so I'm mastering the EP for them. I may just end up paying to get it mastered professionally.

I think the core of the mix is there, but a lot of you are much more experienced than I. This is my first project in several months, so I'd appreciate all the criticism and tips I can get. I'm particularly proud of the drums, besides the kick, I steered away from samples/augmentation as much as possible in this mix. The snare does have one sample on it for some extra crack.

I'm pretty concerned with the sibilance of the vocals, but I think I may be over-analyzing that aspect a bit.

Anywho, enough ranting!

 

[Sly]

Sounds really good to me, love the ghost note/hihat thing and the room. Sometimes the OHs sound a bit strange (china parts especially), maybe they suffer of overcomp or too much brightening. Other than that it sounds quite vibey.

 

[barricade]

It sounds very good. Too much Autotune imo ... The whole mix/master could be a little more bright/more upper midrange. Yeah...and the china is kinda weird...
Otherwise good work!

 

[Jordon]

I think the problem, especially with hihat, china and right crash, is that the cymbals were all cheap ZBT's. Couldn't get a hold of a good set quick enough to track with, and couldn't ask a 15 year old kid to go spend several hundred bucks on cymbals when he just blew his piggy bank on the recording.

Compromise, the mother of mediocre results.

Anyway, I had to do some frequency chopping on them and ended up doing a slight 1 db kick with a shelf at 8khz, I might reverse that and bring it down a db or two.

Glad to hear you say it could be a bit brighter/have more upper mid, I was afraid it was too bright.

Thanks guys! Keep em comin'!

 

[Kita]

I would automate the sss's. They are poking a little.

Good work on the snare. All the little ghosts and rolls sound great.

Ug. Just got to the solo. That ride cymbal needs... something. It's very distracting.

 

[Jordon]

I would automate the sss's. They are poking a little.

Good work on the snare. All the little ghosts and rolls sound great.

Ug. Just got to the solo. That ride cymbal needs... something. It's very distracting.

Something special, or does it just need some automation?

 

[Kita]

I think it needs to be turned down, or eq'd to not sound more dominant than the guitar solo.


Also, get those automation chops ready for those sss's.

 

[Jordon]

Right on, man. Pretty much along the lines of what I was already thinking.

How are the guitars/bass/drums?

 

[Kita]

Everything else sounds fine to me/is a matter of taste. Overall it sounds good.

The vox COULD be turned down some. But at the same time I can also see them being this loud.

Also if you wanted to get really picky, the kick at 1:48 sounds pretty lifeless.