Vocals are just pure awesome. Is this the new mic?
Love all the effects on the vocals!!
Agree with the snare tone and pitch color not agreeing with the overall resonance of the song. Maybe try to play with the pitch of the snare or maybe pull it back a bit more.
Also is the vocal at 2:09 “my self esteem is ____ ?” saying what I think it is saying ? lol
1:12 background vocal improvisations needs more compression, probably everywhere they come in. The grace notes are surfacing out in a weird way.
Thank you for all the detailed comments! I will look into each of these in more in depth as I have time to get back to the mix. I think I need a little break from it to get a fresh perspective myself, but I’ll post an update in a few days.
“My self esteem is shit.” Yep! It’s also my wife’s favorite part! Haha.
It’s a bit of a mess. I typically will throw FX right on the track itself, but I had so many tracks of this project that I broke it up and used sends. But I felt like that limited me (out of laziness) to using a lot of the same effects on tracks where I usually would have customized them for each. I did struggle with a build up of reverb on all the layered vocals, even though I EQ’d it aggressively. I used a side-chained compression on the delay so that it would be very quiet whenever the vocal came in, so as not to clutter the track. Maybe I could try a similar thing with the reverb to tame it more. There is a pre-delay on the reverb, but a short one. I found dryer vocals in this song to sound really bad, which is why there’s so much reverb.
I think I had sort of a Tove Lo vibe in mind when I started working on this song. I really like her music. I wanted to use a reference track of hers while mixing but I just don’t have any mp3s. I used to have this site that worked well for a “youtube to mp3” type of thing, but it is gone now and I don’t trust any of the other ones so I’m kind of stuck! I guess I could buy it, haha never occurred to me because I always just stream stuff I want to listen to. I could also try getting it from the library…
It is the new mic! However it is a whole 'nother level of laziness when it came to the actual recording. I have a makeshift booth set up in the basement where I record my vocals, but this time I decided to just do it at my desk upstairs. It hurt the tone a bit because of the room sound, but was a lot more fun to do and took way less time. And I’m prioritizing fun lately.
Cool track! - really interesting production - great melodies…
The overall style is very Lana Del Ray-ish, particularly the ambient treatments and the rhythmic flow.
I’m just listening on cheap speakers at work, so I can’t tell a lot compared to what I pick up on my studio monitors. I’d like to have another listen when I get home - Nice work!
Ah. I figured that might have been it. There’s nothing wrong with putting the thing directly on a track if you’re sure it won’t compete with anything else down the road in the mix. If you have a high channel count I would get in the habit of importing your global busses and subgroup busses strait off the cuff as soon as you decide you’re done with the tracking phase.
A trick I use to make certain things sound verb heavy without using a lot of verb is to use feedback looping. That’s throwing delays on things then feeding the delay tails to verbs that are already instantiated. Helps clean up clutter.
Remember you can also use a lo-fi effect on verbs. This preserves the weight and density of a verb, but un-clutters space in the upper registers of the overall mix.
You have a wonderful voice. Your voice has a great range and you use that range for expression. You sing very emotionally connected to what you are singing. The accompaniment music is somewhat etheral, that’s quite nice.
It sounds like you are singing behind the drums, almost as if you’re hiding. Some of the other instruments seem too far forward also.
You have what I call a “real singers voice,” it’s beautiful. It seems too far behind the music.
Your voice is strong, you have outstanding range, your singing is expressive.
Please mix it so your standing center stage, way out front of your band.
Your voice reminds me of Paula Cole, she sang with Peter Gabriel and was incredible om the song, In Your Eyes, the version Secret World Live. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=evN6DIGPIJM
I like this and you can feel the potential when it is finalized. The snare drum for me is wrong, too loud, too much verb. There almost feels like a lack of percussion, like the set needs to be more pop or tech sounding, more cymbals or higher pitchy soundy thingys (HPSTs) I think throwing some processing on all the vocals, this song is a really good song, very well done over all.
Love it! I was thinking Elizabeth Frazier from the Cocteau Twins circa Bluebeard. Try this one maybe?
– or maybe this one? –
Maybe pull the drums back and soften them? I don’t think the ones you are using work very well with this song. And maybe add some more warmth back in your vocal… Beautiful song!
@Jonathan gave some fantastic tips on reverb on another thread which I was just trying to sort out before I came here. I think you could totally use it on this tune. Let’s see if I can find it…
Here it is:
Just had a listen on studio speakers - Sounding good to me… I’m conflicted about the snare - Sometimes an interesting obnoxious snare sound is better than a boring “perfect” one… a case in point:
Did the snare sound help it become a worldwide hit? Who knows?.. but it sure has “character”
I think you have the opportunity to go the “road less travelled” with a song like your track here. I think a song like this one might provide some sonic inspiration:
The drum sounds are definitely quite “soft” and “blown out” but still quite prominent in the mix.
One thing I would like to hear is some more low end in general and more punch from the kick drum. Tricky to bring out depending on your monitoring system/environment, but worth pursuing.
nice atmosphere and vocal stuff. About the arrangement itself, amazed by the the deepness and the transitions, drums are cool, ad lib is fun. The song is short, just perfectly sized. Cristina, you’re growing, more and more.
I just have to give you some advices about the production itself. This is my (personal) vision :
the snare is 3 db too loud, and needs to be more dirty for me, just have to put some distortion on it.
the kick needs help, maybe a huge parallel compression with a slow attack. (and just try a boost at 1,5khz, not sure of it) +1db too
the bass synth is nice but it is a a square waveform type modulation synth, smooth, ok but needing more bite. If you could double it with a triangle one, could be more in the mix. And maybe a resonant filter too, maybe should you try it
sometimes the lead vocal track is a bit lost (“weakness” word during the choruses for example or at 0:41…), you should maybe use the clip gain tool before the compression (making many slices with clip and adjust the gain of each piece of clip, or doing this automatically with a plugin like the waves vocal rider f.e, but i prefer manually)
-some hi boost >10k on the cymbs type track too.
-vocal eq is fine
-back vocals are just perfect
-maybe less at 1k on the reverb would be better, not sure
-generally the song needs more sub frequencies under 70 hz. You maybe cannot monitor it in you studio, if you earn a good pair of headphones you should check with it. (hope you don’t use an AKG…). Took a picture of an analyser with a peak hold that highlight the lack of low.
I just edited the original post with an updated track. Thanks again for all the suggestions. I know that most people didn’t like the snare, but even listening back with a critical ear I still liked it! I did turn down the volume a bit though, and made the vocals louder as well. I feel like it has a nice balance. Still not perfect, but this is the final mix for me and I’m ready to move onto the next song.
Nice improvement - The snare is sitting better now. There is more low end and punch in the mix too.
A couple of suggestions:
Darkening up the reverb by low passing it substantially would improve the clarity of the vocal. Clarity is not an issue here, but sometimes, if you want to keep the vocal lower in the mix for artistic reasons, darkening the reverb can help it maintain clarity at a lower level.
The bass synth is nice and loud now, but it’s uneven in volume. Since bass parts don’t generally need much in the way of dynamic range, both evening it’s volume in midi and with very assertive compression can help it to sit in the mix. Some eq might be in order too, as it is muddying up the 300hz range of the mix to my ear.
One production tactic that I think would work really well on this is the “lo-fi/band limited intro/verse transitioning into the big hi-fi chorus” thing. This can really add some contrast to a production.
I did a little playing around with the track to demonstrate what I mean - I added some really active percussion elements to the chorus to bring up the excitement level and move the song along. I think you already have some background percussion happening, but I think if you pushed it harder in the chorus section, it would add more movement and excitement, more light and shade. Something along these lines:
Well done! I like Andrew’s comment about the reverb - otherwise your vocal sounds spectacular. Wait, let me try that again: your vocal sounds spectacular and I think Andrew’s tip would just put it over the top!
Good idea on the chorus elements too. Another really good tune Cristina!
Wow! That is really great. You have a wonderful voice. The drums are good. Background well done. One more time, let your voice shine thru like that and you are golden.
Very well done.
C
Hi Great vibe. Don’t like the drums at all. Very distracting to me. I bet I am the only one who said this. ha ha
Your vocal and the message should be center stage. I hear a lot going on in here but your vox is smothered until like 2:10ish, then it is a little hot. ha ha The bgv’s are awesome with those scales going down. Cool for sure.
The second mix is a big improvement, but overall, I would urge you to take everything with a grain of salt on this one. You have the ability to convey the song better than anyone else, and both attempts are very good. My question to you would be what do you_ feel is lackjng in your production?
Your writing and performances are very artistic and unique but everyone will have a different frame of reference. This is a very personal composition, so just figure out what needs to improve the presentation for you, and if you need help ask how to do the specific things you feel need improvement. For instance, the debate about the drums: yeah, they are a bit strange, but in neither case did they distract me from the mood or message. You should try wearing your arms out patting yourself on the back and make it sound like you hear it_. Your originality will come through and be more important than the minutia.
Thanks Bob, I think this is important to remember. Yeah when I went back to listen to the snare, I still liked it, so I kept it. But there were lots of good tips that I agreed with too and made changes for. I can’t remember exactly who said this, but I read or heard this once and it stuck with me… I wonder if I even came across it on this forum? Anyway, it was that as an artist, what we’ve got is our taste. And throughout our lives we have to hold onto that taste, and keep working on our skills so that we can make things that live up to it.
I’m done with this song. Happy with how it turned out and already working on the next one. I can look back a couple of years from now and maybe find dozens of flaws with this song, but that’ll just show how much I’ve grown.
I can look back a couple of years from now and maybe find dozens of flaws with this song, but that’ll just show how much I’ve grown.
Yup, that’s kind of the heaven and hell of all of this. I’ve written a lot of what I feel are very good songs that I have stuck on my hard drive, and I stumble on them from time to time. Most of them give me the “Damn that’s a great song, but it sounds crappy” reaction. They do get a little bit better as I go along, and you find a bit of a template to start with sonically. Once you have that, you can spend more time adding colors to your music as opposed to having to scrape layers of junk off of it to make it presentable, if that makes any sense. For someone who claims to be lacking in production skills I would say you’re doing a great job of getting the point across, which to me is the right kind of production for what you are writing.
It’s also my wife’s favorite part! Haha.
