Community Input on My Song?

[EthanC]

Hey guys, how do you like these whole "Hey, listen to my shit and tell me it's better than it is" posts? Well I found this site and really liked the idea of getting real input from people who know metal, so here's my first contribution:

Always and Never June 11th by ashes4136 on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

What I'd like to accomplish is get peoples reactions on a few points in the song, more specifically which they think sounds better the ride bell approach at 1:40 as opposed to the open highhat, and also if they have any ideas about how to tie the part at 2:34 to the followup chorus. It's perhaps it's "good enough" already but if there is any input to be had i'd much rather give that a shot before i call it good enough and move on.

Much appreciated!

 

[regimentaL]

Sounds good man, I have to say though I didn't like the intro very much haha. There's also some horrible dissonance at 2:42 and 2:56. Not sure if that was intentional but it doesn't fit, really.
The clean tones could use some work... try to make them more soundscapey. Add lots of retarded effects like reverbs and chorus and some delay. They sound small as is.
At 3:41 try to make a better transition, the bass line sounds silly the way you have it now, but with a better transition it can work. Maybe hold out the last chord for a 2 measures and then have the bassline come in.

The positive stuff: overall, the mix sounds pretty huge to me, which is good, and the writing is pretty solid. Keep up with it!

 

[EthanC]

Dissonance: Think so? Yeah it's intenional, I guess the thought was kinda like half of the guitar slumped down the scale but I can see where it might sound like run of the mill crap lol

The transition: You're confirming what I already kinda thought. I just can't think of a way of tying the two together any better. Originally it followed he same transposition of the rest of the song but when i accidentally played it up once i realized just how massive and awesome it sounded with those specific chords and ive been trying to make the two work together ever since. You're right, maybe i'll try stretching it out just a bit and see what happens...

 

[Korbain]

Sounds sick dude. Great mix, great tone. The kick could use a bit more bass i think, but that's me, if it sounds good to you that's all that matters

Loved the clean intro, then how you brought it in with with distortion to the rythm. Would have been sick to use just clean melody again for the verse or something after that chunky intro

That's me though lol Great work dude, keep it up. Top song

 

[EthanC]

http://soundcloud.com/ashes4136/alwaysandneverjune16

Many thanks for your praise and suggestions! I ended up getting on one of those kicks of inspiration and didn't want to let go, and so before i knew it the song was way longer than it was last week lol. But I really like the stuff that got added and things changed. I think it ties in better now with the new parts; Still not perfect but an improvement at least I think. Would love to hear what you think!

 

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

Critical mode: ON

General

-Vibrato and bends are performed without "attitude" and accuracy of pitch throughout (particularly around 3:00 somewhere, you'll know!).
-Harmony guitars are buried in the panning and EQ, especially repeating harmony(1:10 - 1:20).
-Snare is very dry (no reverb) especially during clean sections.
-Pause transition =
-Mix translates poorly to non-subwoofer playback (sounds great with sub! )
-Arrangement is erratic, although that may be a stylistic choice. Possibly could be tweaked to give listeners a sense of the musical direction; clean / metal / pause / chorus / metal /clean =

Questions

What strings do you use? Are they really tough to bend? Maybe try a lighter gauge so you can bend them more easily improving vibrato aggressiveness and pitch accuracy.

What bass did you use? It sounds like Jamaican dub to me, no bad thing, especially the 16ths over slow tempo cleans. Just curious about that. If it's a real bass there's no mids, you might like to use those to reinforce the guitar and remove some bass from the guitars. If it's computer and your hiding it, fine as is. Dub is awesome for testing subwoofers, it's a bass playing sound and stlye; heavy bass, no mids or treble with an unusually aggressive rhythmic emphasis, which is why your track reminds me of it.

Overall

Enjoyed!!! . Good sounds, interesting arrangement. Real shame about the vibrato and pitch accuracy of the bends though. Really comes to life with a subwoofer , but much disappears without. I look forward to your next version and more great music!

On ... "Blowing smoke" in teh recording section
If you think we're too gentle on mixes over here, put your balls in a vice and post up on gearslutz... Too much 4.8khz or a dated reverb preset and... *Boom!!!*...down comes the banhammer!

 

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

^^^ My critique was of VERSION 1. ^^^

New version covers some of the things I spotted. Still, the string bending is not in tune, especially during the "chorus" 1:50 and repeat at 2:40.

Whole new outro at 3:10. Could've ended at 3:40. Cleans and final section at 4:30 are worth keeping though.

Keep up the good work!

General
-Drum mix;
Overheads (cymbals, toms, hats) are absorbed by the overpowerful kick and snare. Restoring their balance with the rest of the kit would be a nice improvement.

Kick and snare could be reinforced with multiple samples to improve the power and timbre (run your drum programme in solo'd mode, multiple passes with different snares and kick samples loaded and blend/combine).

Ambience, be it from room mic's or reverb could be increased and faded up during the clean sections giving a larger spatial dimension.

@Regimental - On the delicate process of subtle clean guitar sounds...

"...Add lots of retarded effects like reverbs and chorus and some delay."

Dat tr0oth!

 

[EthanC]

String Bending:
If you're talking about the low Ab "bending" up one half cent on the 3/, 6/, and then the 1/ yeah that's completely intentional. I mean, I'm not sure how attunement comes into play considering it's simply meant to be a flare kind of thing just meant to sound aggressive. Does it sound bad?

Harmony Guitars Buried:
This is intentional. As with several other layers, I really only want them "in your periphery" so to speak. The focus should be on the "main guitar" (left and right panned accordingly)

Subwoofer Stuff:
I honestly can't find a single audio setup around (PC, Car, Stereo) that doesn't have a subwoofer to test this on. I can understand what you mean though; My motto doing this has always been "maximum separation" with only the bass guitar and kick for low end and the sub not "pulling the weight" of any other instruments and getting muddy. Wouldn't the only way to change this be to raise both the kick and bass guitar (frequency-wise) up into the mids? I'm leary about such an idea but willing to be open minded.

Drum Mix:
Tried this quite a bit but the end result is always the same; At mastering (because a lot of additional volume goes into it) high frequency sounds always come out being too "in your face" so I back off them to voice the overall message which is "kick and guitar size and definition".

I don't know what you mean by switching my drum program to solo mode but I'm interested in learning more about layering kicks and so on like you mentioned if I can get pointed in the right direction. I use Superior Drummer 2.1 with Metal Foundry if that helps.

Reverb:
I know nothing about reverb lol. Terms like "diffusion" and "dispersion" and so on mean nothing to me. I've messed with it a lot but failed every single attempt to accomplish anything that doesn't sound fake, thin and artificial. I did add some reverb to just the snare and then a second layer to the entire mix in the most resent mixdown below, tell me if it's sufficient or if you have any recommendations on what kind of settings I should be looking at for both the snare and the whole mix?

Guitars and strings:
The guitar used is an ESP MH417 with an active 81-7 bridge and 707 neck P/U. I have extremely heavy strings on it ending with a .70 for the low Ab. The bass I used was an ESP LTD F5-E which I also love to death. It's heavy and tight. The bass runs through the BOD plugin but I also occasionally use a VST bass (meaning fake) for ultra clean parts like the clean guitar parts at the very beginning and also the clean bit just before the final breakdown of the song.

Snare:
I will never, ever be satisfied with the snare I can already tell that because my favorite snare of all time is that from a song by Dark Tranquility called "The Mundane and The Magic". That fat "PAH!" sorty of "slappy" sound what I've always wanted but I just can't figure it out.

------WITH REVERB------
Ethan Casner - Always and Never June 16th - 2 by ashes4136 on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[EthanC]

Due to a lot of good recommendations I'm pleased to provide the following link; A "Final" version of this song:

Ethan Casner - Always and Never June 18 by ashes4136 on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
^^^^There she is motherfuckers!^^^^
Now with "retarded spacial effects" and "shitloads of awesome reverb"!

Thanks again to all who provided input!

 

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

Cool, I'm glad some of the things I pointed out where useful to you.

String bending and vibrato

On a forum for musicians, unlike civilian forums, anything out of tune hurts the listener. Musicians feel pain when they hear out of tune things. So, of course, we hear it as out of tune rather than anything else. Call it bias and make of it what you will.

I think you'd do better to bend in tune, it would sound cooler. With heavy strings it might be more difficult, but I think it's worth it.

Subwoofer playback

Some have them, some don't. Modern mixing has to take into account the differences in playback quality of iPhone ear buds, massive in car entertainment systems and full club spec DJ sets.

Your 1st and 2nd mixes sounded really good with a sub, but with the sub removed a lot of the material was missing. Considering playback on inexpensive speakers is always important, especially as many browse for music on laptops with speakers the size of a coin.

You can achieve better playback on poor systems by using the low mids (140-280hz and even higher) for your low end instruments which their speakers can playback.

Layering with Drum Samplers

Step 1 Programme your midi

-playback and check for accuracy, the parts are achievable by a human and good variety of cymbal hits
-include a variety of velocities/note volumes for dynamics, which created the pulse, drive and energy. Drummers strive for good dynamics and playing technique so respect them with your programming.
-Everything 127, Mwahahhahahhaha =
-^How can you compress it if it's all compressed already

Step 2 Render

-Place a limiter set to prevent clipping on your master buss before your render, Solo your drum software and remove all other plug ins (unless you have something special in mind) from the drum to master chain to create DRY rendered samples of your drums for editing later

-Open the "Mixer" section of your drum software and click "solo" on each track, creating a new track on your hard drive for each option offered in the mixer. Some software has a multi out to speed this process up.

-Once you have each track available in the mixer rendered to a seperate track, proceed through the kit selection choices in your software selecting DIFFERENT kit pieces for snare and kick. By choosing kit pieces that sound very different blending of multiple pieces will make up for their individual flaws and create a larger sound.

Step 3 Submixing the rendered output
-Submix the kit DRY without reverb from room mic's in your software. Be sure to capture a full mix reverb, kick reverb and snare reverb from the "Room" track in your samplers "Mixer".

-Whilst listening to the DRY submix of your kit, which represents the close microphones in a traditional drum recording session with a human person playing drums ( ), gradually blend in the complete kit "room" reverb until you have a large sounding kit, without it sounding distant or delayed. Next the same for the snare room reverb, then consider not using the kick reverb at all as it can be a nuisance in double kick pedal styles.

-I normally use 3 snares and 3 kicks, I find it to be enough but you could use more if you like.

-Make sure to label and colour code your drum tracks, especially the reverbs so you can find them easily. A good trick is to automate the reverb tracks to increase during sparse sections where there might only be drums and delicate guitar, like in the clean sections of your song.

-The whole point to this is your drum software has well recorded samples, so multiples blended have better dynamics than using single hit samples AND the room reverb alogorithm for the drum sampler will produce better results than placing a reverb plugin on the drum buss. You can place a reverb on AS WELL in emergencies, after all.

-Place your favourite compressor and limiter on the drum buss and set them up to best suit the drums role in your music. If you've submixed the drums well that should be all you need. It's possible you might like to use HP/LP filters to shape the drums more. You won't need to EQ anything on the Buss, after all you can just raise the volumes of the individual kit pieces to create the sound your after. HP/LP filtering the multiple kick and snares might be beneficial to prevent them taking up too much space.

-Drum smashing is a compression technique, which can be applied to a full bounce of the sampler's output and blended in gently with the submixed multi channel drums. Really smash the "£%$" out of this one and blend it for a parrellel compression sound. The Room reverb track is also a good subject for this kind of treatment. Don't forget you can process each individual channel,too.

-It only takes 20 minutes to set something like this up and it improves your sampled drums vastly.

Reverb

In general, if you Don't want to sound like Pink Floyd, reverb is evil. It makes everything sound like crap. But... it servers a wonderful purpose in creating spatial dimension in your mix. Think of it like this (I guess everyone already knows this); Dry guitars - sounds really up front, right? but what if you had some other instrument that was stealing the guitars space? Putting reverb on it "pushes it backwards" in the psychoacoustic soundscape you have created. This effect is more apparent with really good speakers. I was listening to a friends Adams A7's the other day, you could tell the size of the room the recording was made in very easily, even what colour the paint was just by listening... Well, not the pain but you get the idea.

Think of reverb as creating space and distance in your mixes, pushing some elements into the distance so others can exist in the foreground, closest to the listener.

You really don't need much reverb, it's easy to over do it. 10% wet is probably a general maximum, unless you're going for a special effect.

Tone hunting for the snare

My guess is lot's of bottom mic, *loads of room mic's and multiple snares blended (of course!!!)

*Room mic reverb probably smashed (compression), automated and slow noise gated to prevent spill and only appear during sparse sections where the drums carry the bulk of the sound.

I know what you mean though. You need a good (Adam West mode; On ) "KEERPOWW" (snare 1) "KEEERRAAAAAKKKK" (snare 2)and a good "PPPPPAAAAAHHHHHHHH" (snare 1 bottome mic) with a nice reverbed "CCCHHHHHAAAAAAAAA" (Snare 1 room mic's) from the room BLENDED for a good snare hit.

Best of luck!

 

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

Just checked out the new version:

Good job.

 

[M3talh3ad]

Yo dude awesome job. Nice transitions and riffs. When are you putting vox on it? Keep up the good work dude