original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

[Twisteramps]

www.mothrastewart.com/audio/krkmix1.wma

This is my first mix with the new monitors - I put together some drum tracks, and slammed together a little original thing. There are some clams here and there, I'm more worried about how it sounds overall vs the performances. I'm NOT a bass player! I figured it might be a good idea to start goofing around with these monitors and mixing/etc while I wait for my recorder to get here.

Comments? If there's something you don't like about the mix, let me know - and if you know a way to fix it or make it better, please, enlighten me. It sounded decent burned to a CD and in my car/wife's car/downstairs on our DVD player into a Kenwood 5.1 system, but I've been listening too much tonight to really be objective.

Pete

[Newc]

Re: original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

Sounds great through my Behringers [img]/images/graemlins/drool2.gif[/img]

Love the panning of the clean guitars (acoustic in there?)

Only thing I'd change is to bring tha drums up a number, but that's a personla preference of mine - YMMV.

I A/B'd it with the Altecs off, and that bass is killer through the Altecs - nice and round like Stu Hamm on Surfing [img]/images/graemlins/headbang.gif[/img]

[Twisteramps]

Re: original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

Sweet man, thanks. Yeah, clean guitars are acoustics - I put all the guitars and bass through my pod XT and limited the HELL out of the bass. Also pulled the bass down a little bit at 500hz to get rid of some mud and added some 4k to give more string noise.

Listening to it now that my ears aren't fried from messing with the monitors all day, I think the lead could come down a bit and drums could be a little more louder/more powerful. The bass seems to have more punch than the drums.

Pete

[petedz]

Re: original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

I'm listening through a mid-range Panasonic home theater system. I like the sound/balance of everything in the mix except for the lead guitar. To my ears, it doesn't blend. It sounds like there's a decent recording playing on the stereo with somebody wailing away on a combo amp in the corner of the room.

Turning the lead down, like you said, would be a start. I think playing with some EQ might help as well. I don't have the knowledge of a mix engineer, so I'd just fiddle with an EQ plugin...something like Elemental Audio's Eqium...until I was happy. [img]/images/graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

[Twisteramps]

Re: original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

Thanks for listening. Yeah, it's a little dry - that's part of the problem with it not blending as much. I did that entire track in about an hour including splicing the drums together, mixing/etc... I rushed it. We'll see how a little more polish works tonight [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Pete

[sully]

Re: original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

[ QUOTE ]
Listening to it now that my ears aren't fried from messing with the monitors all day, I think the lead could come down a bit and drums could be a little more louder/more powerful. The bass seems to have more punch than the drums.


[/ QUOTE ]

yep.

to my ears, the guitar's tone didn't fit the song as it's recorded at the moment, but the mix will have a lot to do with that as well.

sully

[charvelguy]

Re: original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

"To my ears, it doesn't blend. It sounds like there's a decent recording playing on the stereo with somebody wailing away on a combo amp in the corner of the room."

It struck me like that at times also. I like the intro.. kinda EJ like, the clean sounded nice. The drums and bass sounded just fine. I think they're pretty distinct and clear.
I agree, the lead balance in the mix seems a little hot.
Sounds predominantly panned right to my ears.

Is that a regular wah? I find I tend to lean on the wah a little to much sometimes. Maybe try to record a track or two broken up into segments mixing straight guitar phrasing vs wah tone all the way thru and experiment with that. It sounds very 'jamming' to me also...maybe a little recognizable lead melody to break up the instrumentation into another section?

[Twisteramps]

Re: original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

Thanks for listening. The 'jamming' aspect was because the entire thing was an improv - I did the drums first, then did the drum breaks between parts. Came back, did one guitar as a guide for overall chord progression, then total improvs on each guitar part. Cut the lead guitars twice - once that was flipped for the intro, once for the rest of it. Everything else was a first take. Except for the bass - I tried three bass lines and kept the second.

It was more "I want to lay something down really fast and play mix engineer on this" than "I want a musical statement" [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I think I may structurize the lead guitars tonight and see if I can get some better sounds. Hate to say it, but I'm enjoying tweaking the mix almost as much as playing guitar right now. I'm sure after fixing mistakes with my band's upcoming demos I'll be cured of that soon, however.

Pete

[Newc]

Re: original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

Yeah, once you get into "serious" mixing, you'll hate it, but you'll love it even more at the same time, because you'll learn all kinds of neat and useful stuff [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[txcharvel]

Re: original tune - first mix w/KRK RP5s

Pete, sounds great to me. I think the bass sounds killer, I will have remember the EQ thing you did to get that sound. What are you playing the bass through. I usually just use my POD with the tube pre-amp setting.

What are you using for drums, I'm getting really tired of programming my SR-16? I like the idea of loops but I haven't found any I'm sold on yet as far as the variety available. Plus, I don't want to spend the big bucks cause I'm pretty cheap [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]