New song, Feedback please!

[Jamison]

Hey guys,

This is a new song, I've been working on for my bands new album. No vocals yet, but I figured I'd try to get some feedback before continuing.

Thank you,
Jamison

Song 1 by jamisonplague on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

 

[aB_EXT]

Eyyyyyy,

In terms of arrangement I'd say you're fine. You've got defined sections and the song isn't hard to follow.

Since I don't know exactly what processing you've put everything through, I'm going to presume a few things. I apologise in advance if I'm presuming too much.

1) You're using a multi-out on your drums, separating your drum channels
2) You've not done much precise processing on your guitars or drums. Maybe a few presets, but not much tweaking.

Although you're yet to record vocals or bass(it doesn't seem very present if it is there?), and it's paramount to judge a mix in context at the end of the day, there are some things that stick out at this point. It sounds like a significant part of your low end is coming from your guitars. Although this can work with more experienced producers who know the right tools to lock down all the resonance (the uneven pulses that come from certain low notes), it's dangerous territory, as it makes the mix very groggy - very easily. High pass (a.k.a low cut) those guitars to let the bulk of the kick poke through. Start at around 100Hz and jog it back and forth until you find an area you're happy with. Ideally you want to judge this by how strong your bass tone is. If it's sounding good then let that element take hold of the low end groove, if not then leaving the high pass at around 90Hz will still give you a reasonably present low end thump, especially with low tunings (or > 6 string guitars). Slice some of the low mids out with parametric bands on your EQ (around 200-500Hz). Boost those ugly bastards to the sky and find out what areas are making your guitar sound muddy, then subtract some of those frequency areas. Remember to compensate with the output gain on the EQ when you do this, so that you can compare the EQ adjustments at the same perceived loudness. Overall, this processing should leave your drums some room to breathe.

It terms of drums, taking some of the low end off the guitars should let the lows on the kick cut through a bit, but you might want to consider bringing them out a bit more as your kick is very top heavy in the attack area. A good way to do this is to combine a low cut at around 30Hz with a low shelf boost at around 90-100Hz. Get a nice curve going on in there. Tonally, your snare sounds all right, it's just being swallowed by the mix. If the above guitar processing wasn't enough, then think about backing off on the compression a bit (and/or increasing the attack value to let more sound through) and raising the volume of the snare channel, as it sounds very squashed. Look at the tubby areas of the snare, specifically the 200-500Hz area. Suck out any areas that sound like they make the snare sound flabby and dead. Don't be too aggressive as you can easily loose the smack if you get the wrong area or suck out too much/too many areas.

Hope that wall of text helps you!