My Songs

I'm usually more of a lurker and rarely log on, but since I'm currently logged on I thought I might as well post a link to my songs. What I'm really hoping for is some tips on mixing and/or mastering. I've been trying for a couple of years now but I feel like I've barely improved in that department. I've read a few books on the subject and it's probably the acoustics and setup of my room, or maybe I just have the opposite of golden ears. Anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback you guys have to offer. Thanks. In case it doesn't show up in my signature since I only just added it, my songs can be found here: http://soundcloud.com/luke-culpitt.

Hey Luke, I like what I heard.  I don't do that genre very well, but you've really got the vocals and guitars down pat!  Maybe seems a little weak on volume and even a little weaker in the bass department.  What do monitor with?  If your monitors exaggerate bass, you may be fooled into thinking you have mixed in enough.  Compare your mixes with commercial CDs of your style as much as you can to see how yours stack up. 

I am a huge fan of iZotope Ozone5 Mastering software.  It made a WORLD of difference on my mixes, as I could never get them up to par with commercial recordings.  There are MANY presets you can use as "starting points" to tweak and polish your mix.  If you check out "Chameleon's Reflection", or "Bridge of Sighs Remix" in this Forum, you can hear Ozone at work (2 of my songs).

One other very small crit-  be mindful of your timing on your double-tracked vocals...ya want them to be nearly identical timingwise so they don't sound like you messed up a line.

Otherwise, great work in my little opinion.  Keep at it!  It takes a while to develop those ears!

Old55 -> Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I'm still getting used to the forum software. I guess I shouldn't have added a full stop at the end of that first link. Thanks for your comments on my song. tbosco -> Thanks for taking the time to give me your feedback. I know that the bass might be a little weak in my mixes. I've been working on that lately and I think I might be making some minor improvements. I'm using Adam A7s for my monitors. I have Ozone 4 but really haven't given it much of a chance. I have the Fabfilter suite of products and mainly use those to master with. My current chain which I use on nearly all songs without much variation is (Gate>Compressor>Distortion>Compressor>EQ>Limiter). I know I should be tailoring my mastering to each song, but I'm pretty lazy with it. This also explains why my double-tracked vocals aren't nearly identical. I've tried making corrections with V-Vocal and Audiosnap but its very time consuming and I haven't been overly impressed with the results. I should just do more takes, I know. Anyway, thanks for your encouraging words. Lynn -> Thanks for your encouragement, too. I will be taking a listen to some of yours and tbosco's and Old55's songs as soon as I have a free moment or two. Thanks again!

G'day Luke, I'll comment even if you are from south of the border ;). I actually grew up in Australia. It's funny hearing an aussie accent in singing. Most of us lose it over the years singing covers etc. I can hear very similar issues to mentioned above. I had the same issues because unlike when I record a band, when I do my own stuff I get too isolated in what I am doing. The mix needs more bottom for sure. Ozone 5 and Alloy 2 and Nectar all got added this week to my arsenal. As Tony above me mentioned, what a difference they make, even on the presets!.

Best advice I can give is, what I tell myself, start at the bottom, (Drums), and work your way up. I hear some really great stuff in there already though.

Cheers,

Tony

Really cool groove, dude! I listened with headphones and the mix sounded good to me. It depends on what you're going for... It sounded like you were going for a sound and you got it. Thansk for posting it.

nice stuff, guitars have good tone.... 

try Chrome as a browser if only to visit here.  FF is broken for this site. 

Looking forward to hearing more tunes.... 

I popped in and took a listen to "Get Things Done", I thought it was really a good piece of work both in vocals and in mix, so depends on what your expectations are?   I'd like to hear you try moving away from the vox doubling and use a mono vocal track normalized and set a combination of EQ and StudioVerb in a vocal bus and experiment with that.  You do have a consistent style now that I've listened to the subsequent 3 numbers after Get Things Done.   It sounds like you have much better monitors and software than many of us, so if you're wanting to push this style further, you got the right place here to learn how to "do more with less" - less time, effort, and frustration I can tell you from my own experience.  Hope you keep at it, you're already making a very nicely balanced mix and I enjoyed listening!
- John