A new song I am working on, I've spent some time on trying to get my guitars right.. though it's gotten the point to where I can't tell anymore ha. Anyone want to take a crap on my mix (kidding... kinda) and tell me any improvements/adjustments I need to make. Thanks in advance.

 

Hey man, I didn't love the panned guitars intro. I think listeners will find that more obnoxious than exciting. It also fucks with non-ideal listening setups.

Also, I was hoping for more low end drone in the verse. I think the drums have to be more forward and real doomy.

Try to change the vocal tone from verse to chorus. That chorus could use some killer delay to hollow out the voice a bit and make it more like Chris Cornell. It's a bit of a boring line, so go crazy with the effects.

Love the guitar breakdown. When the voice comes in again I think it should be atmosphere, not focus. Keep it reverbed in the background to contrast with the chorus.

Finally, there's a bit of call and answer in the chorus, but the vocal tones are too similar. In those instances I tend to distort one of the voices, but that's just one trick when many will work. Try to vary the two tones to get more interplay.

In general, I wish there was more atmosphere and less vocal. Of course, that's just one person's ears listening once, and, caveat, I tend to not like testosterone rock.

 

sounds pretty good. song is solid as a piece writing and feel wise. and your eq'ing is good too. everything is nice and distinguishable from one another.

these are definitely just what i hear and i'm just another guy making music by himself at home so the whole "pinch of salt" thing applies for sure. this said though guitars and vocals are the 2 things that i'm objectively strong with tracking wise and the 2 things i really pick apart and critique the ever living shit out of (bc im a guitarist and singer too as it seems you are). so here's my little bit of input. (edit: ignore the little part. i went longer than expected lol)

i agree w/ the above guy with the reeeeally hard panned guitars. they sound a bit "detached" from the rest of the mix and kindof leave the overall mix sounding a bit hollow from 25-75 % of the stereo field in comparison. i too do alot of "rock" and guitars are hard to nail for sure. i definitely went down the road of thinking that if the guitars are super wide it'll make my mix sound HUGE... and it did, but only on the far outsides. i now always pan my guitars to around 95 right and left and that small 5% of crossing the stereo field fills that 3/4 part of the field up just enough to ACTUALLY sound huge while also gluing the guitars a bit more and thus gluing the whole mix more for this type of music. obviously though it's all mix to taste and it's your cake, you can bake it however the fuck you want haha

the other thing i'm hearing is definitely a bit if a pitchy vocal. i've seen you're stock response on other songs you've posted when someone else mentions this (the singing to a guitar tuner thing). first off that's insane. nobody does that. but if you actually are, thats not really a valid check of singing in tune. guitar tuners don't really work for that application as they are made to distingiush a single note at a time when you also know the note you're shooting for. (you're tuning your low e string knowing that you're going for a e and your turning your knob until you get it.) vocals are constantly dynamic and changing and you would have to know the name of every note you're singing to check for it as you sing or playing it back and watch the tuner. when i sing i don't know what the heck note every specific word is in haha. i'm just trying to stay in key.

i say this not to be a jerk. i promise that is not the intention. i just would want someone to tell me if my vocals were a bit off bc it is the absolute biggest and first thing that will say to everyone who listens to your work, "im an amateur". i know as singers who write our own music, our songs become very precious to us and it's sometimes hard to hear weaknesses or clear mistakes that others hear right away, and when they point this out it can feel almost like a personal attack. trust me dude, i can relate. i've heard it all on critiques of my songs on here. you can go read the comments haha. so i say all of that to say.. you're singing a bit flat dude. you have a great voice. but you go flat quite a bit. in this one and more in the most recent one you posted (or at least i think its the most recent). the ballad. i wanted to respond here though bc this one didn't get a ton of reply's and i'm not trying to comment this in front of a bunch of others bc i know this shit can be sensitive.

i'm curious, if you don't mind, but are you wholly against all vocal tuning plugins? i know some guys still are but i think if you're having trouble hearing that you're doing it, it may not be something you can just re-sing bc you're not hearing that it's happening to begin with. i would encourage you to just try a touch of vocal tuning even if it's just to give you a litmus. i use izotope nectar 3. it has a pitch correction built into the chain with a obvious visual representation of when it is activating, that you can enable/disable. i always just figure out the key my guitars are in (hornet is a good plugin for that if you're like me and can't just hear a note and magically know wtf it is lol) as thats what i almost always track first and then set the pitch correction in nectar to that key and then from there my goal is to get my vocal takes on pitch naturally when tracking them so well that the pitch correction never kicks itself on during playback. sometimes thats impossible as i'm not a world class operast haha, but i want to get as close as i possibly can. but if you are totally against using ANY autotune or equivelant enabled in your producions on your vocals, at least this process hears your "blind spots" for you and shows you what it's supposed to sound like and you can then re-sing it shooting for that note naturally.

sorry for the long reply dude but i wanted to fully explain instead of just hitting you with "your gtrs are too wide and you're singing flat". that shit never helps me so i wanted to explain my opinions of YOUR music the way i wish others would explain theirs on mine. politely but directly, with brutal honesty delivered with a bit of tact, and suggestions for ways to solve or help correct what they're telling me i need to work on. hope this is helpful dude. you can totally tell me to fuck right off a cliff as well and keep baking your cake how you like it but i'm just trying to give you an honest critique bc you obviously have talent and there is WAY more good than bad here and in the other ones i listened to. these little issues are just "fine work". having actual instrumentation and vocals (not vocals chops or samples) already puts you 1000 miles ahead of the curve for what is the usual on here.

respect dude and i cant wait to hear more.

 

An idea for your intro: do a discrete track for each side playing every other note, letting it ring. You'll get the effect without making the listener sea sick.

 

It's very harsh in the midrange. I've been going through some of my recent mixes with Neumann NDH 30s and they are brutally honest. First thing I'd do is add Soothe and Gullfoss to the output chain. Soothe will tame the mids and Gullfoss will unmask the bottom end mud. Assuming you do have something going on below 150hz.

 

I'm thinking this too, make it two tracks but not hard panning LR

 

The vocal on the chorus and break was more than fine but there's a bit too much vox in the verses. Perhaps eq carve it up a bit to fit in more nicely as well as attenuate the volume.

My 2 cents are only worth a penny as my hearing sucks lemons these days.

 

First thing i noticed: the energy distribution on the song is kinda strange. The verses has an amount of low end that should be more interesting on the chorus to make it bigger. When it come the chorus it gets smaller, even with louder guitars it lacks punch because of the amount of voltage spent on the verses and intro. The static vocal doesn't help the impact of the chorus.

Also the leveling and groove of the drums sounds unatural to me. Sometimes i just wanted to feel it more and it seemed to stay on the back instead of riding the song (especially the snare). My ears wished more distortion and evil coming from those drums, but that seems a taste thing. But overall weak transients IMO.

And don't desconsider soothing and gullfossing when you feel it gets cluttered. Of course you can eq it out and get better results, but those options are faster and easier.