I miss a bit of expressiveness and emotion, sounds static. It’s a live tune so i guess there should be more “rhythmic irregularities” allowed, less polishing done.

The whole thing sounds very similar to Olivia Tremor Control, which leaves me wanting some additional weirdness in the song/songwriting. I agree with victor about there not being a strong hook or chorus.

Thanks for posting, I enjoyed listening! Could this (workshop) thing ever result in posting individual tracks for re-mix?

The mix sounds fine to me. Apart from the lack of bass drum, I have no comments.

The bass seems to play smack on the beat, or maybe a millisecond behind, which gives the song a bit of a dragging feel. Play more in front of the beat, I’d say.

After I listened to this song in its entirety, and was done admiring the beautiful vocals and the balanced mix, I tried to recall “ok, what have I just been listening to” and I couldn’t really get the global picture, nor did I recall a clear hook somewhere.

On second listening you seem to have: short intro (good!) one verse, another verse, one chorus, guitar solo, another verse. That’s kinda non-standard, and the fact that you end with a verse brings out that the chorus is kinda lacking a memorable hook. The verse is a bit strange too: it has two lines in one rhythm, and then two lines that modulate, and have a somewhat more exuberant drum part, making it feel a bit like a chorus.

So was this: verse chorus verse chorus, bridge, guitar, verse chorus? That could be except that the bridge kinda feels like the high point, and the verse is rather short. One a standard song structure one expects at least four lines for both verse and chorus.

Anyway. That’s all nitpicking, but since you put up the song for critiqueing I didn’t want to spare you my perspective.

Keith L, I think you might have nailed why the vocals sound the way they do – it’s me singing all the parts. Another reason could be that they are double tracked, although the double is quite a bit lower in volume than the first.

The only effect on the main vocal is a little compression and the only effects on the backup vocals are compression and a little reverb. I tried eq’ing the backup vocals and using the reverb to ‘place’ them a little differently in the mix.

Monomono, Good point on the kick drum. I just gave it a listen, and it seems to be absent in some areas, then magically appears.

Conner Bevans, I’ll definitely give your EQ suggestion a shot on the drums. It’s mostly coming from the two overheads, which are maybe a little higher in the mix than they should be.

Max, the two drum overheads (one mic directly above the site, and one mic behind my right shoulder – a technique I read about in TapeOp magazine) are panned hard left and right. The toms were mic’d individually as well. The high tom is panned just slightly left and the floor tom just slightly right.

I’m also noticing the distortion on the cymbals, so some EQ tweaking is probably needed there as well.

The song’s great though — good work!

Then:

I’d speed the tempo a bit. + 5 or 10 bpm

I’d make the main vocal a little more dirty, maybe a touch of distortion or saturation, but not overdo it.

Same criticism about the drums: roll off high frequencies.