Ntrack songs

my mastering sucks

Hi all,

I’m looking for tips for mastering tracks.
You can d/l my feeble attempts here:

http://www.neoncircle.com

Any pointers appreciated.

Macca

just listened to a couple of your tracks and like the sound of your guitars, can you tell me your setup (what guitar, effects, etc) as i can never get a distorted guitar sound how i want it.

Depends which ones you mean…
Either effects direct from the Zoom PS04 or miked from my Marshall DSL w/Boss OD2.

macca

Listening to ‘your eyes’ now. Good beat, and the distorted guitar sounds fine, but I think it has a little more low end than it needs - try cutting everthing below 80 - 100Hz; this should let the bass come through a little better, and give the guitar a little more ‘cut’. Also, I think you should pull the guitar back a little, so the vocal can be more up front, and maybe put some ambient reverb on an aux channel and run both guitar and vocals through it. This should make the vocals sound a bit less ‘overdubby’.

Hotel California now - pretty solid mix there, drums sound good. A pinch of delay/echo might help round out the vocal, give it a bit more punch, and some heavy reverb on the backing vocals could make them more seperate - or maybe re-sing them a few notes higher or lower? Harmony vocals are hard to do when you are singing them yourself; you tend to hit the same notes as the lead vocal (after all, you only have one voice! ??? ) A trick I use when recording a singer who is doing his (or her) own backup singing is to mute the lead vocal while recording the backup… When you don’t hear your own voice it seems easier to sing different !

Still, these are good beginnings. I hope to hear more from you later!

'til then;
Tony W

BTW yubious - an old trick to get distorted guitars sounding better is to use less distortion. It seems counter-intuitive, but it really works.

Good luck!
'til…
TW

Hello macca,

Its interesting to see the feel that you are giving this songs. Each mind is a world and yours has very cool ideas!

Its always easy to critize others works, and soon I will be posting some of my own! I think that you need to give yourself a little more credit and not put a first line of “My Mastering Sucks”. It doesnt, its just like most people in this forums I guess, still in the process of getting refined.

Anyways here are my two cents.

I heard each one briefly. I really like the musical ideas in “How long can you hold your breathe for?” Is that original? If it is, you might want to be spending more time on that, than doing covers.
The mix still need some work.
Hotel California: The drums are out of time in many parts of the song. Specially in many of the fills.
The voice sounds like its not part of them mix, it sounds like karaoke and not its not tight with the mix. I cant hear the bass. The guitar sounds are pretty cool and the mix seems a little tighter in the chorus parts and the second part of the song, after “Mirrors on the ceiling” (that part rocks by the way). I guitar solo would have been nice (buts thats the guitarrist in me). After 2:57 sounds like someone started unplugin cables during the recording. Over all I would start with drums and bass mixed tightly, and then adding guitars and voice.

I think you need to redo Diane altogether. Sometimes you might spend more time fixing a mix rather than recording again.

Your Eyes caught my attention the most as a mix. I think you might have spent more time on this one than the others.
Your drums are way in the back, I would give them more punch. I dont like the fact that the bass is panned to the right. It makes the whole song gravitate towards the right and loose balance, try putting it in the center. Maybe pull the guitars a bit back, they are really loud (but they are cool).

Hope it helps, keep up the good work!

Yubious

Here is something that I have done to get a guitar sound that I like (without paying thousands!)

Record a couple of clips from songs where you like the guitar sound. Put them on a track on N-track. Then take time to tweak the gear you have. Try to THINK about the sound you like. Does it have lows, maybe mids, maybe a wah, whatever. Try to “match” the sound with what you like. Replay the sound you like, and keep tweaking until you get to a place that you like. It wont be identical, but you should see improvement.

Good luck

Listened to them all, but was intrigued most by Hotel Cali…

Hotel California
Tooooooo much compression on the drums. But really, you gotta work on the performance on this song before even worrying about the mix.

Really bad drum fills. Like, major flubs. Gotta redo.

Redo some or all of the vocals, paying careful attention to your intonation. You kinda veer off every once in a while, and judging from the other songs you can definitely do better.

The part where you say “he said” in the second verse is really awesome.

Interesting cover that could be a lot better. I think if you put some more work into it, this song will be awesome.