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Share Your Music (it probably sucks but that’s not why we do it)


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Posted

A new tune I'm finishing the mix on about a night spent driving through the Arizona desert and thinking way too much.  Any mix feedback appreciated, especially the outro that gets pretty busy.

 

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Posted

I dig it.  That electric guitar part is awesome, it conveys the desert in the same way that a lot of Arizona bands have managed to do, must be something in the (lack of) water (Sidewinders, QOTSA, etc.).  As far as the mix goes, I feel like the synth and ganged 'verbed vocals are a little high in the chorus, fighting with the lead vocal.  I don't mind the outro mix at all.

I need to take some guitar lessons.

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  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
16 minutes ago, G650 said:

Hell yeah man, I'm glad you got this one out for general consumption. I really dig this one a lot.

Thanks, still just a private track as I finalize the mix, but I'll be pushing it out to all the things eventually.  I appreciate the ears.

15 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I dig it.  That electric guitar part is awesome, it conveys the desert in the same way that a lot of Arizona bands have managed to do, must be something in the (lack of) water (Sidewinders, QOTSA, etc.).  As far as the mix goes, I feel like the synth and ganged 'verbed vocals are a little high in the chorus, fighting with the lead vocal.  I don't mind the outro mix at all.

I need to take some guitar lessons.

Thanks, appreciate the feedback.  In my mind, I had David Lynch "Lost Highway" as the vibe/mood I was aiming for with the composition and instrumentation.  Desert, isolation, surreality, mental discord, etc...  I'll look at dialing back some of the things you call out in the chorus a little.  I've been most worried trying to get the outro to work with all the things that are going on there competing for frequency space.  Glad to hear from both of you that that is in a good spot.

Btw, It has occurred to me that a hot bridge P90 would have been the perfect sound for the outro solo.

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Posted
8 minutes ago, Goredho said:

I've been most worried trying to get the outro to work with all the things that are going on there competing for frequency space. 

My perspective is that the items competing are actually what makes it. I'm terrible with metaphor but it's like when they fade a movie out and the screen starts to go all distorted? I'm definitely not describing it well, but that sort of the thoughts racing through your mind all turning into a jumble.

I thought of another GnR song that does that I really like too, Breakdown, along with Coma as I mentioned. Way different style than this, but that sort of effect.

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Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, G650 said:

My perspective is that the items competing are actually what makes it. I'm terrible with metaphor but it's like when they fade a movie out and the screen starts to go all distorted? I'm definitely not describing it well, but that sort of the thoughts racing through your mind all turning into a jumble.

I thought of another GnR song that does that I really like too, Breakdown, along with Coma as I mentioned. Way different style than this, but that sort of effect.

Thanks, yeah, I think it works as an editorial choice for effect/evocation like you describe, but my initial mixes, it all sounded like crunchy mush.  In the end, I just really narrowed the eq band for the vocals and the solo has a somewhat wider band in the same area, but I notched it significantly where the vocals are present.  So the solo kind of brackets the vocals frequency wise with the sum of them being a whole lot of mids/upper mids.  A sorta unintentional side effect of the narrow EQ band on the outro vox is that it kinda sounds like an AM radio, which I think leans into the vibe of the song.  The outro vox and guitar solo are panned left & right a bit, too, so they aren't right on top of each other.  Another tricky part of the outro was the bass line, which starts down low around D1 and winds up at G3.  So it is spanning some frequency lanes for the other instrumentation.  I have it EQed more like a guitar and bring in some synth bass to hold the low end down as the bass line starts getting away from the lower register around where the vocal riffing comes in.

Edited by Goredho
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Posted
3 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Thanks, yeah, I think it works as an editorial choice for effect/evocation like you describe, but my initial mixes, it all sounded like crunchy mush.  In the end, I just really narrowed the eq band for the vocals and the solo has a somewhat wider band in the same area, but I notched it significantly where the vocals are present.  So the solo kind of brackets the vocals frequency wise with the sum of them being a whole lot of mids/upper mids.  A sorta unintentional side effect of the narrow EQ band on the outro vox is that it kinda sounds like an AM radio, which I think leans into the vibe of the song.  The outro vox and guitar solo are panned left & right a bit, too, so they aren't right on top of each other.  Another tricky part of the outro was the bass line, which starts down low around D1 and winds up at G3.  So it is spanning some frequency lanes for the other instrumentation.  I have it EQed more like a guitar and bring in some synth bass to hold the low end down as the bass line starts getting away from the lower register around where the vocal riffing comes in.

Yeah they key is going to be getting it to be intelligible on crap speakers. With nice monitors you can pick all of that out, with a cell speaker not so much

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Posted
Just now, G650 said:

Yeah they key is going to be getting it to be intelligible on crap speakers. With nice monitors you can pick all of that out, with a cell speaker not so much

Yeah, it actually sounds pretty good now on shitty speakers.  One of the things I've come to rely on for mixing in my much less than ideal monitoring space is a plugin that makes your headphones have a response like a professional studio monitoring room.  https://www.waves.com/plugins/cla-nx

I've found that helps an awful lot when paired with a decent set of supported headphones.  Its got 3 sets of monitors modeled from CLA's studio, one of which is just a shitty boombox.  Its really nice to change between 3 sets of monitors in the software and cover lots of listening scenarios.  I'm not tweaking a mix, bouncing it down, then listening it on my laptop speakers, phone speaker, car speakers, etc...  I mean, I still do that, but once I get it good using all the monitors in this plugin, I find it pretty much sounds good on all the other listening scenarios, too.  There's much less iterating needed.

Posted
Just now, jimmyjazz said:

I assumed the "telephone" vibe of the final vocals was the intent!

Nope, just a happy side effect of getting it to all work together.  Better to be lucky than good, etc... etc...

Posted
15 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Yeah, it actually sounds pretty good now on shitty speakers.  One of the things I've come to rely on for mixing in my much less than ideal monitoring space is a plugin that makes your headphones have a response like a professional studio monitoring room.  https://www.waves.com/plugins/cla-nx

I've found that helps an awful lot when paired with a decent set of supported headphones.  Its got 3 sets of monitors modeled from CLA's studio, one of which is just a shitty boombox.  Its really nice to change between 3 sets of monitors in the software and cover lots of listening scenarios.  I'm not tweaking a mix, bouncing it down, then listening it on my laptop speakers, phone speaker, car speakers, etc...  I mean, I still do that, but once I get it good using all the monitors in this plugin, I find it pretty much sounds good on all the other listening scenarios, too.  There's much less iterating needed.

Yeah i use the Abbey Rd Studio 3 plugin for that myself. 

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