Let me know what you guys think regarding any part of it (mix, singing, lyrics, technical skill, creativity, etc.).

http://soundcloud.com/traviskohlbeck/parts-of-a-whole

Edit: Made it an .mp3 link.
Edit: Made it a SoundCloud link.
Last edited by intjk on Thu Mar 08, 2012 9:11 pm; edited 2 times in total

I hope you guys don't mind a well-intentioned bump (I made the link an mp3)...

ok, getting the negatives out of the way first: listening through headphones, i'd say that you may want to ease up on the bass just a bit. also, the vocals are very difficult to hear and for the most part i couldn't make out any of the lyrics.


with the negatives out of the way, on to the positives: the melody was great, the drums were great, had a nice Sunday-morning laid-back feel to it. i absolutely LOVED the plucky steelish guitar solo parts throughout the song and the piano near the end. beautiful beautiful stuff and i found myself wanting it to not end!

fantastic track! with a bit of tweaking, this is one i would like to d/l and listen to quite often when i'm in that chilled out, whimsical, day-dreamy mood

~Brendan

Thank you! The vocals track level seems to be the #1 complaint, but I have not heard anything about the bass. I'll be sure to keep that in mind for the next go-round.

I'm listening with a pair of Sennheiser HD-280 headphones and the bass sounds fine to me, but there is something missing from the vocals, at least in the sense of recognizing the words. The tonal quality of the vocals sounded good though. Maybe they were not load enough or "up front" enough? Not sure, I don't work enough with vocals to have the lingo to describe it proper. Overall the melody, vibe, drums, and other mixing sounded good to me. I enjoyed the listen.

the sondg is quite nice,
but as the others already said
the mix ruins it

the guitars and the vocals don't seem to be in the same room,
the seem to have different reverbs
and the vocals sound too muddy

the drums are sometimes a bit too upfront imho

I would like to try a mix on it,
if you'd like me to do it,
you can contact me via pm

or maybe you could upload small pieces of each track,
so that everyone whowant's could try to do a mix,
and you can compare different approaches

The base song is very pleasant! I enjoyed listening to it!

In agreement with the previous posts - nice chill vibe, but could use a better mix. Sounds like everything's fighting for the center - maybe start by panning the guitars wider. A little surgical EQ might help (for ex. boosting to the vocals in the 1-6K range with a corresponding slight cut to the guitar would be enough to help them play well together without changing the tone) - but it all depends - there're some good guidelines but every mix is different (which is why even good channel-strip/mastering presets always need tweaking!)

Vocals are tough - there's tons out there written about it, but it all depends on your recording equipment, vocal tone, etc., and you always learn something new, then tastes change and everyone starts doing things differently. I always low-cut my vocals, and only learned recently that a little boost around 150hz can help bring them up front - haven't tried it yet!

Don't get discouraged - it's a fine first effort - you have the creative chops, and the mixing/technical aspect can be learned

Good song overall. Recording mostly clean.

Maybe slightly reduce the bass. Definitely pan the instruments further apart.

How exactly was the vocal recorded? There seems to be a short return echo on it, and that is probably what is making it hard to hear the words. Favourite advice for recording, especially in a small room is to have a duvet hanging behind you to kill any echos.

Also, some cut in the bass (mics tend to boost it) would help and possibly a little lift at around 3kHz would improve the clarity.

The piano sound towards the end needs to be pushed further back in the mix. This is the only choice of instrument that I didn't like much. A better sounding piano would make all the difference.

With that all said, keep going this is a very good first effort

Man you sound like David Bowie. Excellent.

Nice recording if you ask me, sounds very crisp and clear. Some more excitement in the drum came to my mind.

Wow, there are a lot more replies now! Thanks everyone. Is there an easy way to gather all the files an Ableton Live file references? There are a good number of them and they're mixed in with all the files of my other songs.

In the File menu in Ableton, click "Collect All and Save" - that will copy all the audio files to the project directory

widen your image, take out the tail on the guitar reverb, then place everything, and then put in the guitar, will fix the centered bass. its like your instruments are all in the middle, narrow, place them as a band. sounds a little like david bowie lol.

Here is the Live project--it's kinda big. Let me know if there are any problems with it.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2254492/Parts%20of%20a%20Whole%20Pro ject.zip

I just had a few minutes to try a remix,

I'm not sure if it is better, but it's different at least

for proper editing I would need more time

I only used Live8 onboard FX, so that you can see what I've done,
I sent you a pm with a dl-link for the project file


listen here:
rsmus7 remix