Guys, lend me your ears...

[khabibissell]

I'm not playing on any of it, but my nephew's band Without a Trace have been recording their stuff at my house, and I've been screwing around with the mix of the first tune tonight. I would like some suggestions on the mix as its my first time at the controls... The song is a bit on the EMO side, but I would really appreciate it if you guys took the time to check it out and give me your input on what I can do to improve the sound of it. The kick and cymbals are really giving me a tough time. One guitar is my Soldano Avenger (Plays the main rhythm figure) and the other is my Dual Rectifier. both guitars are going through my Recto 4x12 and close miked at a 45 degree angle using a Shure SM57. All instruments were recorded using a Presonus Firestudio project into the Cubase 4LE. The song is called "In My Hands" and should be first on the list. Ignore the other two tunes up there They are demos of tunes I wrote a couple of years ago.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=593713

[Cygnus X1]

Best Song: In My hands. Very Radio friendly. Good hook.
Best Riff: Love Will Linger. Great sounding guitar riff.

[Cygnus X1]

OK, I actually read your post.
The mix sounds real good. The vocals are always the most difficult to mix, but it sounds like the vocal ability is good. The levels sound right to my ears. They are demo's, but apporach pro quality. I would call it "college radio staion airplay quality", which is not an easy feat.

[khabibissell]

Thanks for the reply! I haven't added any reverb, compression, etc... to it yet. I'm not sure if I'm going to at this point because their band has alot of power live and I wanted to try and capture that live feel when we record. The drums are a real challenge to get sounding good... miking them is an art and plays such a huge role in the sound.

The big problem is that I want it to sound pro and I know that using what I'm using isn't enough to get there... not even close.

Oh yeah... thanks for the props on Linger. I really like that riff too but I had to mellow out the rest of the song to appease the band. Female lead singers are not all their cracked up to be.

[scotty]

I think the songs sound great! The mix is good to, great job. I know my speaker are different than yours. The drums need to be bigger. They are almost sound hidden. Not sure how to do that but my sound guy I know uses compression and eqs to tune the drums. That is my $.02. I think they sound great. Keep up the good work.

[horns666]

Hey Steve, I know that lead in Damaged was you!!

My favorite ditty was "No Love will Linger" over course..

As far as the mix, not bad..you did a great job recording. I have to agree with Scotty the drums especially the snare sounded a little "dead" to me, I don't know if you could EQ or mix it any differently. My only other suggestion would be since the singer doesn't have a extremely powerful style, maybe he could add another vocal track to harmonize or at least double that one..if you could double the vocals and make them stronger ..that would be good.

The guitar tones are cool..imagine that!!

Good job,

Bill Z

[khabibissell]

Thanks guys. I'm kinda thinking "garbage in, garbage out" with the drum situation. The drummer that I'm playing with is the one who actually set up the mikes and levels for the drum tracks. I would've done it differently since no amount of EQing seems to help the situation. I am happy with the guitar tones for the most part, though I would make them turn the gain down a bit on both amps... I don't think you need much when recording because it muddies it up a bit. The Recto and Soldano seem to work well together in a mix. I'm also happy with the bass sound.

Thanks for the comments on the other tunes Bill. They are just live basement recordings when we were putting those songs together a couple of years ago. The lead on Damaged was a scratch improv track recorded with a PODXT after the fact. I was still working on ideas at that point. I'm pretty sure I used my Peavey Classic 50 boosted with a Bad Monkey through my Mesa 2x12, which was my practice rig at that time... Not the best guitar tone I think I used my Les Paul Standard on them. Linger doesn't have lead on it here, but I came up with a bunch of tasteless noodling later to throw over the middle section I quit the band shortly after, but I wish we would've recorded those tunes properly before I did.

[Bert]

Nice guitar tone & nice playing. I also like the song. Recording is in general lacking in fullness on pretty much all tracks, but especially the drums as has already been noted. Someone get too carried away with the EQ and dial out too many mids during mixdown? Is the recording mono? A wider stereo field would sound way better... simply separating out the guitars will make it feel much "bigger."

[khabibissell]

I've been working on the song and did exactly that... I panned the guitars to the R/L, panned the snare to the left a bit, the two overheads R/L and copied another vocal track and added reverb. It sounds much better now.

[Bert]

Awesome, let us hear the new version when you're happy with it.

[AdRock]

Sounds like a good mix. The singer sounds pretty strong, however he's singing a little flat.