Mountains - original song

[paulman]

Lately I've been working mostly on acoustic/vocal/trumpet demos for a duo act I'm putting together with a friend, but last night I took a break from that to try to finalize a mix from last year. I got lots of input at HR and greatly reworked it (this is the first song I ever posted for critique), but never reposted my "final" product. Upon listening again recently, I decided it needed some sludge cleaned out of the lower end and then it would be perfect. Well, the problem with that is that I used several plugin demos when I mixed and mastered it last summer, that are now expired. So it turned out to be a little more work than just carving out the bottom instruments. I had to figure out what was missing from those demos and try to get the mix back with the stuff I have now (turned out those demos weren't as good as some free plugins I've found since then anyway). I THINK I've got it, but that's where I need opinions from you guys. The sound I'm going for is smooth, warm, and spacy, with a bouncy and prominent yet not boomy bass, and high end clarity especially in the vocals. Kind of Pink Floyd meets 1962 Willie Nelson with a modern clarity. And before anyone comments on not hearing the snare enough, the drums are played with brushes, not meant to be prominent.

And yes, I will be reposting Say It Ain't So, but I haven't had the time to break away to go get my Marshall to fix the feedback. I'm planning on doing that this weekend. That one is not a big deal to me, though. It was just practice, really. This song (Mountains) is one of the first I ever wrote, long enough ago that I don't want to say how long ago it was. I will not rest until I'm satisfied with it, or insane. Whichever comes first.

I'm still using Google Drive, but I posted an mp3 this time. I think the problem was using wavs. I really like to use AAC files, but someone had an issue with that which is why I started using wavs. Then a lot more people had issues. So I went with the lowly mp3. If anyone has any issues playing it, please let me know.

[JD01]

Morning, mate.

Listening on headphones.
The intro guitars sound great.

One thing that sounds bit odd, is the acoustic is mostly on the right and the lead electric is pretty centre so it sounds a bit lopsided. Fine when the piano comes in to fill the space on the left; its only in the verses where its noticeable - actually listening to this again, it doesn't really bother me at all, its just a "feature". The slide solo towards the end could be a tiny bit louder

Sounds a bit like something of Atom Heart Mother - well done, mate!

[rayc]

Parts of this remind me of the gentle parts of Radiohead's Creep.
MP3 played no probs.
The only issues I could point to is the snare sounds a bit crisp or something and the tom fills seem up little up in the air and rushed.
Smooth it is; I think you've matched your reference points pretty well.

[vomitHatSteve]

The only issues I could point to is the snare sounds a bit crisp or something and the tom fills seem up little up in the air and rushed.
Smooth it is; I think you've matched your reference points pretty well.

Yeah, there's a lot of crack on that snare for brushes. It seems like you're really hitting the drums hard.

The piano on the left is meant to balance out the acoustic on the right, correct?

Really, the drums aren't doing it for me, but the mix seems workable otherwise.

[rammer24]

Nice tune. Guitars sound good, vocals too.

Drums are weak, sound-wise. It sounds as if they're high passed or something. The snare and toms sound like a "blip" when you hit them.

I think getting some balls out of the drums would make a big difference because everything else sounds good.

[paulman]

Thanks guys. No, the drums aren't high passed. They are meant to be light and out of the way. Making them ballsy is the opposite of what I want. I was never going for a traditional pop/rock drum sound on this. It seems like people (people who record, that is) expect to hear a regular full rock snare sound on this, but that would kill the vibe. When I first recorded it <censored> years ago, with a band, my drummer used these sticks (I have no idea what they're actually called) that were like a bunch of thin reeds tied together. They produced a light sound that was somewhere between sticks and brushes. Well, now I just have my ekit and sample sets, so I used a brush kit. And yes, I tend to hit pretty hard, and I hate MIDI editing so I don't do much to the velocities after the fact, like I probably should. I considered quantizing some of those fills, but I opted to keep them for "personality", kind of like Ringo's funny fills. Maybe that was a good decision, maybe not.

I'm going to listen again for the acoustic and piano panning. The acoustic was bugging me a little last night, but I ignored it.

[Greg_L]

my drummer used these sticks (I have no idea what they're actually called) that were like a bunch of thin reeds tied together.

Rods, or "hot rods" as some people call them.

I get what you're going for with the drums, but really, they miss the mark IMO. Brush snares do not sound like that. I know you don't want heavy rock drums, but they still need some body and fullness. These drums are all top end. Listen to some real brush drum tracks. They usually have subdued attacks and more fullness and sustain. You have the opposite. Yours are all transient and no body. There's no kick whatsoever. Even the sleepiest jazz drums in the world still have some kick drum in there. A fuller drum track will help balance things out. You have some bass filling in the low end, which is fine, but literally everything else *seems" high passed and thin. The synths, guitars, vocals, are all missing low end balance and sound kind of harshly compressed and small-radio to me. The only thing in the low end is bass. That's not enough. If you went in thinking you needed to remove "muck", you took way too much out IMO.

[rammer24]

I also understand what you're going for with the drums. To be honest, the only time it really doesn't work for me is the tom rolls. They sound like little blips. I don't mind the rolls themselves and I can live with the sound of the drums during the song. It's really mostly the little toms that don't work for me.

But, if you deliberately were going for a certain sound/effect, then I respect the fact that you want to stick with that. It's your vision. When Prince put out "When Doves Cry" and removed the bass from it, everyone including the record company lost their minds. It ended up being an iconic tune. So, take advice and comments. But in the end, do what you think the song needs.

[Greg_L]

But, if you deliberately were going for a certain sound/effect, then I respect the fact that you want to stick with that. It's your vision.

100% agreed. Our comments mean exactly jack shit if you are set on and happy with what you have.

[vomitHatSteve]

I wonder if you could get your hands on a set of brushes and a few actual drum pieces?
Instead of a midi snare that's too cracky for brushes and too light for sticks, maybe record an analog snare and mix that in with the kit?

[Minerman]

This ain't bad, but I agree about the drums, they need a little more "meat" IMO, but as mentioned, it's your call dude, & as long as you're happy, then that's all that really matters...Big props to you for sticking to your guns here dude...

[paulman]

Yeah, the kick could come up. It may be mostly a matter of evening out the MIDI velocities to a certain minimum level, because some of the bass drum hits are right where I want them, but most are too low like Greg said. Otherwise, muted drums without much residual sound after the attack is exactly what I want. I almost think of drums as a necessary evil with this song. Not that drums are evil, but from the very beginning I saw this as a song that didn't want to be without percussion of some sort, but it needed to be low key and not typical-sounding. It doesn't have to be an authentic brush sound (I'm only using brushes because that's what I have in my sample arsenal that comes the closest to what I was looking for), which I could never get anyway because brush technique involves things you can't do on MIDI pads (I'm sure more techniques can be faked with my brush samples using MIDI editing, but I don't have the patience for that shit). The idea of using some real drums is a good one, but the only set I can think of that I would have access to is a really big boomy rock set, and my friend (the same drummer from <censored> years ago that played on the first recording) tunes them really loose. Not to my taste. Makes me miss my Army days when there were always plenty of drums and percussion toys at work that I could use.

I am going to take another look at the overall low end. I said the drums weren't high passed, but that wasn't 100% correct. In fixing the sludge I high passed the kick so that the bass would be lower than the kick (I read somewhere that, depending on what you're going for, you can position the kick over the bass or vice versa). I will take another look at that and see how I could do it better. I also high passed the acoustic so that it doesn't clutter the low end, and then on the whole mix I brought it down just a tad around 100Hz. I'm still learning what I'm doing with these techniques, so this feedback from you guys is invaluable. Thank you!

[JD01]

Yeah, the kick could come up. It may be mostly a matter of evening out the MIDI velocities to a certain minimum level, because some of the bass drum hits are right where I want them, but most are too low like Greg said. Otherwise, muted drums without much residual sound after the attack is exactly what I want. I almost think of drums as a necessary evil with this song. Not that drums are evil, but from the very beginning I saw this as a song that didn't want to be without percussion of some sort, but it needed to be low key and not typical-sounding. It doesn't have to be an authentic brush sound (I'm only using brushes because that's what I have in my sample arsenal that comes the closest to what I was looking for), which I could never get anyway because brush technique involves things you can't do on MIDI pads (I'm sure more techniques can be faked with my brush samples using MIDI editing, but I don't have the patience for that shit). The idea of using some real drums is a good one, but the only set I can think of that I would have access to is a really big boomy rock set, and my friend (the same drummer from <censored> years ago that played on the first recording) tunes them really loose. Not to my taste. Makes me miss my Army days when there were always plenty of drums and percussion toys at work that I could use.

I am going to take another look at the overall low end. I said the drums weren't high passed, but that wasn't 100% correct. In fixing the sludge I high passed the kick so that the bass would be lower than the kick (I read somewhere that, depending on what you're going for, you can position the kick over the bass or vice versa). I will take another look at that and see how I could do it better. I also high passed the acoustic so that it doesn't clutter the low end, and then on the whole mix I brought it down just a tad around 100Hz. I'm still learning what I'm doing with these techniques, so this feedback from you guys is invaluable. Thank you!

Why don't you try one of them egg shaker things?

[paulman]

Why don't you try one of them egg shaker things?

I've used a half-full bottle of popcorn kernels as a shaker before. Worked great.