Oh holy crap, this sounds terrible! :D
My intent: introduce my Moog to my guitar, and see how they got along.
What went wrong: my Moog was feeling full of itself, and in two simple patches, tried taking over the whole damn song. What you hear are the two instruments having an awful, terrible fight.
Contributing factors: exhaustion. Even though I got an early start with the guitar track, I didn't start doing anything else for it until the night before this was 'due.' The lyrics, written at the same time, reflect this exhaustion in their "wtf?!"-itude.
Why it didn't mix better: I think the guitar and the bass patch just sounded so similar to each other that they bleed into one another. Panning and eq weren't doing anything for me (although mixing while being tired is supposed to be a big no-no).
My final word: lesson (hopefully!) learned. Use sounds that don't interfere with each other so much. Or, study eq better, its limitations, etc.
If you could: give me a tip or two on how to avoid results like these :) Is there something very basic I'm missing? Probably so.
"Try something that I said
Fly over to my head
Inside it's black and its dark red
Don't hide 'cus this time we shake dread"
After listening to this, I certainly wouldn't say it is horrible. I think the key issue with it as it is right now is that the synth and the guitar (especially the guitar) is too constant. I actually think the bit from :45 to :58 sounded great, simply because the song takes more of a musical diet during that stretch. Maybe rather than having the guitar giving a constant drone to the song, it can just spring up here and there. For example, when the song starts, maybe it would sound better to have the Moog doing its little melody and just have the guitar go "ch-chunk" at the very beginning of every other bar.
ReplyDeleteOne very important thing I learned a long time ago is to give the song space and let it breathe on its own. As someone once told me "An orchestra may have 30 pieces, but all 30 instruments rarely play at the same time". That is, each instrument comes in at the most ideal time, in order to give the song dimension and flavor. Sometimes I think the best producers are the ones who can discover an amazing, really cool sound or effect or embellishment, but they only bring it into the song once, and never let it repeat. Now, trust me, I know that is easier said than done. :) But I think there's a lot to be said for never having more than 2 or 3 things going on in a song at any given time.
Thanks Gary! I think this may have been the "something very basic I'm missing" that I was looking for :) I dig some of the tuneage going on late in the song, but realize they would work much better on their own, w/o vocals going on. I also like the "ch-chunk" idea (and know just what you mean by it).
ReplyDeleteThank you for putting so much thought into this! Not only am I learning what works with this project, I'm also learning what doesn't (which may not sound great for repeat listening, but is all part of the learning process anyway!)
good song bad mix
ReplyDeletetry band pass filter or pitch shifting one instrument up an octave. another thing you can do is add another guitar track or keyboard to act as a highlighter: just define notes a bit more with a "clean" effect. moogey is a bit more fluid so doing guitar is easier (is 25 the same song as 26?). also get rid of any and all reverb or delay on both instruments, then run the the two instruments in one track through a single delay or reverb. (can the minimoog do that?