Below are the website of the band I play in and our myspace page. There you will find 3 songs (Falling, Beautiful Girl, Fade Away) that we recorded with the 24 bit version of n-track at 96K and 1 song (Wildflower demo) that we recorded with the 16 bit version of n-track at 48K. I would love to hear what you think about the engineering on them.
www.theluckyband.com
www.myspace.com/wearelucky
The microphones we used were Shure SM-57’s, Shure Beta 52, Rode NT-1000, Audio Technica 4033, and two small condensor microphones that I don’t know who made. We used two Behringer Eurorack UB802 four channel boards and an M-Audo 1010LT sound card that went into a Dell Dimension Desktop 8400 which was upgraded with 4 gigs of RAM.
I know the gear isn’t the best out there, however, we did the best with what we had. We recorded the songs in the master bedroom of the house I am living at and they were mixed using shure in ear monitors and computers speakers. With that being said, I hope you enjoy them and constructive criticism would be appreciated.
Best Regards,
Matt
Hi!!
The links don’t work.
Matt.
Hello,
Thanks for letting me know the links don’t work. I took the links off and you can copy and past the addresses.
Best Regards,
Matt
Good tunes! Nice clear mixes. That’s the NT1000 for the vocals isn’t it? I thought Wildflower had the best balance/mix of the four. The compression was just a tad heavy and you could hear the mix getting squished by the crashes at the end, but that’s what the web demands (and forgives), so I wouldn’t worry about it.
I kept wishing the guitar solos had been louder on all the songs, but then I’m a guitar soloist, and I always want more of me in the mix 
I’d compress the vocals on Beautiful Girl. They’re more dynamic than the rest of the mix and would sit better if they were smoothed out a bit.
The rhythm tracks could come up a bit on Fade Away.
All in all, good job!
Hey Karl,
Thanks for the feedback. You are correct, that is the Rode NT1000 on the vocals on Falling, Beautiful Girl, and Fade Away. However, the vocals recorded on Wildflower were done with one of the small condensor mics that I don’t know who made. Once again, thanks for the feedback on the songs.
Best Regards,
Matt
Hah! It was the NT1000! Sounds great. I’ll have to get me one of those…
Excellent quality there - both song-writing and the mix. The drums tended to be a little ‘wide’ for me, but that’s a preference.
I can tell you have worked hard on those - well done, they’re really tight.
-
stuntman
Hey Stuntman,
Thanks for the compliments and the feedback. What do you mean by the drums being “wide”? Do you mean that you prefer them to be panned more towards the center in the mix?
Best Regards,
Matt
Matt,
Good musicianship and a good vibe on all the songs.
The one thing I missed was a sense of ambience or spaciness in the recordings. The guitar rhythms were very trancy, so I expected to hear more delay. This was especially true on falling 
The vox and guitars are good on all of the songs, but the drum sound is much better on Wildflower. They seem much crisper and there is a lot more sizzzle in the cymbal sounds.
Hey Ben,
Thanks for your comments. It’s funny that you say that Wildflower had the best drum sound out of the songs. It was recorded at the lower quality and we used three knee high condesor microphones.
Best Regards,
Matt
Matt,
Did you use condensors on the other songs as well? I’ve heard that you can get a good tom sound by close mic-ing them with sm57-ish mics and I’ve seen someone get a very good “overhead” recording using dynamic mics (though I would definitely use condensors if I could).
The main problem I have had on mixdown is with phase cancellation in the cymbals. If the waves have to travel different distances to the two mics some frequencies will tend to cancel out and the result will be something like a flange effect. I’ve been able to cancel this out by using mic-ing the overhead using a “coincident stereo pair” (i.e. the condensor mics were basically in the same place, but pointed in different directions). The main problem then is getting rid of the cymbal sound from the tom, snare and kick mics.
It sounds like you got a very good recording and somehow don’t have the phase problem!
Good Job.
Ben-
Hi,
yep - I meant the drums could do with a little more centrall panning. I was using headphones whilst listening, and there was very little percussion in the central sape. But hey, as I said this is my preference, not a criticism - Overall I think it sounds great
Ben,
We did use condensors on the other songs as well. We used the two small condensor mics that I mentioned in the first post, that I don’t know who made. For the songs Falling, Beautiful Girl, and Fade Away, the drums were miced as follows.
- Shure Beta 52 on the kick
- Shure SM57 on the snare (top)
- Shure SM57 on the snare (bottom, with phase inverted)
- Audio Technica 4033 on the high hat
- Two small condensor microphones (brand not known) as overheads.
We didn’t use any mics on the toms. Those were picked up by the overheads. I hope that helps. When it comes to placing overheads so you don’t have phasing, I presume the best thing you can do is make sure the two mics are at the same height.
Best Regards,
Matt