Live Cut for demo

[dudesweet157]

From the Oasis Lounge in Graham, NC.  Tracked live at our gig, mixed at home by our steel/lead player.  I'm the chorused rhythm guitar.

http://www.bobsessions.net/mp3/rwb.mp3

Thoughts?  I personally think the lead guitar needs to sit higher in the mix and the 'verb/delay on the vox needs to be toned down a bit.  This is part of a demo we're putting together.

 

[nathan a]

I agree very very strongly with your recommendations-- the lead needs to come way up. More drums too. And in my opinion the guitars and voice sound way too effected. Cut the verb and delay on the voice, yeah; also, the chorus on the rhythm guitar is excessive and distracting. I can't hear any bass guitar, and I'm not hearing much oomf from the kick drum either. The last thing I hear is a volume drop (maybe just a perceived drop?) in rhythm guitar at the transition from verse to chorus. You go from arpeggiated 8th notes to sparse strumming, and my ears hear that empty space as a volume drop. Raising the instrumental mix at the chorus might help.

My 2 cents.

 

[dudesweet157]

Hey Nathan, what are you monitoring with?  Through my home stereo (2.1), car stereo and headphones, I can hear the kick drum and bass fine.  Through laptop speakers, you're right, they are non-existant.

 

[nathan a]

I'm using a pair of Sony monitoring headphones, not sure of the model number. They aren't the greatest things out there, so yeah maybe that's the bass problem.

 

[GoDrex]

Thoughts?  I personally think the lead guitar needs to sit higher in the mix and the 'verb/delay on the vox needs to be toned down a bit.  This is part of a demo we're putting together.

that's where I would start. otherwise it sounds pretty tight - professional to me. The singer has a good enough voice where he doesn't need so much effects. The excess reverb doesn't match with the rest of the instruments. I might experiment with adding reverb to the rest of the mix just to see if it worked with the vocals, but it sounds pretty to me as is so I lower the reverb on the vocal. The guitar just needs to come up a tad and maybe use an volume envelope so you can make it louder at certain points.

 

[dudesweet157]

Here is mix number 2, less delay more lead guitar.

http://www.bobsessions.net/mp3/rwb2.mp3

 

[GoDrex]

i like it better  - the slide guitar is still too low for my taste but it's better.

btw - the singer could nail some Springsteen tunes if he wanted to...

 

[Panthur]

LIstening to it I'd agree that the vocals could dry up a bit on the original mix, but it's not really that bad, I like it and the singer has got class. The rhythm section (i.e. drums and bass) are recorded and mixed perfectly to me.
When I hear the guitar at the very start I hear too much air in the sound, like the mic isn't up against the speaker cloth but way off it. That would make it hard for me to get it right into the front of the mix because bringing that 'air' forward possibly wouldn't sit well with the dry rhythm section, and the lead guitar is distant but it sounds like theres a similar issue there, perhaps even more so (but i might be a 'room' reverb for all I know, in which case, get it gone ;-) ).

That said, I'm not the best producer in the world and no doubt others could offer better advice than me. There's probably some way to 'fix it in the mix', there usually is nowadays hehe. To be honest, if I had a live recording like this then I'd be pretty happy, my experience is that if I'm not the engineer, it's pot luck as to what can come out.