Prog. Rock Mix Critique

Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:47 pm

Hello, I'm new to the forums and I just wanted to see what you guys think of a mix I did recently for an instrumental prog. rock band named "Tetrafusion."

http://www.student.nsula.edu/dforshee001/thebeginning.mp3

It's quite a long song (10:15!!), but I would really appreciate any input you guys have. Feel free to tear it apart. Thanks!

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 12:30 am

Really good work. Reminds me a lot of Dream Theater. The songs is bang on, I think.

I could only think of 3 things, but they are very small potato ideas. The first is that the snare drum might sound a little dry. Because the music reminds me of DT, I think of the only thing I dislike about them is the snare sound. I find it dry and boring.

The second is that I found there was great stereo imaging, but I wanted more of a 3D sound where things could seem close or distant.

The song is long and I'm just about to head to bed, but half way through the song i noticed the keys were more prevalent on the right side as opposed to the left. Thats my 3 cents. Keep up the good work!

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 3:29 am

Well as it seems you're still a student your engineering sounds quite precise. Suggestions? More dynamics would be nice to hear.

Boring snare drum? While the material was lengthy & intricate I thought it was, to put it mildly, quite boring and all too common sounding. Not sure why anything has to be this long and has to be this boring? While everything was at 100% continuous peak volume, it was also rather fatiguing to listen to. But then you are obviously trying to learn how to use all of your processing at hand and you obviously have busy fingers.

So really, good engineering however, less is more when it comes to over-the-top processing. Making everything over loud doesn't make it good. It just chases people away because what you have done, makes it hard to listen to for any length of time. The whole idea of good recording is once you get people listening, they don't want to stop.

Hope you haven't paid anybody $40,000 to learn how to alienate your listeners?

Is this the result of another quickie recording school? Hope not?
Yes Remy Ann David

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 10:29 am

No recording school yet. I'm about to finish up a bachelor's degree in music education. I'm considering a recording school, but then again I might just buy more equipment with the money that I would have spent on a school. Thanks for the input guys. Keep it coming.

Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:58 pm

Good mix man, by all means, but yeah...it got boring fast, and I like metal, prog metal, etc.

Throw some lyrics in there, chop it up and you could easily get two or maybe three songs out of some of that material. Thumbs Up

Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:39 pm

Tip: try making everything sound real instead of just real good. In other words, I agree with the suggestion of more dynamics. Cool stuff, though.

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