Most boring recording EVER!!!!

[Prime]

Thanks!!!

Yeah I agree with that. I wish the snare could be snappier and would have some more depth. But when when I add more reverb or room it turns into poo.

Or it sounds too thin. Sometimes you just need to walk away...and that is what I am going to do for the moment. But since you have mentioned it... I have given it some thought and will try a couple things in the future.

That said, it will probably mess something else up in the mix....ugh.

I am sure alot of you know what I am talking about. Change one thing and it screws something else up. At that point I want to stab ice picks in my ears and jump off a cliff.

Thanks for listening and taking the time to comment....It is appreciated.

 

[Prime]

Here are a couple more of my short boring recordings....just for fun.

http://prime.aspserver.net/windy2.mp3

http://prime.aspserver.net/drive2.mp3

Basically loops...I just hit repeat on my mp3 player.

Most songs are just repetitive parts in my experience. I am not talented enough to be super creative....as these clips will prove. LOL!

 

[Prime]

Sorry, the links were down for a little bit. I am having problems with Verizon. My service keeps going down randomly.

If it goes out during the Super Bowl I am going to get violent. So if you read or see a story about a guy that goes postal because he lost his
Super Bowl coverage due to a Fios outage....that will be me.

Go Ravens!

Edit: Links are going to go down again for a few minutes or so. The Verizon dude just showed up and he is going to change out my connection at the pole and local hub. I told him if I lose service during the game that I was going to lose it.

Edit#2: Service is back up....hopefully for good.

Edit#3: Today's version..... http://prime.aspserver.net/goofoff6.mp3

 

[Larcher]

this sounds good dude! now make a song/mix with this clarity!

 

[Prime]

Thanks man. I will use this as a template for a song next.

Once again, I appreciate all the people that took the time to listen and comment. It was helpful and a lot of what was said reassured me of the things I was thinking as well.

But it is nice to hear those opinions from an outside source instead of chasing my tail forever.

Thanks Again!!!

 

[Prime]

Before I go on to make a song/mix...I need to get some vocals in the mix.

So here is a boring recording with vocals...

http://prime.aspserver.net/goofoffvocals.mp3

Keep in mind I am not a vocalist...heck I 'm not really much of an anything.

Anyway...




Edit: It is very short....the torture doesn't last long.

 

[Lax]

Thought the vocals seems too loud for me, everything sounds great !
It sounds like "and justice for all" album but recorded in a real studio lol good work !

 

[Prime]

Thought the vocals seems too loud for me, everything sounds great !
It sounds like "and justice for all" album but recorded in a real studio lol good work !

Thanks and I appreciate you checking it out. Also appreciate the feedback. Comparing my recording to anything commercial is a huge compliment.

As a result, I have lowered the vocals. I guess I was trying to cover up the boring chord progressions. That said, the vocals are equally as boring, so I guess it probably doesn't matter. This was never meant to be a great composition.

Since I was editing things. I adjusted the velocities on the kick drum as well. The constant 127 was driving me insane.

Thanks again, and if you get a chance tell me what you think about the changes.


http://prime.aspserver.net/goofoffvocals2.mp3


Edit: In case that is low enough...here is another version with even lower vocals for comparison.

http://prime.aspserver.net/goofoffvocals3.mp3


Edit#2: Here are some tweaks that no one will probably notice. Basically just tweaked the highpass on the dirt section of the bass guitar and some of the compression settings on the "vocals".

http://prime.aspserver.net/goofoffvocals4.mp3

 

[Prime]

Here is another one with a couple more little tweaks...

http://prime.aspserver.net/goofoffvocals5.mp3

And here is a picture of my mixer setup/settings...

At this point I think I am done with posting any further versions unless some can offer some suggestions as what to do to make things sound better other than selling my equipment on ebay and deleting all of these files.


Edit: I think I like #3 best. I am done with this sorry ass clip. I want to stab screwdrivers in my ears when I hear it.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Okay, can you give me some reference on what kind of mix you're chasing? Seems like your chains are good, but rather uncontrolled for modern rock or metal. I can give you some better pointers (than just say something in general, lol) if I just knew what you're after.

E: Vocals are, however, way too wet. Your reverb is so loud I can hear the first reflection, whereas for this type of music, I'd rather just have the reverb tail audible.

 

[Prime]

Well, I am not quite sure what I am after...maybe that is the problem?

Anyway, I took the massive amount of verb off the vocals.


http://prime.aspserver.net/goofoffvocals6.mp3


Any better?

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Well what bands do you like? Usually people like to be the same type as the guys that they admire... Also, 404, probably still uploading.

 

[Prime]

Fixed.... I misspelled the link. And thanks for trying to help.

 

[Prime]

As for bands I like there are so many. There are a lot of bands I used to like that I don't like anymore. I use to like linkin park, metallica, disturbed, joe satriani, slipknot. But I have enjoyed joe walsh, led zepplin, eric clapton, the beatles, depeche mode, duran duran, the fixx, the kinks, ratt, dokken, limp bizkit, devo, primus, queensryche, aerosmith, korn, prodigy, the eagles, beastie boyz, megadeth, the white stripes, iron maiden, no doubt, nine inch nails, van halen, pantera, staind, 3 days grace, god smack, rage against the machine, pink floyd, pappa roach, black sabbath, ozzy, staind, inxs, green day, prodigy, aerosmith, foreigner, rob zombie, system of a down, tesla, jim croce, tchaikovsky....

Plus a bunch of other stuff. I like a lot of the music that has cookie monster vocals...but usually don't care for the vocals.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

A lot better, the vocals seem too wide though. Try to have one channel of vocals in center and if you want doubling, either have another channel buried under it, or use double tracked, hard panned vocals, besides the one in the center (unless you're underlining something in the composition, and really want to have that big choir'ey feeling). Panning vocals should be used sparingly since it loses its shine pretty quickly.

 

[Prime]

Ok...I definitely need to double the vocal tracks to help cover up my lousy singing.

So you are saying I should have two tracks/separate takes of vocals hard pan them left and right 100%?

Or I should have one center then have the hard panned one's under that?

 

[Prime]

So I gave centering the vocals a shot. This should sound more centered....


http://prime.aspserver.net/goofoffvocals7.mp3

Thanks again, this is just the kinda feedback/help I needed. I think I knew that the stuff I did was not right and once you said it. I was like... he's right.
I used to have a plug in that would center the stereo image that I used on vocals in the past...but I can't find that one anymore.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

No you shouldn't. So there is only one track? Is there some stereo widening happening or am I just not listening carefully enough?

One track for vocals should do well just like two tracks for guitars are enough. It's the standard where you go experiment from, but doing so with care.

That's a long list of bands. A lot of stuff in there doesn't fall to the modern category so I think you're on the right track, less is more in your case. If you want more control to the sound, I suggest you use more limiter on your individual drum tracks. Also, compressor on snare and kick will give you less unexpected surprises, maybe on toms too. Use fast attack and fast release for drum compression, you just kind of want to tame the very top of it. If you want some warmth, maybe go for FET type compression on parallel. Slam that track and adjust the audibility of the compressor with send volume.

For room channel on drums: Low pass them from above 12khz. Tame some nasty mids, from 400hz and/or 700hz. High pass to 100hz, low boost and a super nasty, all-buttons-in type of compressor (in other words, ratio to max, a lot of threshold, slooooow release and fast attack). As it self it should sound like overcompressed shit (which it is), but when blended correctly, it should give your drums more boom (which yours lack to my taste at least), and add more texture to them. This way also, you might get rid of that stereo imager on the drum bus. Stereo imagers are handy stuff, but really tend to cause phasing problems and mono incompatibility. Also, since you have so much stuff on the drum bus, it might give the listener some headache on a longer run. Keep it simple!


E: Just listened to the new version, already sounding a lot clearer! Now on to the guitars: Your low-mids (the bulk of guitars) are untamed. In your case, if you don't want to use more distortion (which would compress the low end), try a multiband compressor on them. Set only one band active and set it centered @ around 180hz- It should cover everything from 90hz to 250hz or so. If you're unaware where the bulk for your guitar is sitting, open up an analyzer on the track and look for a bump, a hill-type-of area around 200hz. Ratio here can be rather harsh, still from 4 to 8. Set it so that the band acts when there's something unwanted low end action happening. Using multiband compression is beneficial if you don't want to fuck up the tone other than for the lower notes (it's a real burst of energy when you palm mute a low chord and you don't want that for the sake of your master bus limiter).

If you, however, feel like your tone could lose some low end (which in my preference would be so), first of all, give the guitar a high pass filter. You can set it rather high since you're having a lot of the fundamental tone in there. After that, go searching the bulk area with a medium Q, try to find a spot where you seem to lose the most of "junk" or "mud" and the least of the body. After that do the same for 300-500hz. 400hz area is rather notorious of its habit of creating mud to guitars.

I could go on for ever, but the next thing I would probably suggest you in terms of guitars would be rather long, so maybe we'll see where you get with this first.

 

[Prime]

No... there are two vocal tracks. Like I said my vocals sound like shit to me with only one take/track (not saying they don't even with two tracks) and I do have them panned. You can see it the pic above. Since then and per your advice I have tried to center the vocals more (goofoffvocals7).

Oh noes....not the drums. I probably could work on those until the end of time and still not get them right. I'm going to try removing the widening on the drums. I hope it doesn't mess up the OH's. I don't really like hearing a great amount of left to right differential on cymbals, etc.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

I don't really like hearing a great amount of left to right differential on cymbals, etc.

That's why you should try what I wrote about the room mic. In room mic, you have a lot less of the sense of panorama, but you still have the frequencies there. Also since you're low passing them, you're gonna end up with less l or r feeling (it's easier for human ear to distinguish where the sound is coming from, for higher frequencies). So basically you're gonna have this massive whooosh+boom+snare-type of texture, which really adds to the end result.

E: Think of it as an intelligent and transparent way of compressing your drums. You're gonna have really minimal amount of compression artifacts and have a natural end result, yet a lot bigger feeling and louder drums. The room mic is there to be heard, not to be buried under everything else that's ducking it.