Rock / Pop Punk-ish Band (my first recording of a band I'm not in)

[KKuff]

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1704185/The Way It Is.wav

This is a friend's band, and my first paid recording. Guitars were Ibanez ART100 through 6505+ recorded with a 57 (dual tracked during verse, quad during chorus and everything else), the clean (breaking up) guitar part was recorded through a fender hotrod deville 4x10 combo, bass was Fender Jaguar direct in, drums were programmed with EZ drummer for OH and room mics, and various snare, kick, and toms samples I found on this forum. Vocals were done with a Beta 58, surprisingly it sounded better on his voice than my AT3035 did when we did a test recording.

I'm pretty happy with it overall, but I still think it sounds a little muddy/cluttered.

Tell me what you guys think it needs improvement on. Thanks

 

[KKuff]

Does anyone have any suggestions or opinions on this mix?

 

[Morgan C]

Convert to mp3 and you'll get a lot more responses.

Kick is too metal/clicky, its too 'hard', try and get a softer/squisher sounding one. Surprisingly, the right compression can make it sound squishier. Snare is also too metal, too high-pitched, too compressed. Guitars are kinda undergained in bits, I think I don't like his technique (plastic palmmutes ftl) but that's not something you can do anything about now. Vocals need some serious tuning.

 

[KKuff]

Thanks for the reply, I will upload an mp3 version after I get home from work. As far as the kick and snare, do you think the ratio is too high on the compressors or maybe the threshold is too low? The band liked the raw samples that I picked, but maybe I just over compressed and over EQ'd them. I may try some different samples too. Unfortunately I can't do anything about the gain level on the guitars, since I don't have DI tracks. I used autocorrect in melodyne on the vocal tracks already. I don't have any prior experience tuning vocals, is there anything else you would suggest other than just using melodyne's autocorrect? Other than these things, would you say the mix is well balanced? Is there anything that sounds like it's fighting for space?

 

[KKuff]

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1704185/The%20Way%20It%20Is.mp3

Here is the same mix as an mp3.