Hello,
I don't know whether this is the good topic or not, but I would like to get feedback from professionals about my guitar playing. Which areas do I have to focus on etc. I did the recordings on my own during the weekend. I am a member here for a week now and I found the site very useful and started immediately working on a legato lesson series. I am also interested in critics about the recording itself. Here you can find the songs. Feel free to comment and share them!
http://soundcloud.com/mestahh/sets/feldalgoz-sok
I really like the first song. your guitar sounds very good, and fits perfectly into the whole picture .
Nr7.- Hahaha nice GnR input . Well,you're very technically constructed, and I'm sure that you'll improve your knowledge here even more!
Just some constructive criticism on the mixing/mastering and only based on a quick listen on my laptop rather than through our mastering chain- I listened to some excerpts from about 4 tracks rather than complete ones...
1/ Too much bass on all to the extent that it is booming. Also on some the bass sits too forward for the type of music/in comparison with the originals as I remember them.
2/ tracks are a bit muddy in the low mid end,
3/ tracks sound like there is some distortion/clipping.
4/ High end sounds harsh to me.
5/ too much compression and a general lack of dynamics.
6/ lack of stereo width
All of these are quite common mix issues and I'd suggest that you look at how you eq and compress and in future mix on monitors rather than on headphones. Headphones do not provide an accurate enough sense of the stereo stage for mixing. Also, you really need monitors that can go down below 60Hz in order to hear and mix the bass end properly - too many mixers can't hear the bass end and over compensate ending up with too much bass.
Watch the levels of instruments relative to each other. As it stands your bass is too forward in the mix and so needs to come down in level relative too all the rest. Arguably I'd also say that your vocal is too forward, to the point where it sounds more like acapella with background music. One thing you might want to try in future if you are unsure of your vocal level is to do several versions, 1 as you've here, 1 with the vocal turned down 1-3dB and one with the voc up 1-3dB and then critically listen to and evaluate them.
You also need to watch your peak levels as the mixes sound to me like they distort. There are definitely a few transients that clip. Your mixes generally would benefit from correct digital gain staging. If you're unsure how to do this as a ball park starting point aim to have a final mix that peaks around -6dBFS and with an RMS of around -20dbFS. That should leave you with a mix that has dynamic range and avoids clipping. You can then increase the perceived volume at mastering if desired. This can be done through proper gainstaging and so involve minimal, if any, use of limting/compression for volume.
Having said that too many mixers think that mastering is just a case of sticking a limiter on the 2 bus and pushing up the percieved volume. That isn't mastering. Mastering is less about adding a few effects etc to the 2 bus then about an objective viewpoint on the final mix along with quality control. If you are too close to the mix you cannot be objective enough to master it. To put it another way, if you mixed a track to the best of your ability and then mastered in the same studio and using the same equipment you are very unlikely to be able to hear issues and problems with the mix. If you could hear them then you would have corrected them a mixing. As an absolute minimum you should leave a final mix at least for a few days before you attempt to master it. Ideally you should get someone else to master it in a properly set up mastering studio and not a mix studio.
As a general comment - there are hundreds of stories and videos of 'mixers' who claim to be able to 'mix and master' a track in a few minutes. As a professional mastering engineer it takes me around 40-60 minutes to master a single well mixed track and about 6-8 hours for an lp - and that's after years of experience. Apart from anything else I have to carefully listen to the track quite a few times before I can make any decision on what to do or quality control it. I also have to listen to it afterwards to ensure that it's quality controlled, translates and is the best I can get from it. 3 or more listens of a 5 minute track and you're already in to at least 15 minutes of studio time. The idea that you can mix and master in a few minutes...
Sorry if the above sounds harsh - it's offered as constructive criticism in terms of what issues you need to address. Your mixes aren't bad but they do repeat some common mistakes.
Thanks very much! I don't take such good comments as an offense. I try to focus on the things you have said. I'm really interested in recording and creating songs by myself and unfortunately I don't have money for a recording studio. I do really need a decent pair of monitors I have started save up already. Thanks again for replying in such detail. I try to apply the comments during next time.
it sounds like you have good timing and tempo control. Also good right hand. I think you will make great progress here since you are already on your way
Your version of Pretty Woman is excellent !!
You sound like you're already very capable on the guitar... I look forward to hearing / seeing more of your playing.
Thanks for all the comments. I have started to read a book from Bobby Owsinski about mixing, and started the mixing process again on a few songs. If I finish, I'll share them. I hope I can improve both on the guitar and on mixing. Rock & roll!
Wow dude this is great stuff!!!
As Ben said, pretty woman is awesome ! haha
it sounds very good to me dude, but i only have my laptop speakers now, def sounding good guitar. Pretty woman rocked!
hi man, nice pretty woman version, are the "you could be mine" and "sweet child of mine" licks sounding in the back ??
the recording is good to me!
Should I also say that Pretty Woman rocks yes i do! congratz mate!
Thanks again!
Yesterday I've started mixing from the begining on another set of songs. I don't want to disturb these, at least I can recognize the improvements. Thanks for the comments on the guitar playing. I figured out that even the minimal amount of daily practising helps a lot. I focus on legato, bending and vibrato right now and to further improve right-hand precision a'la Paul Gilbert No doubt, he IS the master.
Yes,
first when I programmed the drums for the verse, it came to my mind that it's pretty similar sounding to the You could be mine intro. Then it was obvious to add another GNR licks to the spaces
Just a general comment about Soundcloud and compression for anyone using Souncloud or indeed any website that streams audio...
It's probably worth remembering that although you can upload any audio format, including waveand Apple lossless that Soundcloud will transcode the file at output to stream as a 128kbps mp3. That means it will also apply an 11:1 compression to a 24/44.1 wave and may add some internal digital summing gain and the compression might even cascade. If you come even close to digital ceiling and/or compress your audio Soundcloud will compres it more and can take it over in to clipping. If you want to use Soundcloud peak at a more conservative level and carefully consider the compression ratio on the 2 bus.
Mesti - this may be part of the mix issues I commented on.
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