Critique my rock recording!

[KyleAndr3w]

Give me your overall input on these recordings.
what you liked what you didnt like, stuff like that.
They were tracked live in a big live sound room on stage into pro tools le and mixed in m-powered and logic pro using my crappy headphones.

theres 2 tracks on there, feel free to critique both but Im mainly concerned about the 2nd track called REmix
Here's the link:
www.myspace.com/kgsrecordingsss

[laboroflove]

i thought it was very good

[RawknRoll]

these were not all tracked together.

drums are very heavy favored on to the high hat and seems to me that the snare and hat are slightly right heavy.

Good performances for all involved. Vocals could be smoother sounding... maybe a titch more compression or better automation.

The biggest problem I have with the mix is it sounds like to me everything isn't sounding like it's in the same place.

It sounds good but I think from your myspace you seem a tad cocky about your recordings

About KG’s recordings
These songs were not tracked in a studio. They were tracked live in a big room into Pro Tools LE. And I mixed and mastered on my laptop using Pro Tools m-powered and Logic Pro through my ****** headphones. So just imagine what I can do in a studio with legit gear =]

The thing i like better about the first one is they sound like they were all recorded together.

Other then that the remix is much better.

Overall good job.

[laboroflove]

but need a lil' humbling

[Danny Danzi]

Personally, I think both mixes are solid and well done. The performances are good also. The only issue I have with the mixes are they do not have proper pan fields and you seemed to accentuate the size of your drum pan field more than the rest of the instrumentation, which in turn leads to a shallow, narrow mix. It sounds as though you used a stereo enhancement plug on the drums making them the biggest sonic placement in your stereo field. There are no rules of course, but industry standard is to pretty much set your drum kit in the center of your mix, pan the kit accordingly either from listeners perspective or performer perspective and pan the other instrumentation outside of the drum kit. For example, picture the symbols here as a stage with the & symbol being your drum kit. The other symbols represent your guitar, keys, back ups etc. This is what you should be shooting for.

* @ $ & $ @ *

If you were to properly pan your drums, you would visually see and hear something like this. Each & represents a drum instrument, like cymbals, toms, ride, hats etc. The other symbols again, will be your other instrumentation.

* @ $ & & & & & & & $ @ *

In between each space are extra pan fields you can utilize for effects purposes etc. You don't want too many instrumentals to occupy the same pan field. For example, quite a few people over-use hard left/hard right pans. If they also use stereo effects, the default for a stereo effect pan is also hard left/hard right and this can lead to frequency crosstalk if you're not careful due to too many instruments occupying a pan field. From there, you have to take eq into account. Same frequency instruments that are occupying the same pan field AND a similar eq setting will just cross each other out. You have 200 different pan possibilities. Use them and create your stereo sound stage.

In your mix, this is what I see and hear. Again, the & symbol represents your drum kit. The $, @ and * symbols will represent your guitar, keys backups etc. So when I listen, this is what I hear..

&&&& @$*&&&*$@ &&&&

So what this means is, you have drums spread across the spectrum and everything else in the center. Plus, you have additional drums that are somewhat centered. Picture a stage. Your drum kit is in the middle, all the instruments surround the drum kit. There is no reason why the drum kit needs to go beyond a certain pan field and go wider than the other instrumentation unless you do this in a certain section of the song for effect purposes, understand? You can let your kick, snare, bass guitar and lead vocals occupy the center pan field. You just have to be careful with kick drums and bass guitars because same low end instruments will cancel each other out and you'll be wondering why you have to keep raising your kick drum, and then your bass guitar, and then your kick is gone again, so you raise it again. This is all due to frequency masking. If you like the sound of the 70hz boom you get in a kick drum, you have to make sure you are not accentuating 70hz in your bass guitar, with me now? :)

I hope some of this stuff helps you. I really think you have some good mixes here and they were well performed. I would just spread things out a little more and allow the mix to breathe by creating a sound stage like I did with the symbols. Just picture yourself at a concert. What would you see and hear if you sat dead center of all the action and the mains in the house pa were not running? This is how you have to set up your mix. Best of luck and nice job on your tunes. :)

[KyleAndr3w]

these were not all tracked together.

drums are very heavy favored on to the high hat and seems to me that the snare and hat are slightly right heavy.

Good performances for all involved. Vocals could be smoother sounding... maybe a titch more compression or better automation.

The biggest problem I have with the mix is it sounds like to me everything isn't sounding like it's in the same place.

It sounds good but I think from your myspace you seem a tad cocky about your recordings

About KG’s recordings
These songs were not tracked in a studio. They were tracked live in a big room into Pro Tools LE. And I mixed and mastered on my laptop using Pro Tools m-powered and Logic Pro through my ****** headphones. So just imagine what I can do in a studio with legit gear =]

The thing i like better about the first one is they sound like they were all recorded together.

Other then that the remix is much better.

Overall good job.


Right on dude thanks. Yeah sorry I didn't even realize I sound like a fool Ill take that out. But yes they were tracked together at the same time.

[KyleAndr3w]

Sweet advice Ill keep it all in mind. After I get off work thats the first thing Im doing =]