AMT

I PM'd BGC and got some great advice, so I redid the mastering. It shouldn't be clipping / overcompressed anymore, here's the newest version: I think this is the one I'm going to submit. Any thoughts, anyone?

Alright, I made the rhythm guitars mesh with the vocals at the end better. Also smoothed out the intro a little bit so it should be easier to listen to. Redid some of the mixing on the drums so they sound better.

Very nice, this sounds great! Everything blends together well, good luck with the judges.

Hey all, and old mix I did just made it through the queue and I got some sound advice on how to improve it, so I set to work. Here's the judges decision topic: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=25493 I've made a ton of production changes and cleaned it up a lot overall. What else does it need? Here's the old one for comparison: http://tindeck.com/listen/qfiz And the new mix of it: Oldish: 3: http://tindeck.com/listen/vywx 2: http://tindeck.com/listen/dyhl 1: http://tindeck.com/listen/vemm Please listen and leave feedback, thanks! EDIT: Updated link, made rhythm guitars mesh with the vocals at the end better. Also smoothed out the intro a little bit so it should be easier to listen to. EDIT 2: Redid the mastering. It shouldn't be clipping / overcompressed anymore. EDIT 3: Got Addictive Drums, redid the production yet again. Listen!

Wow, that demo sounds great. Knowing it's sampled makes it a lot more obvious, but it's definitely good enough that I wouldn't have given it a second thought otherwise. That'll really help get some people get realistic guitar in their mixes without being able to actually play. Can't wait to hear the real deal!

Hm, does the same thing for me. Try right click > save as on the previous page and open it in the standalone adobe reader, that worked for me.

I just bought a pair of these and I love 'em so far: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/K240S/ $99 falls right in your budget.

Ok, cool. I'll try again with a better source and post back later.

Off the top of my head I'd probably position the mic in front of a monitor, play back a sample of some sort, then switch what the mic is plugged in to and play the sample again without moving anything else. That's the only way I can think of, really. EDIT: Here's a quick test: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=507c82cc226f7aef0c814df2efeadc50e04e75f6e8ebb871 Raw is the sound I played, ART is through the preamp and FastTrack is straight into the audio interface. What do you guys think?

I had it left over from when I used a plain FastTrack and needed phantom power, but it also has a limiter on it so I still use it. I can't hear a difference myself but I can record some comparison samples later for the curious. (It's a Tube MP Studio, by the way)

I have a pair of BX5as, a FastTrack Pro, an ART Tube Preamp, and AT2020 and an SM57. Just today I added the two Marantz speakers in the corners and an Onkyo receiver to check mixes on / etc. I use REAPER for all my recording and mixing. These were put away in the photos above, but I've got a little Frontman 25R for guitar and a Rumble 100 for bass. Both work wonderfully for live and recording.

Sounds like you already made your decision, but here's an example: http://tindeck.com/listen/bklb This used an AT2020 for vocals, SM57 for guitar / bass, and REAPER for mixing / sequencing / etc.

I managed to grab an AT2020 for about $60 bucks and it works amazingly well. I can try and post samples later but I use it for vocals / drums / anything really and it does a good job. Way better than my SM57 for pretty much everything except micing amps.

Just FYI, even though REAPER is a 30 day trial, it's unexpiring shareware, which means it'll work exactly as before even after those 30 days, it just suggests that you buy it.

I've been working on this song this last week and I'd like some feedback on pretty much every aspect; performance, mixing, etc. Everything is me. I know vocals are my week spot, so any advice there would be awesome. Please listen and leave feedback!

The MIDI editor has been updated a bunch. Lots of little glitches it used to have are gone, and now you can see the chunk of midi you're editing in relation to the whole song instead of as a single part. Also it displays how it loops much nicer. I haven't played around with automation too much, but it's been heavily upgraded as well and seems to be much easier to use / record.

My bad, I misread.

I didn't even hear vocals, I'm not sure what you're talking about there. Also, I couldn't even tell the fake guitar was there until it played solo at the very end. This definitely does not have the feel of a rock remix to it, it already feels like an electronica mix. The drums shouldn't be wet at all; don't give them any reverb for a mix like this or they won't have the punch they need. Reverb on drums can work well when you're using a lot of live instruments, but for something like this, I wouldn't reccomend it, as it'll just make it mushy. If you want to make it more like a rock mix, use a bass guitar instead of a bass synth and use drums samples that sound real for the whole kit, not just the kick. Look for ns_kit7free or the mdk soundfonts for some awesome free drums. That fake guitar is really painful, so if you want to keep it rock I'd try and find a way to get real guitar or at least find a better soundfont. Also try putting the soundfont through an amp VST (Try something like Voxengo Boogex or Dirthead) to make it sound a bit more real.

Alrighty, let's give this a listen! First thing I notice is that the kick drum sounds like a real kick. For a song like this, try getting a more electronic sounding drum kit. It'll mix in better with all of the syths. Also, by the time you have a lot of synth pads and stuff going in the middle to end, the drums are getting drowned out by everything else and aren't driving the song like they should. Take the background pads and solo them one at a time along with each of the other instruments, and cut frequencies in the EQ of the backing pads until you can hear the front instruments better. You'll probably wind up getting rid of a decent amount of the low end from some of them. In fact, most of the synths could probably use a hi-pass filter (It only lets frequencies higher than what you select through, so it cuts off low end). Only let the bass synth and drums take up the lower frequency range, and make sure they don't overlap too much down there. The middle to end part gets a bit repetitive, so you might want to try doing something new in there. Your lead synth could stick out more, I can't tell if it's the fake electric guitar thing through the whole mix. I'd replace it with an edgy synth instead of the guitar, otherwise it'll just sound meh. That's all I can say so far, keep working on it and adding more variety!

Another update! I completely re-did the mixing, it's much much nicer now. I also re-recorded the sloppy parts and generally made it much more pleasent to listen to.

REAPER 3 has been released out of the blue! There's a new UI, MIDI has been totally revamped, and lots of little things have been polished over. I've only been using it for a few minutes but it's a huge upgrade and I'm really excited to see what it can do. What do you all think of it so far?

UPDATED! Lots of polishing, still need to re-record some of the guitar parts and add in the second part of the source. Please let me know what you think!

Updated, lots of changes, rerecorded most of it, added more layers and did a lot of general production work. Please leave feedback!

This is really interesting, I'm enjoying it a lot. I don't think this would qualify as a remix, but it's a good listen nonetheless. I don't really know what to suggest production wise, I don't hear anything wrong with that. Still, good job, this one's a keeper!

Just thought I'd update one more time with my final version: Polished up a lot here and there. Just submitted it today, wish me luck!