Looking for Some Mixing Advice

[CrazyFingers]

I was hoping to get some mixing advice. I just started recording and this is my first try at mixing.

I created a few minutes of Friend of the Devil (Grateful Dead). This is hardly a flawless performance--sorry for the clunkers! My goal was to focus on the mixing and mastering process, although I didn't do much of the latter. As I went through things, I realized that there are so many darned options--levels, effects, etc--that it was tough to know where to start and where to stop.

I decided to plow my way though it. Can I get some general feedback? Hopefully, you can see some of the more obvious things that I can work-on.

Tracks:
Drums: loops from Drumcore

Acoustic: finger picking using Peluso SDC. I boosted the high freq using an EQ plug-in so it would cut through better.

Rhythm Guitar: Strat through Fargen Blackbird, clean. SM57. No EQ.

Lead Guitar: ES335 through Blackbird; Barber Small Fry. No EQ . SM57

Bass: Musicman Stingray DI through my Roland Cube 30 guitar amp. I used a compressor plug-in but didn't really know what I was doing.

Recording Setup: MBOX 2 w/ PTools LE 7.3.

Any comments would be appreciated.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=778297&content=music

Thanks,

[E-Rock]

I just listened on my crappy laptop speakers, and it sounds pretty darned good!
I'd have to listen on my studio monitors to really 'pick it apart' but I'd say.... Nice job!
I like your lead tone a lot.

[indravayu]

Let me first say that I am by no means an expert on mixing, but I have been studying a lot about it over the past few years so that I can better mix my band's albums (unfortunately we are too poor to be able to afford a real mixing engineer!).

I listened to the song through an average set of headphones, so my judgement might be slightly off, but here are two things that I immediately noticed:

1) you need to get a little more separation between the various guitars and bass - diffierent panning (go for a little wider stereo image) and EQ choices should help with this (try carving some low end freq's on the guitars to let the bass peek through better).

2) I couldn't really hear the kick drum - this might not be so much a volume issue as EQ (you might need to boost some of the kick's high end so that it is more present through cheap speakers/headphones that don't reproduce bass feq's that well).

If you don't own it already, you should check out Owsinski's "Mixing Engineer's Handbook" - lot of helpful tips in it.

- Chris

[CrazyFingers]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I appreciate you taking the time to listen. This gives me a few things to work on, and thanks for the book recommendation.

[dougb415]

Nice mix, but wrong chords for the chorus. It should be:

D
"Set out runnin but I take my time

Amin
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine

D
If I get home before daylight, I

Amin
just might get some sleep

D
tonight."

My apologies if you were trying to create something different.

[CrazyFingers]

Nice mix, but wrong chords for the chorus.

Oops! I guess I inadvertently took some interpretive, improvisational poetic license.
FWIW: I doubt Jerry would mind. http://www.thegearpage.net/board/images/icons/icon12.gif