Just completed mix of this today

eviltimeban

Recorded and mixed over the last few days, pretty quick turnaround, had the track well thought out beforehand so knew what was going down.

I Will Be Dead Tomorrow

I wouldn't mind hearing your opinions as there's a lot going on here, I've added some nice strings, organs and pianos etc, as well as some really heavy guitar. I wanted to make it a three step contrast between the quiet verses, the loud 1st chorus part, then the really loud second chorus part. I think I've achieved that.

Vocally I've contrasted between double tracked sections, single vocals, and ADT vocals.

Also layered it with some nice effects, treated guitar, backwards effects, etc. Middle section is probably my favourite when it all breaks down and the strings come in.

End section is supposed to be pretty manic, so hopefully I've captured the intensity that it should have.

Let me know what you think!

vinylbomb

First things first, sterling effort, really impressive.
Obviously any criticism here is totally personal preference, I don't have the golden ears of a mix down engineer (sadly!!)

The verses are really nice, very clean and nicely placed. Its little bit hot, you could lose a db or two to give the chorus more impact.

In the chorus the snare and tom hit on the drum get too muddy for my liking, and lost up in the back of the mix. This is personal preference but I feel the chorus could be tuned a little more, like using an EQ to roll off everything not present, and also to better isolate separation between the kick and bass.


Feel free to tell me to f*ck myself though

Glassheart

It sounds really great.
I think the sound of the vox on the verses is a bit brittle though.But i know what your going for...

How did you record it?Did you use Amplitube or anything like that for the guitars? Some of it reminds me of early Pumpkins.

eviltimeban

Thanks for the comments.

Vinylbomb, do you mean the verses could be turned down a notch overall, leaving the chorus at the same level? Also by EQ tuning do you mean the music is actually out of tune, or is this terminology I'm not really familiar with? I'm not really up on what I can do, post mix, with the EQ. I don't have any mastering software. Hmmm. Anyway, thanks for the comments, BTW I'd never tell anyone to f**k off having invited them to comment! :-)

Glassheart, I recorded using a pretty basic set up for the guitars, SM57 on a Line 6 amp; no pedals, just the inbuilt distortion on the amp. Didn't use any further inputs or anything, compressed it a bit in Cubase but didn't EQ it. Played using a cheap old Fender Strat copy, gave me the dirty sound I was looking for. Appreciate the Pumpkins comment, I had them in mind during the solos and quiet bits! Also, in reference to the brittle vocals, do you mean in the softer verses? It is a pretty unaffected vocal alright, its very dry with no reverb. I wonder has that added to the brittle-ness?

kfoltman

eviltimeban wrote: »

Let me know what you think!

Brilliant piece, in my opinion. A bit of Phil Spector-ish feel in the chorus.

My only criticism would be that the vocal in some choruses is really drowned by guitars and drums - but that might as well be a deliberate effect.

kfoltman

Also, is it just me or is the chorus mastered so hot that there is a bit of "hard clipping" distortion in some places?

eviltimeban

kfoltman wrote: »

Also, is it just me or is the chorus mastered so hot that there is a bit of "hard clipping" distortion in some places?

It could be the case alright. I don't have any decent mastering software, so I kept the mixdown quite low and just used a wave editor to bring the overall volume up. So in that instance the clipping would exist alright. It would be interesting to get it mastered properly I think.

I do happen to like vocals mixed low, especially for rock / hard rock music as I think it adds to the excitement, but not at the expense of the track. I was slightly limited by having the (lower) verse vocal on the same track as the (higher) chorus vocal (in fact it was the same take) so I couldn't do much variation with it, hence the double tracking. I ended up using all 32 tracks so couldn't do much more without bouncing down or losing some stereo tracks which I didn't want to do. But the other part of me loves it from a Pixies / Steve Albini production point of view! Thanks for the comments. Really makes it worthwhile to get some positive feedback.

This track is one of a four track EP so I will post links to the other tracks; this song is the most ambitious production-wise however.

empirix

Id give feedback but your probably dead!

BumbleB

Cool Track,


3 things come to mind - 1 ) .death of a disco dancer-the smiths,soundgarden and psychedelic era beatles.

henessjon

great track but im not qualified to comment on the mix,

thx for sharing...



be proud of it

eviltimeban

BumbleB wrote: »

death of a disco dancer-the smiths

Wow, I'd never heard that song before, looked it up, and... its eerily similar, isn't it? Well I suppose its just the bassline more than anything else.

Guess great minds think alike!

BumbleB

Absolutely Dude ,you know what Noel gallagher said in guitar world ,if someone says it sounds like the the beatles you know it has to be fcuking good .:) BTW Andy Rourke of the smiths is one of the most underrated bass players ever .

vinylbomb

eviltimeban wrote: »

Vinylbomb, do you mean the verses could be turned down a notch overall, leaving the chorus at the same level? Also by EQ tuning do you mean the music is actually out of tune, or is this terminology I'm not really familiar with? I'm not really up on what I can do, post mix, with the EQ. I don't have any mastering software. Hmmm. Anyway, thanks for the comments, BTW I'd never tell anyone to f**k off having invited them to comment! :-)

Yeah,on reflection I think the whole thing could come down a db or two, that may clean up some of the muddiness that I was complaining of in the chorus.

Sorry about not being clear when I said tune with EQ. What I mean is use EQ plugins on each individual channel to isolate and enhance the frequencies you wish to be heard, and use the plugin to mute out the artifacts that you don't want heard.
This is a pretty good article to get going with about the black art of EQ

http://tweakheadz.com/EQ_and_the_Limits_of_Audio.html

vinylbomb

eviltimeban wrote: »

It could be the case alright. I don't have any decent mastering software, so I kept the mixdown quite low and just used a wave editor to bring the overall volume up. So in that instance the clipping would exist alright. It would be interesting to get it mastered properly I think.

What have you used to sequence it, and mix it down?

eviltimeban

I recorded the whole thing in Cubase, then just exported it all to a Wav file which I then edited, trimmed and adjusted the volume in a normal wave editor. Then converted it to an mp3. Pretty basic really. Would probably sound better if it went through all sorts of compressors and mastering software but I don't really have access to any of them.

trackmixstudio

Pretty good.
Sounds like Dear Prudence with a Stone Temple Pilots chorus.
I would pull a bit 1-2K on the clean guitars to make them smoother.
I would also pull the vox a bit in the verse and push it a bit in the chorus.
It is very low mid heavy overall.
If you pull a bit of 200-400 htz on the master you will get a lot more level without clipping.

eviltimeban

trackmixstudio wrote: »

Pretty good.
Sounds like Dear Prudence with a Stone Temple Pilots chorus.
I would pull a bit 1-2K on the clean guitars to make them smoother.
I would also pull the vox a bit in the verse and push it a bit in the chorus.
It is very low mid heavy overall.
If you pull a bit of 200-400 htz on the master you will get a lot more level without clipping.

I wish I knew what all that meant... or how to do it!

eviltimeban

Hey guys, the rest of the EP songs are here:

http://www.robertcrosbie.net/desperate.html