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[SanctusAudio]

So I am in the process of writing my first album. Self composed, produced ect.. All vst programs. I am attempting to take a new approach to music in that I'm trying to meld free verse poetry with thematic musical elements. This song is about my recent diagnoses of Panic disorder and the experiences while dealing with it. I would love some feedback. This will be the first track and sort of a benchmark of more to come.

https://soundcloud.com/jacob-kauble/terror-and-serenity


Lyrics: 

"Black like the night, it haunts me
This terror swelled up like a hurricane
No bearings or center, they are scattered from east to west
Oh God, Oh God
My father, My father

Sweat has blanketed my forehead
This wardrum is beating beneath my chest
My father, is this everlasting?
I can find no rest

Reality has shifted into obscurity
Nothing real has reality now
This Dichotomy is perplexing
A thick fog takes over my senses
With every glance I am thrown into terror
Is this real or is this a dream?

Deep bellow the terror resides
Some wound undiscovered
Shackled by some distant memory
Somewhere between terror and serenity
So deep that I can't reach to mend it
So painful, I can't begin to approach it

My king, My king, He who is everlasting
Heal the wounds that bind these hands
My king, My King, He who wields the sky
I am on my face in total destruction"

[Whiskas]

Not of a fan of slapping the bass all the way, takes away some of the effect imo, and I feel like some work on the mix could give the whole thing more intensity (too much general verb for my taste so some instruments don't really sound tight, some automation could also be pretty cool for playing more with dynamics, also the whole thing sounds a bit muddy).

I may sound like some dick haha, but that's very good work overall, it has some djenty industrial vibe to it, I'm not into this kind of metal but the ambience is there!

Also the glitchy drums part was awesome

Keep on the good work bud

[SanctusAudio]

Nah you don't sound like a dick at all. Thank you for the compliments!

[mscottweber]

I think its a cool track, with a lot of interesting stuff going on.  Good work!

A lot of this may be personal preference, but here is what I would change if I was working on this track:

-Like Whiskas, I'm not a fan of the slap bass.  There are some moments where its a nice texture, but for the most part I feel like it doesn't have the same kind of drive that a picked bass would have.

-I've never used a VST guitar before, so I don't know if this will cause any phasing issues, but in hard rock/metal I almost always double track the guitar and hard pan them left and right.  It beefs up the sound, it widens the stereo field, and it clears up space in the middle for other instruments to sit.

-The vocals are too loud and present for my tastes.  Especially with the guitars out of the way, as described above, these can come WAY down and still be intelligible.  Plus, I thinks its more effective in this type of music to have the vocals more buried than in other styles.  It makes us listen in closer

Overall, though, I thought the mix sounded pretty good.  You could probably release this as is and non-musicians would think it sounds great!

[Schrompf]

Nice one. High frequencies sound muffled/limited to my ears, though. The cymbals sound weird. And for "metal" I'd want the guitars much more to the front. The lyrics where never important to me, I treat my own lyrics as a rythm instrument, so I agree to turn them down a bit.

[Audiosprite]

I believe the bass sound you're aiming for is Unexpect's:



Check out how their bassist switches between slap and fingering/picking, follow their example imo

I'm a few years out of my prog phase but I can still tell this pretty much rocks.

Vocals could be taken down a bit

When the music box riff comes in at 0:30, you're doing this 3-3-3-3-2-2 rhythm, but the listener doesn't know that until you hit the 2s at the end of the phrase. And since there's no established tempo there, the way I parsed that music box melody was "oh, this is the new tempo and these are quarter notes," so when it reached the 2s it confused the heck out of my rhythmic understanding of the music, and that's what metal is all about. So I would suggest putting something playing eighth or quarter notes at 0:30, a hihat, a drumstick hitting the edge of the snare, up to you really. Then don't have that instrument playing when you repeat the music box melody at the end of the piece. I think it'll give a nice contrast

Nice one. High frequencies sound muffled/limited to my ears, though. The cymbals sound weird. And for "metal" I'd want the guitars much more to the front. The lyrics where never important to me, I treat my own lyrics as a rythm instrument, so I agree to turn them down a bit.

This is a very easy assumption to make but listen to some of your favorite vocal metal records again; a lot of them actually have fairly quiet guitars. Metal guitars are fucking noise that will dominate the entire spectrum of a mix -- and they're actually the least 'important' instrument in a metal mix -- so be careful about turning them up. I think the level they're at here is perfect personally

[mscottweber]

Metal guitars are fucking noise that will dominate the entire spectrum of a mix -- and they're actually the least 'important' instrument in a metal mix

Yes

[SanctusAudio]

Thank you guys all for the input. After listening for about a week now, I'm def. going to make some mix tweeks before I throw the album up on Bandcamp. So if I understand this concept of double tracking correctly, You are basically loading dual guitars and panning them left and right to leave the middle open for the other instruments, correct? Double tracking is one thing I have not worked on yet.

[mscottweber]

You want two different performances of the guitar part, not just two copies of the same performance. My only experience with this is with live guitars, so I'm not totally sure how the double tracking with a VI will work; it may cause some weird phasing issues if identical samples are playing at the same time.
But yes, the idea is that by double tracking and hard panning you get "bigger" guitars without having to turn them up obnoxiously loud, and they leave space in the middle of the stereo field for other stuff.  Listen to one of your favorite metal records with headphones on and pay close attention to the guitars, you'll probably hear it.

[Gabriel Naro]

Thank you guys all for the input. After listening for about a week now, I'm def. going to make some mix tweeks before I throw the album up on Bandcamp. So if I understand this concept of double tracking correctly, You are basically loading dual guitars and panning them left and right to leave the middle open for the other instruments, correct? Double tracking is one thing I have not worked on yet.

You want two different performances of the guitar part, not just two copies of the same performance. My only experience with this is with live guitars, so I'm not totally sure how the double tracking with a VI will work; it may cause some weird phasing issues if identical samples are playing at the same time.
But yes, the idea is that by double tracking and hard panning you get "bigger" guitars without having to turn them up obnoxiously loud, and they leave space in the middle of the stereo field for other stuff.  Listen to one of your favorite metal records with headphones on and pay close attention to the guitars, you'll probably hear it.

First off: nice track! There is some tweaks I'd make on the track but it seems that you already got this tip and is working on it, great job! Sounds like something that would come out of a prog-head :D

As about double tracking I've done it with VSTi's sometimes, the best way to mimic the diffrent performances is thru some tweaks on one of the tracks! Detune is your friend! Try detuning one track by 0.05 semitones and make the other something like -0.03, it doesn't seem much but when its playing you will notice. I also tend to un-balance de panning a little with automation and play a little with Key Velocity do create some diffrent (fake) articulations. Try to use your strong/weak beats to this purpose aswell, it works wonders!

Good luck on the rest of the mixing (: