Bob,

You definitely have your sound figured out.  This sounds great.  I think the kick is still a bit hot for my taste, but if left the way it is it still sounds great to me.

You definitely got that late 80's sound down with the guitar work, vocal harmonies, and those heavy drums.

Great job!

Thanks for sharing,
Tom

The only thing keeping this from perfection is that totally too-busy kick drum. If you went on the 1 and 3, without the fill-in kicks, this thing would flow much better. As it stands, those extra kicks are working against the groove rather than for it, adding tension when there should not be. And they are way too upfront in the mix.

And the fill at 2:26 just doesn't work at all.

Next tune, let me take a crack at providing the drums for ya.

Other than that, what a great tune, Bob. Great tone. playing and singing is spot on.

Bob Oister


Danny Danzi:

Hi, Danny,

How are you, buddy?  Hope your summer is going great!

Thanks so much for checking this song out for me, and also for your kind words and helpful, detailed input.  You were one of the nice guys who hopped right in with great advice when I was a total noobie and first joined the forum, and I always try to absorb and learn something from your posts up in the Techniques forum and even on other people's song posts.

As I mentioned in my reply to SudioCat57 above, I went in and manually loosened up the timing and randomized the velocities of the drum track on the new mix, to try to make the drums sound a little more natural.  And, after your good suggestions, I automated all the rhythm tracks up a bit after the guitar solo, to try to maintain the momentum buildup that you mentioned during the solo, and I slightly boosted the low mids on the vocal tracks to try to warm them up just a touch.  Actually, I think I've recently made the mistake of recording my vocals too far back from the mic, because in my last three song posts people have mentioned the vox being a little thinner than usual.  I always used to stay about six inches from the mic for the most part, and backed off for the louder sections of the song.  Lately, I've been singing from about a foot and a half from the mic for the vocals, and I think that little experiment failed for me.  On my next vocal. I'll try splitting the difference, maybe 8 or 10 inches to see how that works out.  I'd much rather get it recorded right in the first place, than have to try to fix things with a lot of EQ after the fact.

Here's the dilemma that I've run into on on the bass.  I'm hoping that you may have some ideas and suggestions for getting a little more clarity and definition into my bass tracks.

Because of the drop-tuned, deeper guitar tone that I like for my rhythm guitars, and because I usually use my 5-string bass, I'm always a little paranoid about the bass guitar levels smearing the bottom end of the mix and causing overall "boominess".  So, I think I have a bad habit of not pushing the bass through enough in my mixes.  On my last two songs, a few people mentioned not hearing enough bass, so in this song I did some more experimenting.  I recorded the bass bi-amped through two different amps, one with a deeper "sub" tone, and one with more bite for click and fret sound.  I then added a bit crusher to the second track for a touch of distortion to help the bass stand out from the thick low end guitar tracks.  Since your comment on the bass, for this new mix I lowered the sub bass track and pushed the bit crushed track a little higher, and ran the HPFs on both bass tracks up to 60hz to try to "uncloud" the lows on the bass.  I think it seemed to help for this new mix.

If you happen to get a chance to give the new mix a listen, please let me know what you think, and also if you might think the rhythm guitar tracks throughout the whole song might need to come up another hair or two.

Thanks again, Danny, for all of your help in the past, and also for your always informative posts up in the Techniques forum.  Have a good one, buddy!
Bob

Hi Bob,
 
I'm doing great thanks, hope you are too! My summer is going great thanks, hope yours is as well. You're very welcome on the comments. First off I'd like to say, don't ever change man. As talented as you are, you remain humble and open for comments and suggestions. This is really great and will only help you to be 100% better brother!
 
I gave a listen to the new mix and I think you've improved it...nice job there! A few things that I still hear. On the bass, if I'm not mistaken, it sounds like you're in C#, so that means for that low bass, you're going to have to be careful of the 69Hz range since that's where that particular bass note is coming in at. When we get into low tunings that are somewhat strange sounding in our mixes, it's a good idea to check out the actual note in hertz and see if you can curb it or even use a mutiband limiter if just that particular note is giving you problems. I find this issue when clients send me bass tracks with a 5 string bass that uses that low B. You'll find this issue most times from low D on down to B depending on the bass used and the sound that was printed.
 
Now from what I hear, you've definitely done a better job on the bass. At least I can hear what's going on a bit better and it's no longer sending out massive low end like it was. I still think it's a bit sub sounding...but I do not believe the problem is too much sub. I think now it might be cool to mess with some bass clack at about 2.5k or maybe even some lower mids to give the bass a bit more identity. You may even want to compress it a bit more just to tighten it up so that it remains a bit more distinct and less quirky.
 
I agree with James on the extra kicks. However, because they are a bit louder than they should be, that definitely brings what could be considered "a bit too much" into the scheme of things. As a drummer myself, I would probably play a few of those in there but I probably wouldn't let them hit constantly like they are....and the kick drum to me is definitely about 1dB to 1.5dB too hot in my opinion.
 
The guitars sound fine now and you made that "end of lead" section sound like we haven't lost impact. See how that made a difference? Not that it's super important or anything, but we have to retain that consistency and when we have boosts on instruments to where they disappear at some point in the mix, it definitely can leave us feeling like "hey, did the volume just drop?" when in reality, we lost the boost of the focal instrument being pretty loud. So nice job on that.
 
The fixes to the vocals are also much better now. You were getting a thin, cut mids type sound before. Now you have that happy medium of mids and a nice presence.
 
You've definitely improved the mix, so nice job all the way around. I'm glad that the stuff I've shared has been helpful to you and I'm also glad that nothing I mentioned about your great song offended you. That is and never will be my intention. Keep up the great work Bob as well as that open mind you have brother. It really is rare when someone as talented as you can be so open to ideas and respond so well to them with open arms. You're a class act and a great musician/song writer. All the best to you brother! :)
 
-Danny

 
Hey there Bob
 
Wow brother - this is just stunning!
 
I love the rhythm guitar tone, love the solo, love those cheeky little harmonics - and your voice is sounding as good as ever I've heard too mate.
 
Lovely-jubbly
 
 

chasmcg:

Hey,

Thanks for giving "Razor's Edge" a listen, and for your kind comments and input!

I took your good suggestion for this third mix and backed off the drums a touch, and as I mentioned to Danny above, worked a bit on getting the bass track to stand out a little better.  I'm hoping that it sounds more in the general ballpark now.

If you happen to get a chance to give it another listen, please let me know if you think I should still drop the drums a little more.  It seems that a few people mentioned that they think the kick drum is a little too loud, or possibly too active.

Thanks again for listening and commenting, and have a great weekend!
Bob
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morenoise:

Hi, Rik,

How are you, my friend?  Doing well, I hope!

Thank you so much for checking this song out for me, and for your very kind words of encouragement!

I really appreciate your specific comments, because it makes me feel as though I am starting to get closer to my musical goals.  Since joining the forum, my entire game plan was to try my best to blend 80's melodic hard rock and metal with current, modern alternative metal guitar tones and production techniques, so you really made my day.

Thanks again, Rik, I'm very grateful for your input.  Have a great weekend!
Bob
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No How:

Hi, Rick,

How are you? It's always great to hear from my "Reckless Gents" buddy!

Thank you, kind sir, for giving this a listen, and for your encouraging comments!  LOL, I guess it could be called a "Six String Shooter", but, I'd have to be sure to leave the silencer off, because I assume that would actually be the mute button.

Thanks again, Rick, I always look forward to your input and observations, as well as your very cool music.  Have a fantastic weekend, buddy!
Bob
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StudioCat57:

Hi, Phil,

How are you, brother? Doing great, I hope!

Thanks for coming back for a second listen to this, and also for your encouraging comments on the new mix.  I really appreciate your input and observations.

What you mentioned in your first post really made me take a step back, do some research and forced me to learn more about midi drum processing techniques, which really helped out a lot in this remix, and definitely will on my future tracks.  I'm also going to go back and check my older recordings to see if the drums can be improved using what I learned.

Thanks again, Phil, and you and your band did an amazing job on your song, "Curse of the Troll", killer good stuff!

Have a good one, buddy!
Bob
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Scoobie:

Hey, Tim,

Thanks very much for stopping by to give this one a listen, and also for your very kind words!

I truly appreciate you taking time to listen and comment, and I'm very grateful for the encouragement.

Nice work on the live video that you posted of The Gibsons.  I know it's very hard to capture a good live band audio recording, especially outdoors, and you did a really great job.

Thanks again for your input, Tim, have a good one!
Bob
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tyacko:

Hi, Tom,

How are you, buddy?  Hope you're doing well!

Thanks very much for checking in on this one for me, and also for your encouraging comments

Yeah, this DAW recording and mixing stuff seems like a never ending learning process, but I feel like I'm finally making a little headway and starting to get a better handle on things.

As per your suggestion, and Danny's, I'm going to try to back the kick drum down a little more when I get a chance sometime later this week.

Thanks again for your input on this, and it's really great to see you around the forum again.


Have a good one, my fellow Keystone State friend!
Bob
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Pretty cool tune. Very nice guitars and vocals. Vocals reminded me a lot of Ozzy. I liked everything except the kick drum but maybe that's just me. It's very rare for me to hear a recorded/soft synth kick drum in modern music that I like.

Nice work Bob. I would agree with you that easing up on the kik would probably loose some drive to the song. But, I did think the drum 'loop' was a little repetitive. 

Danny Danzi:

Hi, Danny,

How are you, buddy? Hope you're hanging in there with this crazy heat wave we've got going on!

Thanks very much for your kind words, and especially for coming back for a second listen and some more great advice!  I always appreciate your informative posts and good ears.

As I mentioned in my reply to James, I spent some time the other night fooling around with the kick drum patterns, but just about everything I tried ended up sucking the "drive" out of the song, so I ended up dropping the kick back, and the whole drum bus, down a little bit, and re-eqing and re-leveling the bass.  I think it sounds more in the ballpark now.  I also killed a few very faint vocal delay tails that were barely audible after the acapella outro.  It was really weird, because I had to strain to hear them in the wav file, but they were louder on the MP3.  I'm guessing it was something to do with the MP3 encoding process.  Please let me know if you think the drums might still have to come down a bit volume-wise.

Your advice on the 5-string bass is right on the money.  As I mentioned to Bub, the open B string is usually around 30hz, and is always more felt than heard when the hi-pass is set between 60hz and 80hz.  I'm hoping to get some time over this weekend to experiment a little more with the bass eq on this, and I'll try cutting a notch at around 69 or 70hz on the sub bass track, like you mentioned, to see if I can squeeze out a little more clarity.

Again, Danny, many thanks for your time, input, and great ideas, you've always been one of the most informative and helpful guys around here.  Have a good one, my friend, and try not to melt down there in the good ol' NJ heat!

Bob
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Nevermind

Great recording man minus the tom that got away from you  , overall great recording !

Bob... Very good. I always know that when I see you post I well not be disappointed. This is classic rock at it's finest.

Enjoyable.

Man... that sounds huge... Well done Bob...

Bob Oister

tcaylor:

Hi, Tom,

It's really great to see you around the forum again!

Thanks for giving this a listen, and for your very kind words.  I've been tweaking the bass and drum EQ to try to achieve a little more bass definition, hopefully, this current mix is getting closer.  Over the next few nights, I'm hoping to get some time to try some more experimentation.

Thanks again, Tom, I really appreciate you taking time to listen and comment.  Have a good one, buddy!
Bob
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Thanks for your comments Bob, I have been missing from the forums for awhile and was trying to comment on some songs and get feedback on some tunes I've been working on.....then I broke my wrist so I guess I'll just be commenting for awhile :)

take care....

Really loving the tune and performances Bob. I have to agree about the drums and bass need a tad more attention.