Help me out! Is this too bassy?

[Dee]

If anyone can be bothered to download this track I did (some of you already know it) can you tell me if this rough mix is too bassed up? If I had a couple of different systems to try it on I could get an idea of the overall balance but I only have one set of speakers and no amount of bass troubles them. Cheers.

*Link edited*

I know the compression isn't right -- it's "breathes" too much, but this is just a quick mix. I'll fix the compressor settings later. Also, the guitar solo (I hate it) needs to be about 1 or 2 decibels louder, I think?

[satchbooger]

Through a set of cheap set of harman kardon computer speakers it sounded good.
Only thing I would have like to hear more of is the bass notes for the clean section.
Sounds a little obscured during the parts played along with the drums.


Through a 500 watt surround with sub it sounded bassy.
Sounded like it was just the drums (the kick and toms) that were too much.

+1 on 1-2 db on the solo

Sounds great anyways...I really dig all the stuff you have posted.

Keith

[LuredMaul]

Sounds good sofar..........on my Logitech 5.1 system
Bass is tight and solid

[Dee]

Great. Thanks for the feedback.

Keith -- do you mean the soft bass part after the solo? That's actully a guitar playing that part, then I transposed it down an octave. It sounded better this way than playing it on the bass, but again thanks, I'll bear what you said in mind.

[Fender868]

Great stuff here man. It's got a funky intro riff. I like the eerie tone you establish. The distortion is nice and tight. Not too bassy, this is actually some of the higher quality mp3 file i've ever listened too. You did your homework. I work with this type of stuff in and out of stereo, and to tell you the truth it amazes me how many people out there are incapable of properly calibrating eq, or always scoop their mids.

Anyways, good job!

[tobias.]

sounds cool - nice tone/playing and good transparent mix - great job!

[Dee]

Originally Posted by Fender868

Great stuff here man. It's got a funky intro riff. I like the eerie tone you establish. The distortion is nice and tight. Not too bassy, this is actually some of the higher quality mp3 file i've ever listened too. You did your homework. I work with this type of stuff in and out of stereo, and to tell you the truth it amazes me how many people out there are incapable of properly calibrating eq, or always scoop their mids.

Anyways, good job!

Thank you for the comments, and I agree with you on the scooped mids thing and bad EQ curves. the WAV file sounds quite a lot better than the mp3, btw, but as it's a long track I had to encode at 160k otherwise the file would be huge. Cheers again.

[BigShred]

Dee, it's excellent. Not too bassy at all, though I would turn up the level on the leads a little bit. I think your distorted rhythm guitar is too loud. It's fine the way it is, but that's just what I would do.

What'd you do the drums on?

[Dee]

Oh cool, thanks BigShred. The leads are most def too quiet. I mixed it like that because I don't really like the solo much, but now I realize if it's there it might as well be heard rather than struggling to hear it. Maybe I should knock the rhythm guitars down a touch during the solo, it all gets a bit too busy-sounding I reckon.

The drums were "hand made". By that, I mean I took a short sample of each drum (kick, snare, 3 toms, 3 cymbals, etc) and laid them out by hand using Audition 2.0. Every bloody hi hat beat was placed by hand! LOL. It was quite time consuming because I didn't know the software very well, but then I realized I could have copied and pasted most of it in chunks. Also, I didn't have them exactly on beat at first, then as I used the software more I found better / quicker ways of doing things.

I play drums, and usually I hate the (lack of) feel of sampled drums and drum machines, they are too "stiff", so I constructed the beats with the intention of not doing anything a real drummer couldn't do.

Cheers again, thanks for taking the time to listen and post comments. I value input of all kinds, even if it's to say it sucks, but I'd at least like to know why someone would think it sucks! Fortunately, no-one has ever said that about anything I've done since I started out playing 27 years ago!

[LonePhantom]

Still sounding good Dee.

I actually jam over your original track without any solos from time to time for a bit of fun.

Oh also solo is awesome too! Don't know why you don't like it. If I could put something together like that I would be a very happy man!

[Dee]

The solo was a pain in the ass! It's the first time I've tried recording a solo using something like the Phrygian Dominant scale, and I guess it's not bad, but 1) the rhythm track underneath was quite difficult to solo over because it's quite busy, and 2) I'm a too much of a perfectionist at times and I'm rarely happy with anything I come up with.

One thing I learnt this time around is that I need to give myself more room for soloing in the future. I can sometimes over-egg the pudding when writing songs because the solo is always the last thing to be recorded and I should plan more carefully. On the other hand, this track was recorded quite fast and spontaneously, it just sort of fell into place.

Cheers bro.

[StoneLord]

The 15" sub in my studio didn't complain....it's fine.
nice job.

[satchbooger]

actually its only the beginning of the song that I would prefer the bass notes to be a touch louder.
But thats also just my personal opinion. What sounds good is very subjective.

As for saying it was bassy on the surround sound system.

In comparison to the 6000 mp3s i have your song has more bass than most and
I would turn the bass down to suit my listening preferences

anyway, awesome work

Keith

[CosmicDebris]

I liked it. By the end of the song I had all the lights off and was waving my lighter in the air.

[Dee]

^^ LMAO!

Keith: OK, gotcha. Cheers!