When I rule The World featuring Kristan Mikala

A new tune featuring Kristan Mikala on vocals...
This is a rough basic mix so far... 
 
Complete REMIX: 2-8-11
 
Latest Mix 2-17-11
featuring David Adkins on harmony
 guitars...
Final Mix (maybe) 2-19-11
http://www.soundclick.com/TanTon

The band sounds really good, and she's an awesome singer. That is the band right? Or is that all you?

Scottytunes


The vocals sound great! I am getting a phasey playback from your SC site.

Thanks Scotty...
My ears are fried... I'll listen again tomorrow and...
 
Thanks Robby... just me and Mikala so far, but I'm going to bring in my buddy Dave Adkins on this to sweetin' things up a bit... check back a little later for some hot licks, and a better mix... 

I listened to a bit of the first song. It has some good sounds. It sounds WAY overly compressed though, especially the snare and toms. Maybe it was just squashed way too much in the limiter, or possibly the individual drum tracks were squashed too much. The snare bottom is very much affected.

I can also hear all sorts of background noise. I would advise to get a program like izotope rx and clean up every single track in your Audio sub-directory in your project. That way when the files are compressed, the noise volume is not brought up.

Shoot for -10db RMS. There isn't much point to go much louder. Everything else is out of line if it's beyond this, not yours.

Anyway, because of the overly compressed sound, I stopped listening. It was actually hurting my ears :(

Good song Frank, quite memorable and she sings it well. Always quality playing in your tracks and this is no exception, everything played just enough to support the song. Good stuff.

James

  Over all this sounds very good but there are a few things that, for lack of better
words gives it an "unnatural sound". That term I'm using isn't the proper one just
the only term that I can think of. It may be caused by the combination of those few
things. Scotty had mentioned the phasy sound. I hear that too but it seems to be
in the mix. Some similar effect that I remember was in the old Doobie Brothers song
Was it Listen to the music? (That part) "like a lazy falling river rounding castles in the sky"

  That was more like a flanging effect in that place in the Doobies song as opposed
to what seems a bit more chorusy on your song and it was (only in places) for effect
on their song whereas yours is all the way through.

  The kick and snare side stick sound great.
  Going from the (Side stick) to the (snare) is a huge contrast as the "snare has a
low mid thump to it like a metal snare tuned low with maybe a gated sound but
with a reverse reverb. The toms sound similar too as well with what seems a
bit more comping and maybe some kind of saturation. Its a real "loose" sound
compared to the great sounding, and tight kick.

  The snare and toms have a "swoosh" sound.

  Your piano and vocs have a wide sound. Good on the piano but the vocs coming
from the "sides" in aural perception does just that. It puts the vocs to the side.
The acoustic or electric guitar which ever that is coming from the middle and the
lead guitar fills (as well) sort of (take up that middle space) where the vocs should
be instead.

  The kick and bass down the middle (it sounds that way) sound good. the toms
going side to side sounds neat as far as looking at it from a "lets try this aspect"
but in looking at things from a real world aspect it sounds like the toms are
stage left and stage right.

  I was over 2 minutes into the song before I realized that she was singing
"when I rule the world". Of course more listens (not just the first) would have
a person understanding the "words" in the vocs more, but on the first listen
there isn't much clarity in the vocs.

   The vocs also have a bit more of an effected sound which kinda falls in with
the electric piano sound so the vocs are (not very intament sounding) or
should I say more in front sounding. That might be caused by the "wide sound"
of the vocs.

  It might be only places in the song where the toms sound so panned such as
the intro. And take into account that we sometimes hear differently be it the
"listener" or the "person mixing". So what I'm speaking of here is first impression
types of comments and I don't know if I'd call them crits as I generally think
of crits as something that many people might notice that same thing.

  Anyway I guess I can call them thoughts. This is great as usual from you Frank.

 

He said it's a rough mix, don't be too critical. :) It sounded great for a rough mix. I had 8.5 up with Guitar Rig running and I was doing some riffs to it. The only thing I noticed is, there's no place for a lead, and it's hard to do riff's with the way she's singing it without overlapping her vocals and taking away from them. She's such a great singer I don't know if I would want to take any attention off of her voice. Not sure if you could add any more too this other than what's in it. That said, it sounds great the way it is.

I'm almost hearing some Chris Isaak Wicked Game style guitar going good with this.

Great song.

spacealf


Nice smooth song. To me it lacks some low end and the vocals seem to be coming out of the left speaker more than the right.

spacealf
 
I thought it was just me or if I needed to start considering hearing aids - the lead vox seems to becoming from the left more than centered...

Great job Frank! Sound like you guys (gals) have some great chemistry going on...all in all I think your heading in the right direction.

I'm like Robbie I can just let your tracks roll on...love 'em...a fav of mine is gone tomorrow.

Great job mate!

Thank you all so much for listening and commenting, and especially "acoustigod" and "jimmyman" for their critical insight... This is one reason why I love this forum... very helpful...
 
you guys are right on..  I did squash the drums way too much, and I used too much delay on the vox...
I should not have posted this yet because I was burned out after tracking all day... I spent maybe 5 minutes on this mix...
I'm sure the next mix will be better, when I can get to it...
I'm sorry I haven't commented much lately on all the fine music here... I am listening though...

Beautiful song, and she has a great voice ("Rule the World")

Overall nice powerfull mix, Great voice. Only thing bugging me almost right out of the gate is the kick and bass are doing two different patterns. I'd redo the kick to match closer to the bass.
Otherwise I like what you are doing with your songs, good stuff.

I didn't hear the original, but I sure LOVE the remix.

Seriously, even though this isn't the type of music I normally listen too, I could almost see me putting down money for it.   And at the minimum it's the type of song when it comes on, I stop listening to the people I'm talking to and just enjoy the music.

I REALLY loved her singing, it just caught me up.   Playing was great as well.

Sorry, I don't have much to criticize.

Oh and I did take the time to rate it 5 stars, hope you make it to #1, really

Your stuff always sounds so amazing.  Clean and professional in every respect from instrumentation to production.  Something to aspire too.