SLIPPING (wip)

[BCF1]

I feel the vocals are muddy in everything I'm currently working on,
this is a good example of what I mean.
Any advice will be appreciated
Thanks in advance

SLIPPING

written and performed by

jalan
Mike
and
myself


V15 https://app.box.com/s/e7z073wlqhfsvcusrge646oq6issd0hw

Tweaked the mix - V16.4 https://app.box.com/s/02uk1h9aryro6x1vymryqodol5s34qwj

[msundh]

I'm the last one to answer these kind of questions but....
listen to the first 30 seconds:
Volume: vocals too low.
EQ: The vocals have no freq's 'sticking out' (this could be really bad english, who cares).
If you listen to the vocals alone EQ wise, does it stand out?
It feel EQ wise boring, meaningless (I MEAN EQ WISE!!!!!)
Love the guitar solo by the way, ENVY ;)

[RDBOIS]

It's hard to tell if the vocals are muddy or not because they low end of the instruments are so up front and loud that we can't hear the vocals in that frequency area.

I agree with msundh - there is not much EQ helping the vocals to stick out. Boosting around 5k could help, but then again could make them harsh and painful. I wonder if carving out some space in the area - taking out from other instruments - could do the job?

Also a bit more volume on the vocals would help.

The low end seem very up front and in your face - which is probably not a bad thing for this genre, but it means that it will be difficult to get the vocals in front in that frequency area. Something tells me that it would help if the vocals had room in the low end - probably because it would add more power to the agressive scream-like 'singing'.

I would try ducking the low end of the guitars with the vocal signal. Some kind of dynamic compression around 250 hz - 3 dB's reduction.

Just enough so we can hear the vocals - unless you don't mind that we can't hear what you are saying? That can also be Ok.

[BCF1]

msundh and RDBOIS

Appreciate the thoughts and ideas :) Thank you !!

Did some tweakin

hopefully made some better decissions, I don't freakin know yet but.....

here it is again:

SLIPPING-V16.4

https://app.box.com/s/02uk1h9aryro6x1vymryqodol5s34qwj

[msundh]

Much better, but it still needs more tweaking :(

[krm27]

I agree with the initial replies, and your tweaks made it much better. The only think I can think of now is that you are having the vocal rhythm largely duplicate the rhythm guitar, so that when you are hitting a syllable hard in your lyrics, the rhythm guitar is at that very moment hitting a hard and crunchy chord, and that is where I think the lyrics are still somewhat muddied.

I think there are a few ways to fix this.

1. More EQ work to differentiate the frequencies of the guitar and vocals.

2. Add or modify the FX on the guitar and/or the vocals so they are more dissimilar in tonal qualities like timbre, even if they still share many of the same frequencies.

3. Re-write the song so the vocals and rhythm guitar are not so redundant. Ultimately, I think maybe this is the problem you are trying to fix through engineering rather than writing a song where each instrument (including voice) has a distinct but harmonious role.

Ken

[HugoRibeiroDotCom]

I think its pretty cool.. your guitar tone is always superb! I love it!