It Isn't Easy

Your Mom loves your mixes, but are they really up to scratch? Post your tracks here and get the community's feedback to help with the spit and polish. Impress us! We don't bite.
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JD01
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It Isn't Easy

Post by JD01 »

This one is a bit different from me. Recorded most of it about 2 weeks ago and it kept floating around in my head while I worked out a way to finish it. Its kind of like my normal stuff, but also unlike my normal stuff.
It Isnt Easy - Mix 1.mp3
Some weird stuff when this rendered, the compressor on one of my vocal tracks and a couple of my guitar tracks shat itself so I had to load it up again and try and find the settings that I had previously. Weird thing - when the compressors died they disabled the whole track so I just had missing bits in the songs. :headwall:

It was an Antares compressor on the vocal and one of the Red3 compressors on some of the lead guitars - no idea what happens they worked find again on this render. Was constantly listening to the renders and finding another thing missing that I had missed when putting the compressors back on. Basically anything that had a (x86) at the end of it died during render and disabled the track it was on.

EDIT: New mix on the next page. I've sacked off the Antress Modern Compressors as they were too much trouble. There’s also a mix 2a
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Last edited by JD01 on Sun Oct 08, 2017 8:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
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ido1957
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by ido1957 »

Your writing is getting better in my mind, both structure and arrangement. Didn't sound like 4 minutes, which in my ADHD condition means you kept me focused lol.... Nice one!
Thoughts
- check your intonation or frets. Something is putting certain notes (not all) out of tune - it's most apparent in one phrase you repeat a couple of times. For me, it distracts from an otherwise great song.
- vocals are low, but maybe someone else can chime in here as I'm not sure if that's the norm for this style. I'm struggling to understand the lyrics but maybe that's so the parents won't think you are plotting something (bad humor on a Saturday morning probably).
People want something for nothing, they want it right now. Either they can't tell quality or don't care but feel it is important that everyone agrees with them.
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JD01
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by JD01 »

ido1957 wrote: Sat Aug 19, 2017 12:58 pm Your writing is getting better in my mind, both structure and arrangement. Didn't sound like 4 minutes, which in my ADHD condition means you kept me focused lol.... Nice one!
Thoughts
- check your intonation or frets. Something is putting certain notes (not all) out of tune - it's most apparent in one phrase you repeat a couple of times. For me, it distracts from an otherwise great song.
- vocals are low, but maybe someone else can chime in here as I'm not sure if that's the norm for this style. I'm struggling to understand the lyrics but maybe that's so the parents won't think you are plotting something (bad humor on a Saturday morning probably).
Intonation/tuning is probably just me playing really agressively. I'm assuming you mean the lead fills in the prechorus. Quick unison bends are always a bit chancy!

I don't have a particularly clear voice. Even speaking people say I'm a bit hard to understand sometimes.

Cheers though, mate. I enjoyed this and it came together really quickly.
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ido1957
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by ido1957 »

Actually the unison stuff is not an issue for me. It's the part just before that. :)
People want something for nothing, they want it right now. Either they can't tell quality or don't care but feel it is important that everyone agrees with them.
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rammer24
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by rammer24 »

I'll get to this later. I've fallen behind in this section.
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JD01
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by JD01 »

rammer24 wrote: Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:57 pm I'll get to this later. I've fallen behind in this section.
Yeah - me too. I've just been really busy over the weekend.
Saying that, I listened to stuff by you, Ido and Miro and commenting on them is a bit above my pay grade! I don't just want to comment for the sake of it unless I've got something useful to say. Although I suppose just saying that it sounds fine to me means that your average pleb listener wouldn't notice any issues.
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Greg_L
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by Greg_L »

I don't think this is too bad. The vocals are really the weak link at this point. If you're gonna layer and double track vocals, you need to get your pitch and starts and stops better in sync. It sounds sloppy when obvious double tracking is made obvious by loose timing and pitch variances. If pitch is a problem, then don't double track. And I still don't think the vocals in a fishtank reverb sound is doing you any favors. The entire mix is kind of dark to me. There's not much shine on any of it. All of the elements lack air and space and clean high end information.

On the plus side, your rhythm guitars and bass probably sound better than they ever have on your stuff IMO. I think your levels on everything are good. Better vocal performance, better vocal processing, and a little more shine on everything would take this to the next level.
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JD01
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by JD01 »

Cheers. I probably will retrack the vocal to this at some point as it wrote the lyrics in the afternoon and sung them for the first time immediately afterwards so they weren't familiar to me and I was working out a melody as I went.

You like them French Guitar Cookbook scales?
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Greg_L
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by Greg_L »

JD01 wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:07 pm Cheers. I probably will retrack the vocal to this at some point as it wrote the lyrics in the afternoon and sung them for the first time immediately afterwards so they weren't familiar to me and I was working out a melody as I went.

You like them French Guitar Cookbook scales?
I don't even know what that is.
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JD01
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by JD01 »

Greg_L wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:23 pm
JD01 wrote: Mon Aug 21, 2017 5:07 pm Cheers. I probably will retrack the vocal to this at some point as it wrote the lyrics in the afternoon and sung them for the first time immediately afterwards so they weren't familiar to me and I was working out a melody as I went.

You like them French Guitar Cookbook scales?
I don't even know what that is.
Was a book of weird scales I got a little while ago. I found one I liked the sound of and wanted to write a song using it.
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miroslav
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by miroslav »

ido1957 wrote: Sat Aug 19, 2017 12:58 pm Something is putting certain notes (not all) out of tune...
Yeah I hear it too....not really bad, but it kinda pulls on you ear.

The vocals also seem to have pitch quirks. I know the song itself has a a bit of "quirky" section to it, but I think for that to work, the vocals/guitars need to be on a little better...and while it's hard at that speed and that amount of lyrics to make all the words stand out, it would help if the lyrics were a bit more clearly understood.

The rest is pretty good, and tight....though the snare at one point seemed a bit overburdening, the same relentless "tonk"...but, I know it's a punky tune, and that's probably how it needs to be to keep the drive going.
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JD01
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by JD01 »

Cheers, Miro - I'm generally happy with the guitar playing. But I will be re-tracking the vocals at some point. There's actually a few quirks in the bass playing that I want to redo too - the bassline is really fun though so I'll look forward to that.
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rayc
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by rayc »

Sorry I missed this James.
Bass tone & lines are ace.
Please retrack the vox after you've had some time to get used to them - the song's good and deserves a better vocal.
The bvox could be cleaned up a little - I don't know if it's reverb or EQ but they sound a little muddy.
Cheers
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JD01
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by JD01 »

Cheers Ray, I will definitely re-do the vocals (and probably the bassline) as I quite like the song. I know I can do better on the vocals after I've listened to them for a week or so to allow them to bed in my brain!

I know I can do better on the bass, I was writing it as I went along and then tried to get some good takes - I had major hand-cramp that morning after shit loads of bass playing. This wouldn't have even been possible on my old bass.
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Greg_L
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by Greg_L »

JD01 wrote: Wed Aug 23, 2017 10:45 am Cheers Ray, I will definitely re-do the vocals (and probably the bassline) as I quite like the song. I know I can do better on the vocals after I've listened to them for a week or so to allow them to bed in my brain!
Vocals work for me that way too. I'll sometimes lay down some vocals knowing I'm gonna redo them later because I know I'll be able to do a better job later. It gives me the time to listen to it, identify what sucks, identify what I wanna change, and then nail it later on.
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JD01
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by JD01 »

Greg_L wrote: Wed Aug 23, 2017 10:50 am
JD01 wrote: Wed Aug 23, 2017 10:45 am Cheers Ray, I will definitely re-do the vocals (and probably the bassline) as I quite like the song. I know I can do better on the vocals after I've listened to them for a week or so to allow them to bed in my brain!
Vocals work for me that way too. I'll sometimes lay down some vocals knowing I'm gonna redo them later because I know I'll be able to do a better job later. It gives me the time to listen to it, identify what sucks, identify what I wanna change, and then nail it later on.
I did the same thing with a bunch of songs that I finished off recently - I'd had them floating around for a few weeks (months for some of them) then when I did the final vocal it was pretty easy. This one, I wrote the lyrics just after lunch, started singing at 4 working out what I was going to do melody and timing wise as I was going along. Was done by 5:30.
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by Bubba »

This is a great mix, to me - pretty polished, guitar tones are great, the mix is weighty without being muddy. I really like the tone of the bass for this - there is no clackiness distracting from the upper mids in the guitars. Your songwriting is maturing. I love when the song breaks down into the phased guitar part. I don't know what you've started doing to the guitars, but suddenly they all have tone and texture, especially the lead. I think it's as simple as having enough upper mids. I suspect that you've been so focused on killing fizziness that the tone has suffered, but now you can hear pick attack and how the strings are responding, rather than the one-dimensional nasal tone that you used to have meandering around the song.

Great.
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JD01
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by JD01 »

The guitars are using that technique that you and Greg mentioned before - got a low pass on the guitars, set really high up, started at about 20k, then gradually moved it down until it just about started to affect the tone - this is to kill the fizz. Then just behind this cut, I've got a slight bump of a couple of db - this adds a bit of brightness without it turning in to fizz. This mix isn't that bright 'cos the rhythm is almost exclusively muted powerchords.

Cheers, I'm going to try and keep the next mix very similar to this but trial a few different reverb impulses on the re-done vocals - at the moment they're all going to the same impulse as the guitars, bass and drums.
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by TripleM »

I love the energy. And I thought it sounded pretty good for the most part.

The guitars all sounded very nice. Sometimes the lead/riff guitar gets buried. The clean/reggae guitar sounds terrific.

You need to team up with a singer. The vocal performance is OK, but it doesn't match the caliber of the rest of the tracks.

The bass is a little strong in the low end. Kind of a minor/personal taste thing. But I think a little lighter low end would suit the song better.
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ido1957
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Re: It Isn't Easy

Post by ido1957 »

TripleM wrote: Fri Aug 25, 2017 2:16 pm You need to team up with a singer. The vocal performance is OK, but it doesn't match the caliber of the rest of the tracks.
Nah, I think your singing is maturing so I would keep at it. You can re-track even years later ( because sometimes it take a while to reach your pinnacle).
People want something for nothing, they want it right now. Either they can't tell quality or don't care but feel it is important that everyone agrees with them.
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