Help me in the right direction!

[Super Seven]

First I would like to explain my situation. I am musician/home hobbiest studio. I don't have a huge budget and all I have is the Mbox, a Rode NT1a, C1000 and some plugins. I am doing an album for myself. Not to 'make it big' just a goal that I have always wanted to achieve. My own CD. Also, I don't have a drum kit or the resources to record a kit, so I am using samples and going from there. I haven't started working on vox yet, that will come later. Right now I would like so good constructive tips on how my mix is sounding. I, at the moment, and very happy with it, but am always looking for tips to improve it. The music is style is hard rock. I am going for a fairly in your face mix. This is the first track I am working on and I just got the Mbox a little over a week ago. Any comments are welcome. I also don't have access to any high-end monitors. I am using a realy cheap set of headphones, my home stereo and truck stereo for references and frequency analyzer. So far, it is sounding good on these systems, but I may be missing something.

Thank you
~SS

Here is the link:
http://www.thereal7.com/vip/sample5.html


PS.... I deleted my post in tips n tricks as no one seems to post there.

[IntelDoc]

Seven,
Nice Zakk Wylde sound for sure. Is that mic'd? If so good job. I will listen more at my studio when I get off work. I hear some over driven parts, and the drums can be brought up a lot. Good job though from what my small computer speakers are kickin out!

You may want to post this in the top HEAR IT NOW POST and you will get more replies!

More later!

- Doc

[Bazzle]

good guitar sound,kick sounds good,snare and cymbals aren't really there yet and the bass is a little muddy..A decent effort though, it will come. on second listen, you might want to drop that guitar back a bit and bring up the rest of the track.Toms sound real good.

[Super Seven]

Thanks! I really appreciate it. I will play around with guitar levels and drums levels this weeknd. Since I am using samples. I am going run the drums out to my home stereo, crank it up and mic the room and see what results that will give me. The guitars are simple mic thru my Rode and straight into the Mbox. I took the time to set up the amp sound and mic placement. It realy improved the sound over my earlier attempts with just putting the mic in front and hitting record.

Any suggestiong on how I could (un)muddy the bass?

Thanks
~SS

[gpgarner]

Nice work on the Guitars. Couple of suggestions. (1) With as fat as the guitars are, you may have lots of overlaping frequencies with the bass...you may want to toy around a little with the bass sound i.e playing the part with a pick..a heavy dose of compression or limiting to make sure it stays where you want it in the mix. (2) some low end and compression on the snare would make it pop more. (3) this is important...I wouldn't spend too much time getting the mix perfect without the vocals. As a matter of fact, since you know your guitar sounds are good, I would finish the lead vocal, get a vocal/drum/bass mix, then blend the guitars back in to an appropriate level. The majority of people who will hear the finished product will be listening to the vocal first and the feel/sound of the track second. If you wait until the end of the mix to add your vocals you will inevitably sacrifice something in order to fit it in. good luck...sounds good so far...hope this helps

[Super Seven]

Thanks for the advice. I agree on the snare. I want it to hit a bit harder. As for the vox. This is the tought part for me ...I am doing all this and I am only writing this stuff now as I go along. I actully don't have ready made songs. This is why I call this my 'project'. I am having a lot of fun though learning new techniques. I did try laying down some vocals just to see how it lays over top of all this and it did sound pretty good. So I am not too worried bout it, but am not taking anything for granted. I do have some comp on the bass but will turn the nobs some more and see where it gets me. My real goal is, once I got a really solid sound/mix going, I can then push forward and start writing and recording like a mad man, but I don't want to get to the end of all the writing a recording and realize, "oh crap, I need to re-record all the tracks". I am really happy with the overall sound but I know it needs help here and there. just didn't know where to look. Some suggested the micing of the drums through my stereo, I am hoping it will open up the mix a bit, at least on the drum's side.

[Super Seven]

OK....I did some room tracks for my sampled drums and think it made a world of difference. I beefed up the snare a tad and brought the level on the guitars down a touch. I think it is coming along good.

www.thereal7.com/vip/sample5128new.mp3

[superpenguin79]

Hey Seven,

I am not sure how far you are into the project or what type of gear you are working with other than the MBox, but I actually have the MBox for my home studio also and am dabling in a few albums also. I've worked with music a lot before, but the recording deal was a new learning experience when I started out several months ago now. A few suggestions for the bass are to use a good EQ on it first and try a Bass Boost between 80 and 150 hz., to make a passive bass sound
active, scoop around 350 hz., Boost 800 hz. for clarity or
punch, and the slappin' poppin' thing is around 2.5 k.

You might want to try doing a pan on your guitars to full right and left if you have them doubled up or anything also. Leave the bass panned right up the center at 0 where it and the drums like to reside most of the time. A cool link that I found while surfing with EQ info that really helped me was: http://www.songstuff.com/Reference/EQ/Frequencies.htm It has all the frequencies that you'll need to bring out a decent mix no matter what style you are working with. If you don't have a good EQ plugin on your system yet, you might want to install T-Racks which comes with the MBox anyhow.

Another thing that helped me greatly when I started out is that a friend at the other studio I am working with at the moment reccomended a book called "Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools" that has become a very valuable read. The book is by David Franz and you can get it at like a Borders or local book store I believe. It explains everything from setup of the studio, to computer preperation, to pre-production, producing, recording, micing techniques, mixing, etc..etc..

Well, goodluck with the project and keep us posted. peace

Well, keep up the good work man. peace

[Super Seven]

Thanks superpenguin79 for the link...some very good info there. I will definately go through the suggestiong the next time I am at my PT station.

[MaKoRancid]

Super seven i like the recordings i think they sound good! You might want to consider the 'drumkit from hell' for more real sounding snares. What program are you using to arrange the drum section?