Customer Reviews

Slumberland Records Spring 2009 Sampler

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For some reason, people get the idea that "indie" means they can get away with lousy sound mixing, and that it makes them sound raw and sincere. It doesn't. What it does do is make it hard to enjoy the often quite talented musicians who are making the music because the mix is muddy. So for those aspiring indie musicians looking for tips, here is Sound Engineering 101 - Voice track goes crisp and clear in the front. Always. If the lead is singing and the bass is drowing them out, there is no point to singing, the words get lost in the mix. You can still use EQ's that give an edge to the sound, but you have to put the focal point in the front and set everything else behind it. If someone has a solo on their instrument, the level is brought up for the solo and lowered down when they are done. Never set your levels and walk away, music is dynamic and so should be your mix. Above all else, if there is a lead vocal going on, it has to not only be heard, but clearly heard. Thank you, class dismissed.

Every one of these tracks suffers from poor mixing. They may be quite talented musicians, their lyrics may be pure genius, and they may sound great live, but this recording is very muddy and hard to enjoy. Some tracks have nearly indistinguishable vocals, while others have distracting or even grating imbalances in the instrumentation. I just want to reach through my computer and fix their board setups. Decent engineers can't be that hard to find, can they?

Crystal Stilts is probaly the best track off this sampler. It goes well with the albums self title track and Dazzled, followed by The Pains of Being Pure At Heart and so on. Not all tracks are great, but most are. Hey what do you want for free!

I like several other of the reviewers could not tolerate the noise and poor production long enough to determine if any of the contributions had musical merit! While some music suffers from overproduction, this sampler crashes from the lack of iton every cut. Yikes

Love that indie sound. I downloaded most of the offerings and they're terrific, with one exception. British Radar by Hood blows. I'm sorry, it's not a song if you string together a bunch of sound effect samples and discordant guitar sounds. It's just a cacophonous mess.

I found this sampler because I really like "Young Adult Friction." Offering that song alone for free is a great value. But there are a few other good songs on here. The first track is good, as well as "One Half Laughing," and some others. Good stuff! For free!

This first two songs show promise but from there on it was straight downhill! Maybe the words had merit but I couldn't listen to voice long enough to find out.