Everything sound & ear training related

SoundGym

profile
Max Marks
Jan 17
Hello everyone!
I created a song, from empty project to last LUFS on Limiter by myself.)
I would appreciate your thoughts about it. Production, mixing, mastering, voice perfomance or even if my song s@cks cause you in a bad mood..))
Among other things, I would like to ask my English-speaking colleagues how much my accent is audible.
Many thanx to everyone who is going to share his or her thoughts!
Best wishes.
profile
Vilhelm Kruse
Jan 17
Thank you for sharing your song 🤠
3 items of feedback to you.
1) When you sing try to smile. It might sound crazy but I can hear that you are not smiling (I m a vocal coach). What it does is that your voice sounds a little bit dull in comparison to how it could sound. When you smile you open up for the top end (the high frequencies) in your voice. Try it - and try smiling a lot - you will hear the difference immediately.
2) Your track is over compressed. The compression is squashing the dynamics too much and ultimately it makes your track sound less dynamic compared to songs in the same genre.
3 The track is too hot and it is peaking above 0db. Your probably mastered it to 0db, but when Soundcloud has run it though their processes and algorithms, then it starts peaking. Ian Shepherd (master mastering engenier) says to master to -1db for that reason. (Ian Shepherd has a fantastic podcast on mastering btw - listen and pay attention to the first 10 episodes especially :-) )
You can download a trial of the plugin MAAT DR meter II. When you understand how that plugin works, then you can see for yourself problem 2 and 3.
Other than that, in my opinion your song sounds joyous and fresh. The overall sound sounds good to me and not running it so hot is an easy fix.
Keep up the good work sir 😀
profile
Max Marks
Jan 17
Vilhelm Kruse: I fully agree with your first point. I hear it too, and this song especially needs a smile in the vocals, not only because of the frequency, but also due to the overall mood and feel.

Yes, it was compressed very hard because I tried to achieve loudness and the feeling of compression as in the reference tracks. And I went about it the wrong way. I should have done this compression on the buses in the Brauer style, but instead I did it mainly on the master. Yes, that was a mistake.

Yes, I forgot about the headroom.

Thank you very much. I will fix what I can on this mix, and I will definitely remember these tips for my next tracks.
profile
Vilhelm Kruse
Jan 17
You go bro 👊
profile
Jason Stanley
Jan 17
the vocals are very buried in the mix, they definitely need to be louder. and I think they should have an EQ boost somewhere in the higher frequencies, or maybe even use a mic that matches this vocal style better. it sounds like you're using a mic that is filtering out the high end, like low end focusrites do that for instance. An EQ lift in the high spectrum, and making the vocals louder I think would help a lot. this is my two cents. and I don't hear an accent, although I can't hear much of the vocals at all to be quite honest.

if I'm right about the mic choice, I don't think there's bad mics, it's probably just better for like false chord, or people with low voices, or kick drums etc.
profile
Jason Stanley
Jan 17
now that you mention english, I think the title of you're song is supposed to be (when you're close to me)
profile
Jason Stanley
Jan 17
unless of course your song is about sword combat, in which case the title is fine lol
profile
HI Max :) this isn't really my style, but I can try to give you my opinion. I think some sound design on the main synth would be beneficial to your track. The voice perhaps a little detached from the mix, I would try with a reverb to make it sit better in the song. The idea developed well could yield more. Good work!
profile
Max Marks
Jan 20, 12:40
Vittorio Di Rocco, thank you! When you talking about soung desing, do you mean choose other sounds or make some work with those in track?
As for the voice, yes, I haven't worked much with vocal tracks lately, and I need to get some practice. I hope it's not too bad.) But I will definitely try to improve the quality of my work with vocals, this is the most important part in the mix! But Jason told, that vocal is blurred in the mix..
Thank you!
profile
Max Marks
Jan 20, 12:52
Jason Stanley, yeah it's funny about swords.) Thank you for your comment!
You are absolutely right when you talking about mic. My vocal isn't a good match to my mic or vice versa. I have a dull tembre and mic has a dull sound also, so it's a bad combination. I'm going to buy something that fits better to my voice, but little bit later, so I'm trying to work with stuff I have. I added highs in massive and reduced low-mids in q3 but yeah, it wasn't enough.
Thank you, I'll pay more attention for correction of my voc tembre in the next tracks for sure.
profile
Max Marks
Jan 20, 12:56
Thank you everybody for your comments.
I will definitely take into account all your wishes in the next songs and I will correct what I can in this one. All your advices was really very helpful, and I'm writing this out not because of politeness.)
All the best!
profile
Vittorio Di Rocco
Jan 20, 15:21
Try it with the synthesizer you're using... you could even explore layering multiple synthesizers together! Good work :)
profile
Max Marks
Jan 20, 16:59
Vittorio Di Rocco, that's exactly what I did.) Thank you one more time!)
profile
Jacob Boissier
Jan 20, 19:15
In the first (Close to me), the “me” doesn't really intonate. You start the note too low and then try to pull it up a little. I would re-record the whole first phrase. At 1:20 “Who can fly” you have automated the treble with an EQ.
I would try editing just the playback. Otherwise the “can” sounds kind of muffled.
1:35 “we can fly” the automated reverb sounds like a bathroom to me :-) I like the next part with reverb better.
I think the spectral ballance is great.