Are You Listening? (complete)

[Armistice]

After much ado...

First mix, and I'm about to run out the door and not be back at the studio for more than 2 days, so whatever you tell me, I'll be powerless to act on until Monday night. Unless plans change.

Dedicated to people who write comments on articles in The Guardian and internet trolls everywhere...


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Are You Listening?

You sad little fucker, alone in your room
Internet connection meets prophet of doom
You creep, you slink, you stay out of sight
You may not like it but you know that I’m right, aha

Can you hear me? Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Are you listening?

The rattle of the keyboard, the buzz in your head
People reacting to what you just said
Spitting the dummy, spitting abuse
But not one word is of the slightest use, yeah

Can you hear me? Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Are you listening?

You used to think you were breathing fire but it didn’t do a thing
Now it’s not about the thought, it’s all about the sting
You’re always happy to assist with your trolling and your rage
So long as somebody bangs their fist as they’re scrolling down the page
Unable to resist, you keep rattling their cage

All of that anger, all of that spite
It’s your favourite thing, you can eat it all night
Like a little kid who’s lost his toys
With a trembling lip you give us more of your noise

Can you hear me? Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Are you listening?
Can you hear me? Are you listening?

[rayc]

Very cool 1st mix.
there were a few noises here & there that could be mouth clicks or string noise but I'll need to listen more closely to comment accurately.
the ONLY thing that stood as to me was the lack of emphasis or perhaps lack of breath for the phrase "...rattling their cage."
Cool song, cool mix.
Topical as all get out too!

[Armistice]

Thanks ray. In the car on the way over I'm thinking turn the bass down a bit, the guitars down too but not by as much, and the snare up a bit, as a rough mix.

I have some detailed work to do yet on the vocal tracks too.



I had a quiet and loud version of the cage line. I went with the quiet as the loud was too distant... I'll see if there's a better take somewhere.

[JD01]

This is a great first pass, mate. Like you said, I think the guitars are a tiny bit loud. While your snare is maybe a touch quiet its cutting through your mix well so don't turn it up too much. Have you humanized your drum programming on this? 'cos it does sound a bit robotish and your programming is normally really good.

Back to the guitars, the left guitar seems a bit louder than the right.

[Armistice]

This is a great first pass, mate. Like you said, I think the guitars are a tiny bit loud. While your snare is maybe a touch quiet its cutting through your mix well so don't turn it up too much. Have you humanized your drum programming on this? 'cos it does sound a bit robotish and your programming is normally really good.

Back to the guitars, the left guitar seems a bit louder than the right.

Thanks JD - yeah, I was aware of the imbalance of left /right - or I'm losing hearing in my right ear.

I'm just happy to get a first mix up - I'll do some detailed nudging on Monday night and get the balance right and I also have to make the drums a bit "realer" - it does get a bit robotic.

[Armistice]

Quick 15 minute second mix as I get ready for work and scream out the door, addressing some of the more obvious things I picked up and that JD pointed out. Haven't dug into the vocals yet, ray.

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[JD01]

I think this is really good now, Armistice. Like you said, all the obvious stuff is dealt with.

Its just a good listen to me now - nothing is jumping out at me and I've just listened to it through twice. Aside from distorted guitars and screaming I can't see anything missing with this one.

[Armistice]

I think this is really good now, Armistice. Like you said, all the obvious stuff is dealt with.

Its just a good listen to me now - nothing is jumping out at me and I've just listened to it through twice. Aside from distorted guitars and screaming I can't see anything missing with this one.

Damn, I was sort of hoping no-one had got back to this yet, but thanks for listening.

I just spent about another 90 minutes on it, mainly editing out the random stuff with the vocals that ray was hearing - there were a shitload of lip smacks, grunts, exhaling and random bat squeaks (yup - the bats were out in force that night when I was doing the BVs) on the backups and some more I could do with the main.

Plus I tweaked the drums a bit more - took a few hits out that I didn't really think were adding anything - tweaked reverb levels a bit - nipped some highs off the ancillary crashing chorus guitars and did more volume balancing generally.

So anyway, here's the 3rd mix...

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Seeing we're in a bit of a lull here at the moment I'll stick it up at the other place, see what they have to say..

[JD01]

Have you pushed the guitars up a bit on this version, they sound louder. Think they could come down ever so slightly.

At 1:29 - you're leading with the snare, great. But you change and hit a few cymbals here too, when you do this the snare hit stays exactly the same and sounds quite fake, actually listening again, I think the hi-hats stay in while you hit the other cymbals!

Sounds great though, mate.

[Armistice]

Have you pushed the guitars up a bit on this version, they sound louder. Think they could come down ever so slightly.

At 1:29 - you're leading with the snare, great. But you change and hit a few cymbals here too, when you do this the snare hit stays exactly the same and sounds quite fake, actually listening again, I think the hi-hats stay in while you hit the other cymbals!

Sounds great though, mate.

No - I didn't change the guitar levels, but cleaning up a bit more of the low end and evening them out on the L/R spectrum may have given them a bit more push - I had some strange inconsistency in volumes on the right side and in the volume envelope in the 3rd verse which I reset to the same as the other verses - so maybe that's what happened. It's certainly not deliberately.

I don't think there's anything with the drums that couldn't actually be played - I've taken drums out from the 2nd mix - didn't add any, but I did turn the cymbals up a touch so perhaps whatever it is is now more obvious. I'll go and check though - it's been ages since I actually did the drums.

[Armistice]

Have you pushed the guitars up a bit on this version, they sound louder. Think they could come down ever so slightly.

At 1:29 - you're leading with the snare, great. But you change and hit a few cymbals here too, when you do this the snare hit stays exactly the same and sounds quite fake, actually listening again, I think the hi-hats stay in while you hit the other cymbals!

Sounds great though, mate.

OK - that was weird - I'm not sure what I was thinking there - but I think had a secondary row of a different hi hat up high in the window that I was using to just vary the sound of the standard hat a bit - and I couldn't see them, but when I just turned the OHs / cymbals on I heard what you were saying and saw the little bastards hiding up there. I'd changed a few hats to crashes but didn't delete the ancillary hat! Clearly I wasn't actually listening to what was going on either. Christ... it's amazing what you don't hear, or I don't hear anyway, in my own tunes, sometimes.

Anyway, I'm going to go back and delete all the other takes and just put the latest below... Thanks for the pickup JD. Turned the guitars down a tad as well - I'll listen on my phone on the way to work in the morning and see what I think.

The irony of this, given the song title, is not lost on me...

[Armistice]

,,,,,,

[JD01]

At least someone is bloody listening.
Will take another listen while I'm having lunch in a bit.

[vomitHatSteve]

Why you deleting the old mixes? Now we can't A/B them.

So I'm jumping in right at the most recent mix.

Lead vox might be a little hot. They're very out-front. Really, a pretty coherent mix tho.

1:39, your consonants on "to assist" aren't quite synced up.

[JD01]

Nothing wrong with that mate - just listened to it through a few times and nothing jumped out.

[WhiskeyJack]

On ear buds right now armi.

on the front of it i love the song and the subject matter man. Brilliant.

I do think the vox this time are a bit up front right out of the gate. too much of a good thing buddy. I will have to give it a more detailed listen some night this week on the monitors.

[Armistice]

Why you deleting the old mixes? Now we can't A/B them.

So I'm jumping in right at the most recent mix.

Lead vox might be a little hot. They're very out-front. Really, a pretty coherent mix tho.

1:39, your consonants on "to assist" aren't quite synced up.

Cool -- thanks VHS, I'll have a listen tonight and see what's to be done.

[Armistice]

On ear buds right now armi.

on the front of it i love the song and the subject matter man. Brilliant.

I do think the vox this time are a bit up front right out of the gate. too much of a good thing buddy. I will have to give it a more detailed listen some night this week on the monitors.

Thanks WJ - I'll leave it for the day, work calls, and tinker tonight some more. Cheers

[rayc]

Morning - sorry we had neither road nor internet/phone after about 8 last night save a few moments here & there.
The initial vocal syllables were a shock - not used to your vocal being quite so clear and confident.
There's a click at the beginning of "...kid..."
Excellent song mate.

[musicturtle]

Cool tune Armistice. Guitars sound really good to me. And the mix is good for me too.

My only criticism would be the "rattling their cage" line. For me it either needs to be more powerful or lower in your range. There's just something about it that doesn't match with the rest of the vocal. It seems like the climax of the song and just misses for me.

Just my 2 pennies. Overall really good work man.