Underoath X MLP - Scootaloominator Ft. NightmareSnake

[Reuel(Crystal Slave) 287]

Happy new year everypony!

 

Celebrate by ringing it in with some super heavy Underoath-style music about Scootaloo! I hope you enjoy it!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPSk4n18i6s

[DusK 1,264]

I heard this earlier today before I ended up taking my nap which turned into full-on sleep mode. I gotta say, I'm impressed.
 
Production's actually pretty tight on this. You've clearly stepped up your game a bit since "Wonderbolts Academy". The rhythm guitar tone in particular is fantastic (I'd love to see the l6t file for that if you're using some sort of Line 6 DI gear for that). The volume's a tad low compared to other elements, like screams, but not by much. The lead guitar is another story, though; once again, it lacks clarity and attack, and sounds a bit thin.
 
The bass could use a reduction in the mid-highs to get rid of that buzzing sound; as a general rule for bass, unless it's a solo part, you want to roll off everything above 500Hz, while finding a sweet spot depending on your bass tone between 100-300Hz and accentuating it while dropping that same frequency in your rhythm guitars on a narrow band. This helps a bass stand out more in the mix without having to resort to boosting frequencies in the bass that would otherwise be left to other elements in the mix or, in this case, creates sounds than are a bit off-putting.
 
Drums and screams are mixed pretty well here. Snare and toms get a little too wet at times and muddy the mix a bit, but it doesn't happen enough for it to be a major issue.
 
Contrary to what NightmareSnake said in the comments, double-tracking vocals isn't necessary, and in this situation, wouldn't really help a whole lot. A bad mic's a bad mic. Doubling the amount of bad mic in a song isn't going to help. What would help, though, is an EQ boost to your sibilance region (8-10khz) and maybe a smaller boost to the mid-highs (3khz or so) to help with clarity in those singing vocal sections.

 

Overall, this track is pretty great, easily a cut above most rock-based brony musicians.

Edited January 2, 2013 by DusK

[Reuel(Crystal Slave) 287]

I heard this earlier today before I ended up taking my nap which turned into full-on sleep mode. I gotta say, I'm impressed.

 

Production's actually pretty tight on this. You've clearly stepped up your game a bit since "Wonderbolts Academy". The rhythm guitar tone in particular is fantastic (I'd love to see the l6t file for that if you're using some sort of Line 6 DI gear for that). The volume's a tad low compared to other elements, like screams, but not by much. The lead guitar is another story, though; once again, it lacks clarity and attack, and sounds a bit thin.

 

The bass could use a reduction in the mid-highs to get rid of that buzzing sound; as a general rule for bass, unless it's a solo part, you want to roll off everything above 500Hz, while finding a sweet spot depending on your bass tone between 100-300Hz and accentuating it while dropping that same frequency in your rhythm guitars on a narrow band. This helps a bass stand out more in the mix without having to resort to boosting frequencies in the bass that would otherwise be left to other elements in the mix or, in this case, creates sounds than are a bit off-putting.

 

Drums and screams are mixed pretty well here. Snare and toms get a little too wet at times and muddy the mix a bit, but it doesn't happen enough for it to be a major issue.

 

Contrary to what NightmareSnake said in the comments, double-tracking vocals isn't necessary, and in this situation, wouldn't really help a whole lot. A bad mic's a bad mic. Doubling the amount of bad mic in a song isn't going to help. What would help, though, is an EQ boost to your sibilance region (8-10khz) and maybe a smaller boost to the mid-highs (3khz or so) to help with clarity in those singing vocal sections.

 

Overall, this track is pretty great, easily a cut above most rock-based brony musicians.

 

Thanks for the great feedback on this song. You have a knack for pointing out important things that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise, and once again, I really do appreciate the critique.

 

Actually, for my guitar parts, I mic my amp and all it takes is a cut of some low and high frequencies to get a nice-sounding tone. I think I actually used no plugins whatsoever on the rhythm guitars, just EQ in the mixer track.

 

I'll have to get better at mixing lead guitars.

 

I was trying to go for a punchy bass sound because of the part near the beginning where the guitars drop out, and it's just bass, strings and drums, but I see where I went wrong doing that.

 

As for the vocals, those were what took the longest for me to mix in and adjust, due to having recordings from totally different microphones and not the best quality on either. I did notice that the singing wasn't as clear as it could be, because I had to drop the high frequencies a little bit to avoid making the vocals sound too sharp (my mic tends to sound harsh). I'm sure that doing a little gain in that sibilance region would have helped a lot though, so next time I'll try that!

 

Thanks for the advice, yet again! I'll take all of it into account for future projects.