Pop? Not used to it so please comment

[stchris]

Hey fellow sneapsters,

so I wrote and recorded a song that is not my normal genre, but that's what girls can do to you.

I was hoping you could give me some advice on the mixing and anything else that screams amateur really

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1516136/was it a mistake demo (old).mp3

Thanks in advance.

-Chris

edit: updated version
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1516136/was it a mistake demo.mp3

PS: Please excuse the singing. It is still a demo and I was just recorded what came to my mind, so please excuse off notes etc. BUT do tell me about them.

 

[ahjteam]

- that fret noise on the acoustic guitar is annoying
- the part where the electric guitars come in should make the song louder, not quieter. Also make the guitars a bit more in your face
- put vocals a hair louder
- the strings have something that makes the whole mix really blurry, try to remove that quality
- bass could be a bit compressed and louder, can't hear it most of the time

 

[Toxic Grind Machine]

Great voice!

Mixwise, this could use a bit more.. "shine" on the tracks

Like the acoustics, try a nice reverb on that and some subtle compression.
Same goes for your vocal tracks, needs a bit more of that to get it to pop standards.

 

[stchris]

Wow those were fast and very helpful and precise replies. I'll work on that and see if I can't fix the things you mentioned. On my speakers the bass was almost too much. Guess I'll have to adjust my sub (or treat my room )

The strings were a last minute addition. They definitely need some refinement.

Keep the comments coming. Very helpful
I'll post an updated version soon

 

[ahjteam]

Wow those were fast and very helpful and precise replies. I'll work on that and see if I can't fix the things you mentioned. On my speakers the bass was almost too much. Guess I'll have to adjust my sub (or treat my room )

The strings were a last minute addition. They definitely need some refinement.

Keep the comments coming. Very helpful
I'll post an updated version soon

I also like my bass relatively loud in this kind of music I sent you a PM, the example I sent you isn't best possible as some of the kick hits are distorting, but it's just a guide line how I would like the track personally.

 

[stchris]

Great voice!

Thanks !!

Mixwise, this could use a bit more.. "shine" on the tracks

Like the acoustics, try a nice reverb on that and some subtle compression.
Same goes for your vocal tracks, needs a bit more of that to get it to pop standards.

Yeah that pop shine I never really had to deal with until now. Is it just the extra reverb and compression or maybe the highs or something else?

 

[Mm1066]

In most pop I think the shine comes from boosting some 10K. If the vocals have this slight boost on them, you're fooled into thinking that the rest of the mix has the same brightness. I always used to think that most pop had a bit of a scooped sound as well. Just something to bear in mind. You could call it perceived brightness.

 

[stchris]

I also like my bass relatively loud in this kind of music I sent you a PM, the example I sent you isn't best possible as some of the kick hits are distorting, but it's just a guide line how I would like the track personally.

Very cool, thank you. It is quite a lot louder that in my mix so I definitely have to check that area out. Also I realized I didn't do quite enough eq on that bass.
I'm working on it right now. I'll keep you posted on the updates.

 

[stchris]

In most pop I think the shine comes from boosting some 10K. If the vocals have this slight boost on them, you're fooled into thinking that the rest of the mix has the same brightness. I always used to think that most pop had a bit of a scooped sound as well. Just something to bear in mind. You could call it perceived brightness.

Interesting. I'll give that a try for sure. I gave the vocals some 2k ish boost for presence but "perceived brightness" sounds too awesome not to try
Thanks

 

[stchris]

Ok so here is an updated version. I hope I incorporated your ideas well. I'm sure there's some other issues now though. So i'll have a listen to it on my ipod. I've kept the old version for reference if people ever have similar issues.

Here it is:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1516136/was it a mistake demo.mp3

EDIT: Oh wow.. i think I really put wayyyy too much bass in there this time. I'll replace this version, because that is just atrocious.

 

[Mm1066]

Interesting. I'll give that a try for sure. I gave the vocals some 2k ish boost for presence but "perceived brightness" sounds too awesome not to try
Thanks

Haha, it's a similar thing to perceived loudness. If I mix vocals I always treat them the same as acoustic guitars as I think that they are similar instruments.

This is something I refer to with acoustic guitars but I think it can still be applied to vocals:

"The 150-300 Hz range can be used to beef-up the tone of the guitar but as mentioned, it's easy to get muddy again so only boost frequencies in this area if it clearly improves the sound.

The 300-600 Hz range can be boosted if you have a thin sounding guitar.

The 600-800 Hz range is your meaty mid-range sound. Cut this if necessary to give better tone and better distinguish from other instruments.

Jumping to the 1-3.5 kHz range, these frequencies can push the guitar to the front of the sound mix and effect note definition. Boost these frequencies when looking at fingerpicking-style guitar and guitar riffs.

The 3.5 kHz to 12 kHz range is all about the sparkle. This range adds brilliance and can make the guitar jump out. This range can be further broken down into 3.5-5, 5-8, and 8-12 kHz. Start at the 3.5 to 5 kHz range for adding that sparkle to the acoustic guitar. If you want more, jump to the next range and boost a little there."

 

[stchris]

Thanks for all the posts so far. I really had to get more highs in the mix (along with many other tweaks) and so I did.
Check out the updated version and tell me what you think. I'll keep working on it but I need to study ;-)

 

[stchris]

- that fret noise on the acoustic guitar is annoying

Hey I was just listening to the mix again and I think I might have misunderstood what you said. I though you actually meant the "fret" noise as in when the strings hit the fret but when I listen to the mix again now what really annoys me is the sliding noise between chords. Is that what you meant? Any idea how to get rid of it? Narrow eq cut, rerecord with different strings (even though they are already elixir strings.)

Thanks

-Chris

 

[Scott Horner]

Hey I was just listening to the mix again and I think I might have misunderstood what you said. I though you actually meant the "fret" noise as in when the strings hit the fret but when I listen to the mix again now what really annoys me is the sliding noise between chords. Is that what you meant? Any idea how to get rid of it? Narrow eq cut, rerecord with different strings (even though they are already elixir strings.)

Thanks

-Chris

Fast Fret. It's a godsend.

 

[stchris]

Fast Fret. It's a godsend.

Cool, until now I had not heard of this.

I will try a deesser on the frequencies first though, before I go through all the rerecording again. I know fix the source but I have exams coming up.

EDIT: Also for anybody else reading this. Volume envelopes would work but since I didn't loop the track I don't want to do it for the whole song on every chord change. But this probably sounds most natural.

EDIT2: Ok so deesser didn't work. The slides cover too many frequencies. I guess I'll have to edit manually or rerecord.

 

[stchris]

updated with manual editing string noise reduced.

HAHA.. editing error.. hold on

Ok fixed

 

[metalmonster34]

Nice tune but I do agree that the electric guitars need to sound louder when they come in. They sound drowned out

 

[stchris]

I know I feel the urge to make them louder too but I thought I had to resist since we are talking pop here.. but oh well I give in.
Version updated.

EDIT: Ok to anybody wondering why it still sounded kinda shitty, I made a stupid mistake by putting my stereo verb on a mono track. Also Sonar decided to switch the phase on some tracks. I fixed all that and updated the version (again )

Thanks to everybody who's commented. There were some things I just wasn't listening for and you've helped a lot.
Anybody who wants to critic my new mix is more than welcome. Though I can still hear what I need to change or in fact that I should rerecord to get it from demo level to semi-professional. At the moment I just don't want to reedit anymore. My computer is soooo slow with all those plugins running and even when I freeze tracks in sonar there is still stuttering. I think I need an SSD and my UAD back before I attempt another mix .D

-Chris