Hi,

I have been a viewer of this forum for quite a while now and it looks like the people here always know what they are doing and talking about so I was wondering if I could have some help?

Me and my band have just recently finished recording and album and are now in the mixing stage of it. The album was recorded all by ourselves DIY style with no outside help. This goes the same for the mixing.
However, with the mixing we are trying our best but struggling to get it to sound great. We feel it isn't the standard we want (we are aware that you can only get it so good without studios, professionals etc).

The reason I am posting is to ask for feedback on the current mixes from anyone with experience in mixing. Any feedback is welcome. Be as brutally honest as you like as we want to try and get it the best we can possible get.

Linked below are 3 tracks that I would love feedback:

https://soundcloud.com/jmehwrd/sets/demo-mixes/s-5l1H6

We are a 3 piece Punk Rock/Ska Punk band so if you have experience in that area then even better, however anyone is welcome!

I am open to any questions.

Thank you so much for any help.
I really do appreciate it!


P.S. Apologies if I have posted this in the wrong section. I tried to make sure there was no self promotion at all by not mentioning the band name, track names or anything.

I can't listen to your music right now but hopefully I will soon. However I will share this. My mixes have improved by signing up to The Recording Revolution blog : http://therecordingrevolution.com/blog/

Download the free book, read the posted blogs and subscribe to Graham's blogs as they are very interesting and educational.

Note that I am no way connected to him or his blogs. I am just passing on info that has helped my mixes.

Ps - compression and EQ are your friends when it comes to mixing. However each song is different so there is no magic formula that will cover every song.

I listened to a few segments of each song. Mostly 1 & 2 on the cans. I'll assume that track 3 was similar.

Overall, for a do it yourself effort the mixes are pretty decent.

In Mix #1 the snare really stood out to me as brighter than I would have mixed it. Of course, I'm not listening to this on my studio speakers either, it's on some cheap computer speakers.... tiny things.

Switched to lappy and headphones that I trust. Mix one is thin. There's no punch in the kick drum. It sounds like a thud rather than a punchy kick should sound. That could be overlooked if there was a fuller bottom end coming from the bass guitar. There's no bass in this. Sounds like a guitar and a drum kit. I assume the bass is playing some sort of lead. Rather than the bass player trying to be a lead player, have them lay down a solid foundation ......fat and full on the bottom.

As a 3 piece band, each instrument needs to be heard, and heard clearly. All 3 need to be contributing to the fullness of sound as a unit. The drummer should be laying a solid beat, the bass needs to build on that and the guitar should be topping it off. To me (this is my opinion)... the bass is the part lacking because it sounds like the bass player wants to be a lead guitarist. Without a full bottom in the music, it tends to wear thin on listeners rather quickly because they perceive the music to be out of balance.

I played for several years in a 3 piece country band. We played venues that "only hired bands with four or more musicians" on stage. We were able to do that because we had such a full, tight, sound. Our drummer and bass player were a tight cohesive rhythm unit. As the guitarist, I didn't play a lot of leads and the stuff I did play tended to be a lot of two note things. I'm not saying you have to follow this formula to the letter, but you do need to look at it and then adapt it to YOUR unique band situation.

Being an artist/mix engineer who loves country, I'm thinking the vox should be more upfront or louder so the listener can hear the lyrics although I'm also aware that certain genre's of music mix the vox back further in the music like this one is mixed. HOWEVER... on the headphones, I could hear the vox much more clearly.

Overall, the mix sounded fairly dry.... no reverb. That might be the sound you're going for but using a bit of verb in the master buss will "take the edge off" the music and help it to blend together a bit better.

Since you say you have already finished recording this..... I'll assume that you're not going to go back and record new bass tracks..... so....
OPTION 1 is to EQ the bass to fill the void. But be careful when you do this. There might not be enough actual lower notes to fill it and using EQ to attempt that will screw it up big time by making it boomy and muddy. Since it is a studio project....
OPTION 2 would be.... the bass player could record another "low notes" track to give it a more substantial bottom and still leave the running bass track in there. (studio magic)

I'd also be curious to know the particulars of the "studio" you did use..... software, mics, drums, number of total tracks, etc....

I hope you find this helpful

Thanks so much for replying. I did find a lot of what you said very helpful and also agree with a lot it.

I agree about the snare and that it is too bright. It needs a bit more body and depth. It is also properly a bit loud in the mix too.

I think the bass drum in Demo Mix 2 sounds a lot more punchy with more attack then Mix 1. Would this be a better sound to aim for with mix 1?

The bass is playing bass parts but I think it is just too quite in the mix. It is getting drowned about the drums and guitar.
Would making the bass louder improve it or would we need to bring out the bottom ends in the bass tone? or maybe a bit of both?

About the mix sounding dry, where would you recommend reverb be added?

We have finished recording but as we recorded it all ourselves with mics we bought, we are fortunate enough to be able to re-record it. We were thinking about re-recording the bass but now that you recommend it, it is defiantly something we will do.

The 'studio' we used was pretty much just our bedrooms. The drums were recorded at a practise studio with 4 mics (1 bass, 1 snare and 2 overheads). The guitar, bass and vocals was all done in one of our rooms with the mics up against the amps. This was the same with the vocals.
It also being mixed on Cubase. Once we have finished with the mixes we plan on sending it to get mastered by a professional.

Thank you so much again for the feedback. It was a big help! I really appreciate it. Thanks

Getting the snare right is essential. But don't obsess over it.



Turning up or EQing more bass is probably not a good idea. you mentioned that you'll likely record it again.... do that and pay attention to the bottom end... be sure it's there to start with. the notes played make a huge difference.



I know of Cubase but I'm not familiar with it. I know it's good stuff. So....If the software supports adding busses or having a visible master buss, I like to have a low level plate reverb there with about a 15% wet/dry reverb level. Just enough to blend without sounding like you're in a big room. If that makes the entire thing too wet, you can always add the verb in the track....start with the vocal track in that case. Low is better..... you can always turn it up. My rule of thumb in a mix is to turn it to where you can hear it then back it off to where you can't. That's a starting point. Adjust to taste from there.


This should help on the bass if it's done right. The bass player can still be creative and unique while holding down the bottom end and working cohesively with the drummer. Listen to some Bootsie Collins with P-Funk. BC is an amazing player and still holds down the funk.



That works.... glad you found it useful and that I confirmed a few things you were already thinking.

The snare on mix one, almost no 'pop' to the snare. If you want to get more pop in there, try a parametric EQ where you boost lightly between 800 and 1200 Hz. The crack of the snare could be tamed a little bit at the same time, that's going to be perhaps 1800-2500 Hz. Gently pull that down.

I agree about the bottom end missing. I pulled up Mighty Mighty Bosstones' "Let's Face It" album as a reference and the bass guitar in there has way more bottom end. That's the CD I have that is closest to the punk/ska thing you have in the 2nd track.

You might be mixing in an environment where the room acoustics are making you mix your bass kind of light.

Get a decent set of headphones and try mixing the bass guitar and kick drum while hitting reference recordings of your fave punk bands. Match the levels by ear.

On the kick, to give it more punch, again get out a parametric EQ, and try boosting 2k-3kHz, by ear. Play around with the bandwidth and amount of boost.

But again, as Herb pointed out, the whole bottom end is really light - evident on the bass guitar, lower rack toms, kick drum. Maybe don't touch the snare until you fix that bottom end - it might all of a sudden smooth out the mix so that the crack of the snare no longer seems to stick out.

Nice job with the double tracking and panning on the electric guitars throughout.

-Scott

Detailed comments above are all good. There is excellent advice and feedback.

I listened and wondered if the person who did most of the mixing was the drummer. The drums sit too high above the rest of the band (this has been mentioned).

Sometimes when mixing, a musician focuses too much on the instrument that they play, and doesn't spend enough attention to the other instruments (this can include vocals).

Try soloing each track and make a comparison on levels. Then just listen to two tracks at a time, to see if they are working well together. Is there balance between them?

In this case, I think you'll find the kit is too up front. See if you can EQ the kit and pull it back a bit and then see where the mix is heading.

Song #1 need more punch in the kick, most likely in the 90hz, and a cut in the snare drum as it sound like there is a unwanted frequency in the drum. The vocals could be re-recorded in a treated room.

Song #2, same thing.

Song# 3 ???

Thanks for all the feedback. A lot of great stuff has been said that I really appreciate and found useful.

We are going to apply a lot of it too the tracks.

Thanks again!