11-01-2017, 03:00 PM
Hey, thank you for posting the song. I had a lot of fun working on it. I know you're open to questions, but I have some critiques or pointers if that's OK.
I did notice some things in the stems I thought you should keep in mind when recording and especially editing. Disclaimer: This is just what I've heard and reflected on while working on the song. Music is subjective and you're free to disregard anything I say.
Drums:
I hear some pretty heavy quantizing and cuts here, to the point where it sounds very digital. And not in the cool "mechanical metal"-way. Listen to the OH track in the first fast part (0:58-1:02). Those are some impossibly fast hits on the china. The fill just becomes a blur. Following that there's some strange panning going on 1:04 with the snare shifting to the left.
The cymbals often sound very stretched out and phase-y as a result of the quantizing.
- Be very careful when editing drums, especially the OH and room tracks. Think about how the reverb will be affected by edits. Always make sure to let the cymbals die out naturally until they're hit again. Do so with crossfading and multiple OH tracks while recording.
The low tom track is pretty distorted with clipping around 2:10.
Bass: Just arrangement wise- Having the bass tremolo-pick along with the guitars (2:31) makes that whole passage pretty muddy and must have been a pain to record. I think it would've been enough for it to just play the 8th-notes or even quarter notes to fill out what the guitars were doing.
Vocals:
A main thing I think you've noticed is that the clean vocal part was not exported completely in the stem file. Just a heads up to check the stems after exporting. I've had to re-render a lot of tracks myself.
I hear the vocals cutting in a lot in your mix. I'm guessing this is the gate opening but it could be a good idea (if you have time) to manually fade those breaths so they're either removed or come in more naturally (like a breath does), instead of popping in from nowhere.
Mastering:
I see your track clipping quite a lot. +0.8 at the peaks. It's true lots of pro tracks sometimes clip but I've never really seen any over +0.1-0.2. Make sure the brickwall limiter is doing it's job.
The track is also a bit bright. I'd pull those upper mids down (2-3k) a few db as well as adjusting +8k.
Again, thanks for posting this. I just wanted to point out some things I felt were taking away from the track rather than adding to it. Please take these remarks as constructive and well meant. I didn't spend an hour writing this just to be a know-it-all ass. I know you won't go back and redo this but see it as things to keep in mind for next time. If you have any questions regarding specifics I'd be happy to try and help.
I did notice some things in the stems I thought you should keep in mind when recording and especially editing. Disclaimer: This is just what I've heard and reflected on while working on the song. Music is subjective and you're free to disregard anything I say.
Drums:
I hear some pretty heavy quantizing and cuts here, to the point where it sounds very digital. And not in the cool "mechanical metal"-way. Listen to the OH track in the first fast part (0:58-1:02). Those are some impossibly fast hits on the china. The fill just becomes a blur. Following that there's some strange panning going on 1:04 with the snare shifting to the left.
The cymbals often sound very stretched out and phase-y as a result of the quantizing.
- Be very careful when editing drums, especially the OH and room tracks. Think about how the reverb will be affected by edits. Always make sure to let the cymbals die out naturally until they're hit again. Do so with crossfading and multiple OH tracks while recording.
The low tom track is pretty distorted with clipping around 2:10.
Bass: Just arrangement wise- Having the bass tremolo-pick along with the guitars (2:31) makes that whole passage pretty muddy and must have been a pain to record. I think it would've been enough for it to just play the 8th-notes or even quarter notes to fill out what the guitars were doing.
Vocals:
A main thing I think you've noticed is that the clean vocal part was not exported completely in the stem file. Just a heads up to check the stems after exporting. I've had to re-render a lot of tracks myself.
I hear the vocals cutting in a lot in your mix. I'm guessing this is the gate opening but it could be a good idea (if you have time) to manually fade those breaths so they're either removed or come in more naturally (like a breath does), instead of popping in from nowhere.
Mastering:
I see your track clipping quite a lot. +0.8 at the peaks. It's true lots of pro tracks sometimes clip but I've never really seen any over +0.1-0.2. Make sure the brickwall limiter is doing it's job.
The track is also a bit bright. I'd pull those upper mids down (2-3k) a few db as well as adjusting +8k.
Again, thanks for posting this. I just wanted to point out some things I felt were taking away from the track rather than adding to it. Please take these remarks as constructive and well meant. I didn't spend an hour writing this just to be a know-it-all ass. I know you won't go back and redo this but see it as things to keep in mind for next time. If you have any questions regarding specifics I'd be happy to try and help.