A solo acoustic folk punk guy came into my studio with an acoustic guitar, some songs, and an upright bass player in his back pocket. He wanted me to help him build them out a bit and go to a full band sound while not straying too far from the folk punk thing.
We wrote some bass and drum parts and tracked it all. His playing was pretty inconsistent on acoustic as was the bass player’s (both guys are young-ish) so there was a ton of editing, too. I played drums. I’m not a drummer. Editing was necessary there, too.
Now we’re mixing and I’m feeling pretty overexposed to it all.
Can you cats help me? I’d love to hear what everyone else is hearing on this.
As you said there are some rough spots that could be ironed out as you said. Besides that there seems to be too much muddiness in the low mids. The bass and drums seem very boomy. Even the snare seems to have a lot of low mids. Try to bring out the upper mids and snap of the snare. Also try to eq the acoustics to get them out of the way of the vocals a bit more. Its not that bad overall, but it does need some polish. I’d try to clean up of the vocal parts, and then eq things to get them to sit a little better.
Really like this the only bits are the acoustic guitar sounds to out in front of the mix maybe their too wide and some of the lead vocal seems rushed ( before the beat)
Arrangements:
The drums need more variation, especially on the chorus, you should drop the tom groove on the chorus and give ti a bit more drive with the snare.
The guitar sound is very in your face, nothing wrong with that, but it is in your face throughout the whole song, it might be a good idea to dial back the guitar at a few points during the song to give it a bit more breathing room, make the quiet parts quieter and by extension, the louder parts louder.
Mix:
I’m listening through bass light headphones and the bottom end sounds very full, so I’m guessing you could tame the lows and low mids a bit and give the arrangement some room to breathe.
The main and background vocals don’t line up that well, which is great if you’re going for a live feel, but if you line them up, you’ll get a nice tighter sound without sacrificing that “band” sound you’re going for.
Everything sounds well recorded though so it’s just a matter of adding a bit of polish to get everything in the right sort of vibe. Great work, hope to hear your progress.
You have stumbled across an interesting genre here, folk punk!
The song in itself is ok, but the whole package does need tidying up a bit! Although I’m not a technical mixing guy, I do understand @Chandler’s suggestions re: [quote=“Chandler, post:2, topic:1294”]
bring out the upper mids and snap of the snare
[/quote] I believe this will improve the mix!
Yes, the vocals may need tidying up a bit too! They’re not perfect, but that does tend to fit in with the folk punk genre! Also consider bringing them up a decibel or two?
It’s good that youngsters are keen to explore these avenues as opposed to the general music that you find in the charts these days!
Sorry I disappeared from this thread a bit. I had some crazy life stuff happening for a while .
It seems like that ALWAYS happens when I’m working on a project. I got the project done for the client but wasn’t as able to go through a progression with you all over here.
I wanted to give you cats an update anyway, though:
The artist wanted to keep some of the non-edited feel so we mostly left that. I touched up a few extra things here and there (I’m trying to remember when - if it was before or after I posted this).
Chandler hit on something, I had mixed this mostly in headphones so the low end was blooming a lot more than I was expecting when I finally got it back to the studio. Adjusted that level and tightened some of that.
The guitars also didn’t seem so spikey and up front in the headphones. Adjustments made. Hopefully I didn’t just fool myself into thinking changes made things better when they actually only made them different.
Take a listen! And thanks for the bashing!
I promise to talk some real shit about your productions when I get a little more time on my hands!