Hour Glass

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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ido1957
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Hour Glass

Post by ido1957 »

Here's a tune with lyrics by Mike's brother in law. Mike and I spent a couple of hours writing it then we took it home and built the final arrangements.
Mike's still wants to work some more on his bass part, but what he did is pretty good for a scratch track. He's using his new Precision Elite :nyuk: and I'm just getting used to how it sits in the mix. Please have a listen and let me know how the whole thing sounds. The last two were "too much kick" and "too much vocals" so I'm trying to keep those in check with this first try.

Google Drive 320 MP3 Mix 1 20170521
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SweetDan
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by SweetDan »

ido1957 wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2017 11:22 pm Please have a listen and let me know how the whole thing sounds. The last two were "too much kick" and "too much vocals" so I'm trying to keep those in check with this first try.
Sounds pretty good overall. Tight playing in the guitars. Nice tight singing and sweet harmonies in the vocals. I would say there's not too much bass: tone-wise, it's the right level to my ears. The kick does get lost a bit, but I'm barely getting into the hang of listening carefully to drum parts myself, so take that with a grain of salt.
ido1957 wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2017 11:22 pm Mike's still wants to work some more on his bass part
I wondered about this. Like I said, tone-wise, the bass sits nicely. But there are too many notes, maybe some misplaced attempts at syncopation or just trying to be too "fancy" with the bass line. The clash between the bass and kick could be making causing the kick to disappear (right around 1'36"). Another problem area in the bass is 2'00"-end; the low parts don't work together to drive the song (although the descending lines right at the end lock in and drive it forward; those are nice).
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ido1957
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by ido1957 »

Thanks Dan, yes the bass will be redone so not sure what he'll decide on but I know he'll do something good as usual. He's got the link to this so he can read what you have and comment when he gets a chance.
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miroslav
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by miroslav »

Yeah...solid playing.
I'm listening on my laptop speakers...so it's hard to judge the stereo imaging, but maybe the rhythm guitars could be opened up a bit more...L/R.
I think it would give the vocals more room and clarity...not that it's bad, just think that because the guitars and the vocals are kinda in the same frequency range, they could use a bit more separation.

And yeah...a touch more low end chunk would be good...but again, hard to really judge on these dinky speakers. I'll have to listen on my studio system for a better perspective.
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rayc
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by rayc »

Bass tone is terrific when he's hitting the upper notes as they growl well - may need to knock a little off at 100 or 200 for the rest.
There's also the issue of possibly too many notes as mentioned.
Guitars sound good but the lyrics and riff suggest a more distorted sound to my head.
Sounding good as is though.
Cheers
rayc
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ido1957
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by ido1957 »

Miro - right now the guitars are at 70% L/R but they may be just a bit loud. I'll be remixing so I'll keep this in mind.
Ray - I've knocked off some at 100, maybe not enough though. Although Mike mentioned he wants more highs on the bass, so he may trim back the lows or something to get his target tone. It's a great bass, and I'm sure he'll nail it once he has a chance to play around with things. He's on vacation this week so he finally (after brutal work schedule last month) has time to try different things.
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JD01
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by JD01 »

Shit, my comments on this mix aren't here. Must have cocked up when I posted...
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JD01
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by JD01 »

I did comment on a bunch of things that I like and thought were good, but my main criticism is about the tone of the clean electric, its not interesting, doesn't add anything but does draw your attention at times. I think you should either dress it up and make it sound cooler or maybe even replace it with an acoustic.

Sorry, if this seems blunt - there was a load of positive stuff in my previous comments too!

Listen to the clean electric just after "Change is never ending" you'll see what I mean. Maybe single chords ringing out here with a bit of gain or an acoustic would sound cool.
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by vomitHatSteve »

+1 one tightening up the timing on the bass a bit.

Vocals sound really good. Nice balance of harmonies.

The guitars are maybe a little dark.
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miroslav
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by miroslav »

rayc wrote: ↑Mon May 22, 2017 5:30 am There's also the issue of possibly too many notes as mentioned.

[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU[/BBvideo]


Just too funny...couldn't resist. :P
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ido1957
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by ido1957 »

Thanks JD and VHS - I'm taking small steps towards the type of arrangements that people like you, Rami and Greg have with the guitars. By that I mean those tunes have a variety of guitars, pickups, pedals, amps etc etc which lend themselves to interesting arrangements. This one has LP on left and Strat on the right, different pickups, slightly different amp settings. Then there's differing rhythm patterns (not just tone) which is something I will be working on. I'll keep trying different things to spice it up going forward so stay tuned for upcoming improvements. This one just needs Mike's final bass track, and the rest will stay the same as far as arrangement goes, but future songs will (hopefully lol) move in the right direction.

And as far as losing posts...I found that sometimes I have to click submit a couple of times for it to take. Not sure why but if I don't see my post go through I just submit it (without paging out) until it does. I've lost a few posts too :)
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Bubba
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by Bubba »

I think this is a good mix regarding levels, but very "dry" to my ear, Ido. I know that reverb is a matter of taste, but without a bit of room sound to smooth the corners off you can get harsh, middly, not very pleasant sounds. I'm hearing a bit of that on the vocals and there is some upper mid harshness on the guitars and drums to my ear.
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mjhamil
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by mjhamil »

I got to redo the rough bass line with less notes as mentioned, another remix: what do you think?
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vomitHatSteve
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by vomitHatSteve »

The bass maybe needs to come up. It's a busy line, but the instrument itself is pretty buried. So instead of being a lead part like it's written, it ends up being distracting.
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ido1957
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by ido1957 »

I did a quick mix to bring up the bass so hopefully it's sitting right and I haven't jacked everything up.
Still getting used to Mike's new Precision, but I think the tone is great myself (of course I'm super biased which might be to my detriment :biggrin: )
Have a quick listen and let me know.
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JD01
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by JD01 »

Sounds great to me Ido... so that's the average pleb listener satisfied.
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vomitHatSteve
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by vomitHatSteve »

I think that's better.
I might enjoy even more bass than that (or trying that might break the entire mix...)
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ido1957
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by ido1957 »

Thanks JD and VHS for the feedback. I'll audition this on a few things (truck/Mike's place) and see if it needs more bass. Else it's done :)
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rayc
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by rayc »

That's cool Gerry. Grit in the guitars, growl in the bass & drums pushing.
It's almost a different beast from the 1st mix posted as it sounds much more "together".
Cheers
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ido1957
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Re: Hour Glass

Post by ido1957 »

Did a few changes to the bass (too low) and vocals (too high) after listening on a few other speakers.

On a side note, Sonar has "Mix Scenes" but it's sketchy. Like if you add a track/bus to a new mix it gets added to the old mix. The old mix is basically affected if you download to compare without checking. Annoying but will remember in the future. I went back to my saved project and started checking all the parameters again versus the new one.
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