Slurpasaur - new VHS song

[vomitHatSteve]

Got a new one for your ear holes:

Slurpasaur.mp3

ft. Austin Ash

As always, I'd love feedback. Trying out some new lead effects that sound cool, but do they muddy it up too much?
Are there too many artifacts on the spoken interlude?
General balance issues?
Anything I should fix in the (basic) mastering?

Uncompressed flac for the audiophiles

Thank!

Edit: mix 2

Slurpasaur.mp3

Edit: mix 3

Slurpasaur.mp3

Edit: mix 4

Slurpasaur.mp3

[JD01]

Aside from the snare I think the drums are generally a bit on the quiet side - I'd just bring everything down a little bit around the drums.
Your snare sound isn't great - just doesn't sound very "snary to me" there's no body to it, its really cardboardy.
The interlude is quite cool, no problem with artifacts there... maybe add in a few of your 8-bit noises and stuff. Sounds cool when the harmonised vocals come back it.

[vomitHatSteve]

Thanks JD. Fortunately, I have a shortcut in Reaper just for "select everything but the drum bus" so as to turn them down!

I'll check my snare sound. I'm using my normal EZD chain, but I'm sure it could use some fine-tuning.

[JD01]

Thanks JD. Fortunately, I have a shortcut in Reaper just for "select everything but the drum bus" so as to turn them down!

I'll check my snare sound. I'm using my normal EZD chain, but I'm sure it could use some fine-tuning.

Its a good song though, so you're onto a winner once you sort out the mix a bit more.

Your snare must be partly a stylistic choice as you always go for the same sort of thing, but this seems even more cardboard than normal. I like a pretty cardboard snare too.

I tend to end up with a guitar buss, drum buss, vocal buss and bass which can make things pretty simple for me too.

[vomitHatSteve]

Drum bus
Randomized instruments bus
Lead vox bus
Doubled vox bus
Bass bus
rhythm guitar bus
Abomination 1 bus
abomination 2 bus
lead guitar bus
bgvox bus

I mapped ctrl+shift+a to select all buses, (or rather, select all top-level folders to use Reaper's terminology), and it saves me loads of time!

[musicturtle]

VHS,

I like this tune. I think that yes, the added effects on the guitars is making the mix a little muddy. I can almost feel and hear the riff but it just gets kinda lost in there. I don't hear anything wrong with the spoken part myself.

[vomitHatSteve]

New mix: download/file.php?id=2647

Changes:
More aggressive HPF on the lead guitars to get them out of the mid-range
Everything but drums and randomized elements down about 2 dB
Some stadium-style reverb on the snare to make it bigger
Oh, and I added dinosaur noises. Rar!

Edit:
I immediately hate it!
Mix 3: download/file.php?id=2648
Everything brought back up to its previous volume. Hopefully the 'verb on the snare and the HPF'd leads do enough to help the drums cut through.

[WhiskeyJack]

This is a pretty rad tune.

I am going to echo the drum thing, however, mix 2 does sound kind of gross. Mix three is nice. But elements of the drums are just buried. I am really struggling to hear the kick in the choruses it get's lost under the vox i reckon. I don't have a sub or anything and my monitors are little 5inch KRK's and i can sort of feel the kick in there if i turn it way up but i am still fighting thru to hear it.

I like the cut in the middle of talking stuff lol.

Actually i am on my third listen and i think it's ok the way it is. (Edit 3) That outro you have there has so much shit going on i applaud the mix you actually came up with. I could never make that much shit sound that good together. And oddly enough i had an easier time hearing the kick in the ending than i did in chorus prior to it. Witchcraft. I'm tapping out.

[rayc]

I keep coming here to listen but don't - sorry, I've been out of it with bronchitis and a fever for 1/2 doz days speaking isn't working well and listening is almost as bad. I'll give it a listen as soon as I can hear clearly.

[vomitHatSteve]

No worries! I've been pretty lax about feedback recently too, Ray.

Thanks, WJ. It's only 78 distinct tracts, all said and done. And right at the end, one of them isn't even doing anything. (The first dino roar and the tuned ones later are separate tracks.) Easy as pie to mix!

[Bubba]

Good song, Steve!

78 tracks? My biggest productions top out at under 30 tracks.

The stereo is good on this and I don't have a lot of nits with the mix, it's a little unusual but I expect that from you. I think the reverb on the verse part of the vocal is a little prominent and a bit bright, but it works well when the backing vocals come in. I like it.

[WhiskeyJack]

When doing a mix critique thing for VHS songs you really need to be objective. I think all his songs are wonderful exercises in ear training for us. This one for me is a standout in recent memory because at first it didn't sound like his typical mixes and as my post states i really flip flopped on the whole thing eventually. It was really cool.

76 tracks is mental dude. I don't know how you keep it all sorted? You mentioned a grouping for some certain set of folders. Do you do that for all your other tracks as well? Track folders within reaper is mystery to me man. I should make time to look at them sometime. and figure it out.

[vomitHatSteve]

Thanks, Bubba.

I think the reverb on the verse part of the vocal is a little prominent and a bit bright, but it works well when the backing vocals come in. I like it.

The reverb on the lead vox in the verse? There's a lot of 'verb on the bgvox there, but I thought I was being subtle on the lead!

You mentioned a grouping for some certain set of folders. Do you do that for all your other tracks as well? Track folders within reaper is mystery to me man. I should make time to look at them sometime. and figure it out.

Yeah, I do a lot with folders and track templates.
The thing with the 78 tracks is that I don't pre-mix much of anything. So - for example - the bass is a folder containing all 4 distinct channels that I tracked. 90% of the time, it's effectively a single stereo track of a single (comped) take of one instrument, but I do have the ability to go back and tweak the tone of that one instrument by adjusting the relative levels. (But any automation will be applied to the entire channel unless it's muting individual parts.)
The one exception being the drums where I will add some momentary automation to the kick or snare to prevent peaks.

Ultimately, it's more like 11 stereo tracks:
Drums
Bass
Vox
R-guitar (double-tracked but combined to one)
Abomination 1 (double-tracked)
Abomination 2 (doing the same thing as 1)
L-guitar (3-parts double-tracked but generally just stacked up)
Austin's interlude
BGVox (3 parts double-tracked)
Misc noises (i.e. dinosaurs)

[rayc]

Mix three...not unlike the recent album.
There's standard VHS quirk but it's very accessible at the same time.
Mr Lizard losing its gizzard is OK but it's a long interlude that may have benefited from some dragon sound as well.
Mix wise I quite like it.

[Bubba]

Thanks, Bubba.

The reverb on the lead vox in the verse? There's a lot of 'verb on the bgvox there, but I thought I was being subtle on the lead!

Hi Steve, it's not unsubtle but i think the character of it might be a bit wrong. It has a bit of a "wet" sound where I think a drier type would suit it better.

I'll have another listen and see if I can make more sense.

[edit] Yes, I think a little shorter and a tad less bright. Just my ten pence worth. It's still a good piece of work.

[vomitHatSteve]

Thanks, Ray and Bubba.

I used a lot of the same presets from the last album (until I've tweaked to something better, those are my defaults now). The interlude will hopefully work better in the video version.

I'll look into tweaking the 'verb.

[JD01]

Just remembered to listen to Mix 3. This one is really good.
Only criticism on this is that the vocal on the high notes is pretty cutting - can you take something off the highs? Really well sung though.

Reckon you can get a better dinosaur roar sample?

[vomitHatSteve]

I *could* get a better dinosaur sample, but I don't want to!

Which high notes are you thinking with the harshness? "who" and "science"? That's probably mostly delivery. Maybe I can sweeten it with some EQ tho.

[vomitHatSteve]

Mix 4 is up.

Major changes include:
Less 'verb on all vocals.
More hat on the choruses. Less hat on the verses.
More kick

There is also a remix kit for those inclined to try their own hand at it: http://test.regdarandthefighters.com/tr ... lurpasaur/

Thanks everyone!

[musicturtle]

Sounds much better Steve. Really cool song. The wild effects on the guitar really add to the groove for me. The only nit I have, and it is truly minor, is the lead vox in the 2nd half of the first chorus are a little loud for my taste on the words dark and crushed I think.