Indie prog rock track - High (feedback requested

[metamorphosis]

Hi guys,
hoping to get some feedback on this new project with me and a few mates:
https://soundcloud.com/woundedsoles/wounded-soles-high

Style is somewhere in between goth, indie, prog and rock (I think). Let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Matt

[Aloysius]

It seems to be all there. I like the singing. It sounds natural and good. The dampened tea-towel Beatles style drum sound was a bit bit-crushed sounding or something. It would have been more pleasing if it were a little bit less effected. I kept thinking that the RMS could have been upped there too. The Bass and Drums in general seemed a little too masked together on my headphones. Masking each other. The string instruments could have done with a little bite. Just a little.

Overall I must have enjoyed it because I listened from start to finish. Some of the melodic lines are still in my head as I compose this epistle.

Oh, one more thing, ''Wounded Soles(?)'' sounds like you need a new pair of shoes or something.

A remix, not too dramatically different to what has already been presented would go a long way imho.

[metamorphosis]

Hey, thanks
The Wounded Soles thing is intentional and for comedic effect. Although we tend to think of the type of fish rather than the foot

Thanks for the suggestions, struggling with separating bass and drums, I often have trouble with this without leaving one or the other sounding anemic, if you have any suggestions I'd be interested to hear it.

I know what you mean about the drums, it is largely a result of the recording circumstance for that one, there's no effects but possibly phasing from reflections.
BTW did you mean up the RMS on just the drums or the whole mix?
Thanks once again, these are good suggestions.

[Aloysius]

RMS for the Drums. I just had the feeling when I was listening that they could be more compacted.

As for ideas, I'd be thinking of smashing the drums with compression, then layering additional kicks and snares on top (in time with the played drums obviously). This way you'd end up with a hybrid New York Compression type of thing with good RMS and good definition. Or, if you have a stereo drum track, you could gate it, so only the kick and snare transients poke through, process them and layer that with the initial stereo drum track. There are a lot of things you could try, depending on your source material.

As for the Bass and Drums Mix, I'd probably get the Bass where I want it, and mix the drums around that (the bass).

[metamorphosis]

Cool, I'm not too fond of smashing drums (or any instrument for that matter) too much, but might try the other suggestions. One of the problems with this mix was lack of mics for my friend to record the drums (he is in a different city) so had to go with a recorderman setup. Which's fine, but it means you don't have nice control over kick/snare without affecting cymbals, etc.

In terms of building the drums around the bass, what do you suggest, eq-wise, if anything?
Cheers,
M

[Aloysius]

You'll need to experiment. I'd suggest finding a song or songs in a similar vein (that you like) and compare.

[metamorphosis]

The problem is when I start to do fairly high cut-offs (with either the bass or drums) it starts to sound anemic. I'm starting to think maybe I need to be using ducking on the bass.