Reviews for Big Bad City Blues (feat Jim Frost of the outpaitents)

[BECAUSEMETOO]

Without even playing the thing i can already see that there isn't much of "mastering" going on, just look at how this thing looks, don't even play it and then look back here. https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/802825

Guitar is great. Can't understand what the vocalists are ....OH never underestimate ... uuuum ... who will be there .... you think it's me .... the city .... alright i can hear things now.
And now i can't hear anything again, when this "helicopter effect" comes in. The vocal sounds drunk though. The song kind of goes nowhere, it gets to a .... "song" part and sort of stays there, can't see any like "verse", or "hook" , everything is too similiar, some instruments come in and leave but everything still feels very static.
Trumpet(s) are cool. Crash "crashes" too often ... like waaaay too often. Still can't hear anything the vocalist is saying, oh look he laughts ... still have no idea why. ... oh CITY ... no i don't know again ... he laughts again and ... BUST YOU DOWN ... alright ... it's over.

So ... it stays pretty much the same , doesn't feel like it progresses anywhere, no obvious parts and no obvious difference between them.
Vocalist is drunk, bring some water and a bucket, let's wake this poor fella up. The mix is kind of "drunk" too ... so ... two buckets ...
It's not loud enough, and also it has too much of very high pitched noises and if you'd just make it louder than it would just be painful. It's a complicated thing and it has to do more with mastering and mixing and audio production and all the digital type of deal, i'm no expert here to give you some technical advice, but there are a lot of courses online that can fix it , diana took one yesterday and it was pretty short, it doesn't look like it helped by much, since the song she mastered only gets 3's and 0's so um ... contradictions everywhere ...

Alright ... i'll try again ... figure out all the production type of deal , the music is alright, the vocalist sounds confident at the very least and with a good production the "drunky" thing would be kind of cute and charming , i'm joking of course, vocals are fine but i can't hear a thing when everything is so much "WBZRGHTZNG CHHHHH!!!!! WBRASKAJBGK CHHHHH!"
Words ... You know ... They are hard.
And with the "stars" thing i usually leave either "4" if there's something to be improved and for "5" if it's perfect. So here you'd need some production "power ups" to improve. And also ... no no no it's already way too freaking long i'm sorry.

Naghorvik responds:

Well mastering isn't something you can do with FL unless all one plans to do is play kiddie techno and convert it to MP3. That's why your producer even though applying rudimentary techniques is still getting a 3 or so.

I master with hardware when the time is right anything else to me is not a genuine master.
I agree the cymbals are way too loud. . . I trimmed the bass and probably peaked the treble, I just had some crappy ear buds at the time, I may repost with that fixed. . .

The reason for this is called transduction, (Analog sine wave vs Digital representation thereof ) digital programs like FL, NI, Reason, Landar, etc cant do this for a lot of things. I wouldn't even bother without tubes and outboard gear. Digital mastering crushes the signal. Now for softsynths its no big deal BUT, for live stuff its A DAMM BIG DEAL, so I'm trying not to spend days eq ing stuff that can only get so good with the limitations of software in general.

True this isn't a site for the Blues but I'm beta testing things here and appreciate feedback both negative and positive. Unless you have outboard mastering compressors with tubes (preferably German 12AX7 beam pentonde tubes and triode tubes for the pre amps) your not really going to improve the sound of live instruments, particularly if its crap software tone. If you've ever played a guitar through a tube amp you will know what I mean. So knowing what real mastering sounds like and having the means to do that when the time is right I personally am not to concerned about the fiddly details of demos in that respect unless its so bad its slightly embarrassing (like the bad cut at the end of one of the songs the other day you told me about) OR really wonky live drums or stuff that is just pure SHIIIIT.

Now the slow blues rock feel which I was going for I wanted to be as Legit as possible. I was inspired by stuff like Led Zeppelins Dazed and Confused, or Gorge Thurgood's one bourbon one scotch one beer, Those songs are 7 - 14 min long btw I think I did shorten it. But clearly your not a fan of the old blues swagger, YES its supposed to sound a bit drunk, drunk is what hard times sound like and this song is about hard times. People where dyeing around us, The cops were knocking at the door, the ceiling was caving in, and the schizophrenic Roommate was stealing our gear for crack!!! (it was the big bad city blues) you'd excuse us if we didn't really have the time to fuss over it.

Basically in the grand scheme of things the best tracks will get completely re recorded and mastered.