METAL: Tribal Spirits - Desecrate Me

[PitchNote]

Hi yall!

I've recently finished a new EP for my own band and would like to hear your opinions! Don't be sweat but respond with respect plz.

You can find the track here: Desecrate Me (Sound Cloud)

I've used no triggers for drums even though it's a heavy metal song!
For DAW I use Cubase 5.

Cheerz! Jory
Pitch Note (Pitch Note Productions)

[bobbybovine]

Hey man, welcome to the forum. Thats a pretty cool tune and you got some nice tones going on there. A couple of things jump out at me. The first is your guitars don't have that in your face feel. did you use a stereo enhancer or something because they actually feel too wide, leaving a BIG hole in the center. And to accompany that your bass guitar is pretty non existent, I can tell when it is not playing under the guitar, but when it is playing I can't actually decipher the bass. Your drums sound pretty good, no real complaints there, maybe some eq on the kick to give it more meat and thickness, but not much. I have had some success thickening up the guitars by doubling those tracks (or double tracking is better) and maybe shift the doubled tracks a few ms forward or back and pan them at 50% and keep your hard pan as well.
Great song though.

Bob

[Brender]

^ while listening to it I was thinking pretty much what he said.The is a lot missing from the low end leaving a huge hole in the mix.But once you get that worked out this should sound awesome.

Also here is an idea of how you can handle your bass.Have one track of bass for the low frequency's by putting a low pass filter on it so you get a nice sub bass sound from it and then make a second bass track and put a high pass filter on it and cut out those low frequency's you have on there other track and apply a little distortion to this bass track.If you use vst plugins then " onquel's TSE B.O.D" is great for bass distortion.

[Houstonhart11]

I like your idea about doubling the bass and filtering them opposite. Hadn't thought of that...

[LazyE]

yes!

very pantera!
i used to hammer the `vulger display of power` album to death!

sounds good, i agree with the comments on the bass though, cant hear it.
and the mix does seem a little thin, but other than that the track is great.
drums sound really good , nice balance between the toms, snare and kick, i wouldn`t change the drum evels at all
maybe a bit more punch on the bass drum but thats about it.
guitars need thickening up a bit on the soundstage, have you panned hard left and right? seems very seperated.
up the vocals a bit and i reckn its good to go

[PitchNote]

Thanks for the replies!!

I'd have to say I agree with the bass. Allthough I must say that it varies in the song. Note that the basslines are mostly similar to the guitarlines, I notices while mixing that the two instruments merge a bit. I can hear the basguitar pop out quite nicely on my speakers and other sets of friends. But it could be that the bass on the used systems here are a bit pumped up. I mix in a small room so I do have some problems with bass.
I don't know if you can view this image (it's facebook) but this is my setup where I mixed the whole thing:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...93752847_n.jpg

On the comment of separating the low's and hi's of the bass: I've done that in this mix. The hi levels are contant and the lowend are sidechained to the kick and toms with a compressor with a very fast release and attack.

The guitars are panned about 75%. But I think I was a little bit too enthousiastic on the stereo imaging while mastering (I use the Izotope Ozone plugin for mastering).
I've had some strugle with the guitars in this mix, don't know why, I re-amped the whole thing but I think the line-in recording could have done better so that in post-production I've had cleaner distortion.

Great you all like the drums! This was my first production in witch I didn't triggered anything. I recorded the drums in 24 channels (4x kick, 3x snare, 2x tom1, 2x tom2, 3x tom3, 3x tom4, 1x hi-hat1, 1x hi-hat2, 1x ride, 4x OH (left to right). This was my little experiment

Again, thanks for the replies and comments which I can use in my next mixes! I'll post some other projects soon!

Jory

[bobbybovine]

The way your speakers are setup in the corners and with not bass trapping is totally going to exaggerate you low end. If you have a good pair of headphones with good bass response to listen to could help you get that balance better without guessing so much on what your room is doing. I would remove that mastering plug and just work on the raw mix for now, metal doesn't really need to be wide it ends up feeling thin when it is.

[PitchNote]

yeah I've noticed that. It's a small room with concrete walls, defiantly not optimal but hey, at least its something haha.
I recently bought new monitors (Tannoy Reveal 601a) and put them under the ones in the photo. This way they are on "ear-height". The low-end is way better now but still not optimal.

I'm a bit careful with acoustic treatment because I have little understanding of how it works (ideas are most welcome!).

I do have headphones I use, but they are not ideal (Sennheiser HD202 and HD280 pro). Though the HD280 pro is not "budget" it gives very little low-end (better said, almost NO low-end) so its hard for me to do a good reference of my mix on headphones. I like the HD202 just for listening music (without paying attention to the mix).

As for not using a master plugin with metal I'd have to say I do not complete agree. I like wide mixes very much but maybe that's just my weird taste (wouldn't be surprised if it is). I always feel like adding a extra dimension when doing stereo imaging.

Again if anyone has some good advice for me on acousitcal treatment (in a budget way..), please let me know. I have very little experience on this subject.

[bobbybovine]

I'm a bit careful with acoustic treatment because I have little understanding of how it works (ideas are most welcome!).

Start with these articles:
RealTraps - Acoustic Basics
Acoustic Treatment and Design for Recording Studios and Listening Rooms
Fixing Small Studio Acoustics Problems « Audio Geek Zine

and of course peruse the forum here:
Acoustics and Studio Construction

As for not using a master plugin with metal I'd have to say I do not complete agree. I like wide mixes very much but maybe that's just my weird taste (wouldn't be surprised if it is). I always feel like adding a extra dimension when doing stereo imaging.

I didn't mean to insinuate that wide is not totally good, but for thick, heavy guitars you still need to have something in the middle to give that power.