Improving my guitar sound and mixing etc.?

[MichaelTheCrow]

Well I like never post here, but I was wondering how I could get the best sound out of these tracks I've made recently. I know I've gotten better over the last few months in my quality of recording, but I do not understand how well or poorly I have done these tracks when it comes to the mixing and overall sound of it.

The first track I have actually recorded 2 rhythm guitars and panned them to left and right, I worked a fair few hours on this one. The second track I only whipped up over the previous hour, I couldn't be bothered with panned rhythm guitars, but I know it can be improved somehow, I usually adjust the settings on my amp first, and try to level out the volumes with the synth and such so I don't have to really do much other editing with my software.

http://www.box.net/shared/piv9adpmi0

and

http://www.box.net/shared/kmfqaz93fe

EDIT: 2nd track improved, demo version of addictive drums used instead and turned down and eq'ed lead guitar.

http://www.box.net/shared/1xbbtm26f8

I'm not certain if this type of quality is plausible enough for OCReMix standards, if not how much further do I have to go to get to that next level? I'm considering to try to start up a remix of my own, just not sure if I should attempt one yet.

[PrototypeRaptor]

The first track already sounds really good to me - the only thing is your drums are a bit muffled and sound overcompressed.

Try adding some eq/exciting the high end to help with the muddiness and fiddle around with your samples to get fatter drum sounds.

On the second one, your drums are much less punchy and WAY too quiet, imo. The lead guitar is piercingly loud on my end, too.

I don't think you're far from OC standards...but I'm not a guitarist. XD IMO, the biggest problem is your meatless drums. the synths sound fine, but the drums kill it for me.

Your guitars sound like you know what you're doing...though I'm sure one of our resident guitar-heros could tell you some tricks to do with your amp, recording devices, etc etc.

(btw, love that prelude; is there a full track somewhere? I'd love to have it...

[audio fidelity]

i think a common rookie mistake for metal guitars is having too much gain - you just lose the clarity - the real chunk comes from playing - not gain. but still it sounds tight and works pretty well with the track.

the cymbals and programming on the drums sound good but the actually kick, snare and toms could use some work to bring more power to the mix.

good stuff

[MichaelTheCrow]

Really for me, programming the drums and velocity levels is just a trial and error thing. I don't really understand much about what sounds 'too compressed' and such but I understand what is meant by punchy and piercingly loud. Not sure what it is with the lead guitar on the 2nd track, might be too much treble and volume, could be the gain, I'll try setting the gain back 25 percent on my amp and mess around with the amp eq.

Well I'm glad to hear positive and constructive criticism, I'm obviously heading in the right track, just needing to touch up and improve on some things. Is it the sound of the toms/kick/snare or the programming and velocity levels that I need to worry about changing?

PR, that's all I've done with prelude, glad you liked it though , not really sure how I can extend it as several ideas just didn't work, might attempt more ideas eventually and maybe one might work, maybe think of what kind of track would smoothly flow on straight after it and then make it all as one perhaps.

[Legion303]

Guitar player here. The guitars on the first song are fine, but on the second one the lead is so loud it's clipping. Turn it down and roll off some of the higher frequencies a little.

You need better drums.

-steve

[MichaelTheCrow]

Thanks for the specifics, should make it much easier to fix up that. The guitar I can definitely make better, not sure if I should change it on the amp(meaning I have to record again), or add in some eq and reduce the volume of the guitar. But for the drums I cannot really fix or improve anymore than what I have it.

The problem is that I've only got free soundfont drumkits to mess around with and one commercial one(came with cakewalk studio instruments package but sounds terrible to be honest). I've been using the "Drums by Ken Ardency" soundfont from Darkeswords soundfont page. Anyone know of a good and relitively affordable drumkit vsti or soundfont that is available through online to download after purchase?

I'm willing to spend up to $200 AUD which is approximately $160USD, preferably one which is great for heavy tunes. I remember NaturalStudio's had a decent kit which used to be free until naturaldrum.com got the copyrights and now owns it without having ns_kit7free available. It is affordable but 7GB to download, which is about 30% of our monthly download usage, or maybe am I better off to just purchase the boxed product and wait weeks for it to arrive here in Aus?

It may sound stupid to some, but I'd rather first worry about getting a good enough sound/quality before attempting a remix, that way I should only have to worry about how well I actually can remix and not stress out because I don't have enough decent equipment.

[audio fidelity]

atelier natural drums is a good one - but its only for kontakt i'm pretty sure - they still have the free one on the native instruments site for kontakt users.

Addictive Drums or Superior aren't that much more. i would save up a bit more to get one of those.

[MichaelTheCrow]

Well I got the demo of Addictive Drums, I realised rockersampler only used hi-hit, kick, crash and snare which is all that the demo has to offer, I tried fixing the lead guitar, might be a bit to quiet now, but let me know if it's improved any better .

[Fishy]

Its way too quiet, its supposed to be the lead. The whole thing is very compressed aswell. Addictive drums is great, but 90% of the presets have way too much compression. It doesn't sound like the rhythm has been doubled either. You should always record two rhythm takes and pan them hard left and right when possible.

This is better production wise then a lot of rock submissions I've judged though, and its much better then my early attempts. Keep it up, post some more wips.

[Nekofrog]

Rhythm in the first has too much gain and is therefor muddy. When I record, I drop the gain to insanely low levels -- but multitracking makes up for this. Combined, 2 or 4 low gain tracks become a higher gain.

[MichaelTheCrow]

Alright thanks for more feedback and encouragement guys. I've turned down the gain on my 2 pre-sets on my amp, I think I won't bother with using the demo of addictive drums due to limitations but for now I think I'll experiment with the drum's I already have trying to get the best I can out of them.

Don't worry, I'll be submitting a remix soon enough . Next thing I have to worry about is other instruments and their quality, might be wise to listen to some of the more orchestral/symphonic remixes just to get an idea of the velocity, sound and style. Of course with that comes more time, so I'll attempt some of that stuff soon enough.