I engineer/produce bands in my spare time. I recorded this song in the bands living room/practice space. I've got about $1500 woth of gear but I make the best out of it. The band is name Daisy Slain and the song is The Failure. I don't care too much what you think about the songwriting, im more concerned about the production and mixing. Here it is tell me what you think. The Failure

that sounds awesome! The kick sounds great. If anything the clean vocals need to be a little less dry imo maybe some slight room or reverb sounds but the production is excellent.

Good Job!

What did you use to record?

EDIT: there's also one part where the vocals pan hard left and right that didn't sound like it fit too much... just a thought. Also when the vocals come in you can hear teh compressor kick in a lot, maybe automate it so the threshold is lower at that one part.....

But for real you've got good ears and talent.

And your stuff on futant recording's myspace is f*cking awesome.

Thanks a lot for the great feedback. A little verb could help settle them in more and make them not sound so rough. I'm meeting with the band tonight to see what they think about this mix, so if there is anything they want me to change I'll probably try that while I'm in there. The hard pan left nd right part was to try and take those vocl parts out of the front of the mix. On the clean kill me parts I have just a but of delay, I might just bus all the cleans over and run them through that as another option to the reverb. For gear I have a shure drum kit, 3 57's and a beta 52, I also got two OH mics on loan from a drummer.I'm using a Presonus Firepod for pre's and Adobe audition all running on a $300 emachines from Best Buy. I'm hoping to get another firepod some monitors and my own OH mics with my Tax return. Right now I'm mixing on a little sony stereo.

i always wanted to hear the firepod's pre's and man they do sound good. When you get the second mix done, post it.

the vocal pan part i was talking about was around 1:10 the scream pans sound good.

That kit is recorded on 3 57s, a beta 52 and a pair of overheads?! You're kidding?! I want a Beta 52 after hearing this, thats seriously awesome. What were the overheads, and how did you position all the mics (roughly, and only as much as you can remember ;). A nice kit makes your job a hell of a lot easier, huh?!

Yeah I would add a touch of something to the vocals, and also I think you could turn them up a bit.

I forgot one mic because I used my 57 on bottom of the snare with its polarity reversed and the drummer had a mic that we used on top of it, but I mix the top mic down and use the bottom for the crack. I can't remember what the name of that other mic was I believe it was some type of audix. OH Mics I postioned the equal distance from the snare about 2' above the drummers head one over the hi-hat and one over the crash, and then panned the fuck out of them. I miced the kick halfway into the drum facing directly at the point of impact. Even though good mics are important my mics are relatively cheap compared to pro studios, and it proves you can get good mixes without $1,000 mics and pres and recorded in a living room for that matter. It all comes down to skill and practice, which I have achieved through many nights of methamphetamines and Starbucks, and got up and went to work the next day.
I have the new mix on my myspace. Although you probably won't be able to hear the reverb even though it is there, If I solo'd the track it would be undeniablely there but in the mix its not to noticable I trye just enough to smooth it out and not make it so harsh. I don't like fx in metal, and as far as the vox being turned up i prefer my vox nestled in the mix. I don't like mainstream mixing where the vox are on top of everything. Thanks again for the feedback. Any more questions just let me know.

Ohyou mean a nice drum kit, sorry I'm slow the first times I read this I thought you meant a nice mic kit. Yeah it definitley makes a big dfference there is the old saying you can't polish a turd. A drummer that knows how to tune his kit, the drum heads are in good condition are important too, most pro engineers won't record unless the heads are brand new, but for me that just isn't reasonable for the budget me and the bands are under. A key thing is also for the drummer to hit the shit out of every drum, you can't eq or fake the real sound of a drum getting beat to death. I also do a lot of editing on the tom mics and oh to get all the mud and overbleed out. this really cleans up the kit and allows everything to come through good and loud.

you are right about hitting them hard. I've recorded drums where they play rock but they hit everything soft but hit the cymbals decently. They give it no edge at all. The drummer in the end does as much mixing then the engineer/producers do.