Mixing advice?! Critique our recording/my mixing! The Chain - Fleetwood Mac

[ben604]

Hello, I was finally ars*d to take my laptop with us to a gig just before christmas for the first time to record us making noise multitracked through my desk. I've been having a play with what got recorded and would like some general advice/guidance on how to mix the stuff.

To be honest, I've learned quite a lot just by listening to the individual tracks over the last hour or so:

- tune the bloody drum kit
- try mic'ing the guitars a bit better
- make sure the floor tom mic is more secure and therefore not resting on the drum head after being hit by Animal
- record at a lower gain


This is our attempt at The Chain:

[url="https://soundcloud.com/ben604/the-chain-23-12-2012"]https://soundcloud.c...hain-23-12-2012[/url]

There are obvious playing issues for the whole band (I managed to mess the most iconic bassline ever up at the most important time, I don't do that usually, honest!), I managed to pick one of our loosest gigs in a long while to record...so ignore the playing!

The recording has the following tracks to play with:

Kick
Snare
Rack Tom
Floor Tom
OH
Vox 1
Vox 2
Vox 3
Guitar
Guitar
Bass

Recorded into Studio One through my Presonus 16.0.2 with the following mics:

Vox - All SM58Beta
Guitars - Sennheiser E609
Kick - D112
Snare/Toms - cheapo Pulse(?) from CPC Farnell
OH - Audio Technika AT2020
Bass - D.I'd from my Traynor YBA300

Anyways, any/all opinions valued!

Oh yeah, we're called The Lowtones - www.facebook.com/thelowtones

Edited February 1, 2013 by ben604

[ben604]

Just listened to some recordings we did with 2 AT2020s at the back of the room a year ago, and instantly I can tell we're missing Hi-Hats and cymbal sparkle from this recording. I haven't got enough microphones or channels!!

[lurksalot]

Hi Ben , I am pretty new to the idea of mixing , but something that appears to be the crux of the issue is the seperation of the space for the sounds to be able to be heard properly and I reckon trying to record and mix live would be the hardest way of approaching it .
To me the mix lacks the brightness that equing and shed loads of FX would bring if each track was done seperately, but I would have been happy with that as a recording of one of my gigs.
With the sort of kit that DAW FX make on a track , I would shudder to think what hardware kit and time would be needed to do it live at a gig .

Good work I reckon , but I am sure you will get some more practical advice from some guys who know stuff

[OldG]

[quote name='ben604' timestamp='1359759085' post='1960144']
Just listened to some recordings we did with 2 AT2020s at the back of the room a year ago, and instantly I can tell we're missing Hi-Hats and cymbal sparkle from this recording. I haven't got enough microphones or channels!!
[/quote]

[url="http://www.red5audio.com/acatalog/Drum_Kit_Mics.html"]Red 5[/url] do great drum sets... feed and balance 'em into a mixer then to your interface.

Nice clear recording btw, needs a little eq, compression etc just to polish but a solid recording all the same.