Guitar Gear Forum

I posting this on RT as well so some of you may see it there.

I am not expecting miracles with my shitty gear but I am certain I can get something much better than what I have.

This thread is a little premature because I just discovered Kontact last night and did not have any time to try to get a good bass tone and eq the bass. I will most certainly work on that as well as retrack the guitars. They aren't 100% and two out of the four tracks are just copy/paste of the other two tracks (Not sure but that seems like a bad thing).

Once I dial in a nice bass tone, eq that and redo guitars I should hear a slight improvement.

Anyhow here is the clip. It is just an intro to one of my songs.

https://soundcloud.com/maddnotez/newmastermp3

Feel free to bash my recording, my playing and my face.

Hopefully I can get a few pointers along the way.

What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? What should I be doing? It sounds really hollow to me and just sounds like shit imo.

Nerd info below:

Ibanez S540> TC Electronics Impact Twin> Reaper.

Using LePou Solo C and Baron Custom Amp sims at 80% LR (4 tracks total). There are HP and LP filters, a slight 1db boost around 6k and -1 db cut on the mids on all guitars.

Using Kontact (free version) for the Bass. Just got this last night. Had no time to eq or play with amp settings. Literally just loaded it up and bounced.

Ez Drummer Drumkit from Hell.

I also added a little compression, eq and limiter on the Master channel (probably should stay away from Mastering)

just erase the whole thing & hire a... Kiddn man, that sounded good!

I listened thru headphones & speakers. The bass sounds good, on speakers I heard less definition in it. Still, everything seemed well balanced, with a pleasingly dark (not overly dark at all) guitar vibe. I didnt detect anything hollow.

Sounds pretty good to me. Could maybe add a bit of top-end to the bass somewhere above 1k and lower it overall in the mix to clean just a touch of the mud, but what you've got is perfectly acceptable at the moment.

RIFF wrote:just erase the whole thing & hire a....

Good call.

Bass is a bit muddy, but the track overall is better sounding than anything I've done to date. I dug it man. Cool riff Mad.

Mike LX-R wrote:Bass is a bit muddy, but the track overall is better sounding than anything I've done to date. I dug it man. Cool riff Mad.

Well thanks.

Althought it probably was the best sound I have ever came out with, I still thought it was pretty weak.

I am trying to find a pro mix, UNmastered to compare to. I have also been very much considering buying EZ Mix.

The bass is Kontakt 5, I definitely need a real bass guitar or maybe Trillian or something else.

I have the worst headphones known to man and computer speakers for monitors so I am at a disadvantage.

I am actually shopping some good headphones now (was looking at the AKG 701) Or maybe some monitors.

Not sure which would benefit me more, headphones or monitors.

The guitars sound nice. Maybe the left side is a bit fizzy up top - sweep a boosted parametric eq up above 4k, find the fizz and pull it down a little. The snare is quite snappy and tinny, doesn't have much in the way of balls. If the mix is a face, the snare is the nose. All else being equal it can make the face (mix) ugly or sex-worthy.

A lot of it is personal taste, but I like really snappy kicks when the mix requires really snappy kicks. At the moment, yours could have less click and more thud without getting lost, which would give the overall sound more weight.

I'm also constantly made furious with people who use drum programs because I spend hours, days, tuning drums, trying mic placements, trying to get my fucking drummer to play the same thing twice. Then smart arses like you breeze through with your flawless double kick 16ths and skip past the finish line, barely even breaking out a sweat, while I'm stuck in a peat bog with 3 tons of drum hardware and a "musician" who is hell bent on sabotaging every song I record.

If that sounds bitter/ rude, please forgive me I'm British and it's meant in jest.

Maddnotez wrote:

Mike LX-R wrote:Bass is a bit muddy, but the track overall is better sounding than anything I've done to date. I dug it man. Cool riff Mad.

Well thanks.

Althought it probably was the best sound I have ever came out with, I still thought it was pretty weak.

I am trying to find a pro mix, UNmastered to compare to. I have also been very much considering buying EZ Mix.

The bass is Kontakt 5, I definitely need a real bass guitar or maybe Trillian or something else.

I have the worst headphones known to man and computer speakers for monitors so I am at a disadvantage.

I am actually shopping some good headphones now (was looking at the AKG 701) Or maybe some monitors.

Not sure which would benefit me more, headphones or monitors.

I honestly think its very decent. The bass & guitar are invading each other a little, you could roll off your guitar a little & define the bass a little, but not much. There are some great suggestions up there, so try different things.

On mixing.... use decent, FULL-RANGE speakers. They dont have to be monitors, but use SEVERAL systems. If you can hook up to your home theater system, SUB & ALL, thats good. Also use good headphones.... I was in your delima, & they dont have to be expensive, a recommendation: Superlux... (CHEAP stupid fucking name) I have the 668B. Get them & break them in for 2 days, thats about as good as youre gonna do for cheap, & they actually sound amazingly good! I do a lot of my mixing & stuff with them & my home theater system, then check it in my car. You can sometimes hear problems in your CAR that you DONT hear on pricey MONITORS.

Cirrus wrote:The guitars sound nice. Maybe the left side is a bit fizzy up top - sweep a boosted parametric eq up above 4k, find the fizz and pull it down a little. The snare is quite snappy and tinny, doesn't have much in the way of balls. If the mix is a face, the snare is the nose. All else being equal it can make the face (mix) ugly or sex-worthy.

A lot of it is personal taste, but I like really snappy kicks when the mix requires really snappy kicks. At the moment, yours could have less click and more thud without getting lost, which would give the overall sound more weight.

I'm also constantly made furious with people who use drum programs because I spend hours, days, tuning drums, trying mic placements, trying to get my fucking drummer to play the same thing twice. Then smart arses like you breeze through with your flawless double kick 16ths and skip past the finish line, barely even breaking out a sweat, while I'm stuck in a peat bog with 3 tons of drum hardware and a "musician" who is hell bent on sabotaging every song I record.

If that sounds bitter/ rude, please forgive me I'm British and it's meant in jest.

I agree with all of this.

The tone is good, but the fizziness/fuzziness on the left side is concerning -- it sounds less like weird frequency response to me and more like a problem with gain staging (like something in the chain is way too hot, or you way overdid some kind of saturation plugin). If that's not the case, then definitely try to EQ that out -- a high shelf cut might do the trick.

I'd remix it without the copy/pasted rhythm tracks, just go with the original 2 rhythm tracks and see how that sounds. Brighten up the bass tone. And as others have said, that fizz digital harshness that's really obvious at the beginning of the track, try to get rid of that.

On the positive side I really like the tone overall. Big and mean. Drums are bright and cutting. There is some cool bass playing going on in there too.