Conviction Is Not Enough

[JD01]

Gents,

Another one from me - wrote a month or two ago but haven't had time to work on the vocal until last friday and today.

My ears are finished now and I'm just hearing what I expect to hear.

Conviction Is Not Enough - Mix 1.mp3

Mix 2 down below now.

[Greg_L]

Sorry man but this doesn't work for me. The kick click and bass clack is pretty distracting. The middle is dominated by unnatural clickety clackity weirdness. It sounds like those two elements are over-EQd. The vocals are distorted and unintelligible much of the time. I know you've done better guitar tones than this. They're small and fizzy IMO. I have to wonder what the hell is going on with your monitoring situation. Seems like it's a pretty decent song, I just think you need to go back to the drawing board on your mix decisions.

[einstein magoo]

Cool song!

That kick sure has a lot of "click" on it, maybe a bit much? And all the crashes on the right. I'd maybe try to pan my o'heads a little more to the left, or at least send a crash or two over there.

I like the bass tone and rasp a lot. This is good! You know I'm a noob so take these comments with a grain of salt. The distortion on the vocal is cool, but I always complain about wanting to hear the lead vocal more clearly...don't know if just turning it up a bit would work? The vocal sounds good and in tune to me.

[JD01]

Hmmm... clickety clack. This is the same bass line I posted up the other day, we talked about clack then too. I'll check the EQ on my kick too, I did boost some highs on one of my templates before as I wanted more beater attack but I may have overdone it. I'll check if it's on this mix.

Cheers guys

[Greg_L]

You have to find the good kind of kick slap. There's ugly click, and there's natural slap. Big difference. It's lke the low end. You have good thump, and you have boxy bouncy ball bullshit. You gotta carve the bad, and maybe boost the good. Often just carving the bad will get good results.

[JD01]

Just downloaded this on my phone and listening on earbuds, which I normally do as a miX check. That kick clack is pretty nasty!

[JD01]

My monitors have a pair of switches for low/high boost/cut. They'd probably be handy for helping listen our for this stuff.

I don't mind the distortion on the vocal, it's a little more than I was after but it's tracked that way now! I'm pretty loud and I think my preamp sim gets a beating. I'm nowhere near clipping on the AI though.

[rayc]

I like the bass click but, as usual, not the kick click. Tame that & you might find the bass is fine.
Good bass lines by the way.

[ido1957]

Great Tune JD - liked all the parts and the arrangement is well crafted. Especially like the pounding for the first 3/4 then the drop into bass/guitars coming in from different directions. The vocal distortion is a bit apparent but the vibe is right on. If you didn't record with the pre I'd suggest trying a few settings to see whether you can disguise it a little.

[JD01]

Cheers guys, I'll start with the bass click first today. Don't want to change too many things at once,

EDIT: There was a 6db bump at 10.5k on my kick! Fuck knows what that was doign there.

[JD01]

OK, here's the reduced clickety clack version... I normally only change one thing at a time with mixes so I know what's making the difference where.
But for this, I took off the bump at 10.5k on the kick - I don't know what that was doing there anyway!
There was a weirdly long gentle hi-shelf on my rhythm guitars starting at about 3k and going right up to 20+k with a maximum bump of 3 or 4db - I've sacked this off now, guitars are a touch dark but do sound better.

I've also added a small relatively narrow cut on the bass at 3K to reduce some of the clack - I like a bit of clack though.

EDIT: Just listened to Mix 1 after listening to this - that clackiness was pretty obvious in hindsight... mixng while drinking gin when I've been singing loudly obviously isn't ideal

[Greg_L]

The clackiness is much better than before. The vocals seem a little better too. If you can get some air into those guitars without the fizz you'll be in pretty good shape.

[JD01]

The clackiness is much better than before. The vocals seem a little better too. If you can get some air into those guitars without the fizz you'll be in pretty good shape.

Cheers, I'll have a play with that hi-shelf later to see what I can do without fucking it up.

I've not done anything to the vocal - removing the clack must have just given them more space, they must have been right in amongst it.

[Greg_L]

Cheers, I'll have a play with that hi-shelf later to see what I can do without fucking it up.

I've not done anything to the vocal - removing the clack must have just given them more space, they must have been right in amongst it.

Yeah you can't have shit banging away against each other.

Try this on the guitars - roll off the highs where the shit fizz starts. Don't shelf it, actually roll it off. Low pass that ho. Right where the roll off starts, wide-hump boost the range right before the roll off. There's gonna be some high end in there but not the fizzy stuff. See if that gives you some guitar clarity without the fizz.

[JD01]

Yeah you can't have shit banging away against each other.

Try this on the guitars - roll off the highs where the shit fizz starts. Don't shelf it, actually roll it off. Low pass that ho. Right where the roll off starts, wide-hump boost the range right before the roll off. There's gonna be some high end in there but not the fizzy stuff. See if that gives you some guitar clarity without the fizz.

Cheers, I'll have a go at that later on...

Did you notice the phrygian section and notice which song the intro riff is lifted from?

[Greg_L]

Cheers, I'll have a go at that later on...

Did you notice the phrygian section and notice which song the intro riff is lifted from?

Lol. No. I actually didn't listen that closely. I listened for technical mix issues, not so much for the music or content. I'll give it for-fun-listen later.

[JD01]

Cheers, I'll have a go at that later on...

Did you notice the phrygian section and notice which song the intro riff is lifted from?

Lol. No. I actually didn't listen that closely. I listened for technical mix issues, not so much for the music or content. I'll give it for-fun-listen later.

There's a clue, I shout "phrygians Greg! "

[Bubba]

Hi, JD - I listened to your track this morning - only on the laptop speakers, though! It sounded good - your vocals have come on a lot. I don't know if it's the way you're singing them or some kind of effect, but do they have a bit of a Dalek-y sound?
I agree with what Greg says about the guitars. Never high shelf electric guitars. Low pass them and move the frequency point iutil it just starts to change the sound, then put a small hump in the fequencies just before it. It's usually around 4/5 k.
I'll comment again when I get chance to hear it on the monitors.

[JD01]

Hi, JD - I listened to your track this morning - only on the laptop speakers, though! It sounded good - your vocals have come on a lot. I don't know if it's the way you're singing them or some kind of effect, but do they have a bit of a Dalek-y sound?
I agree with what Greg says about the guitars. Never high shelf electric guitars. Low pass them and move the frequency point iutil it just starts to change the sound, then put a small hump in the fequencies just before it. It's usually around 4/5 k.
I'll comment again when I get chance to hear it on the monitors.

Cheers, I'll be trying this technique later.