Metalcore mix

[Andrew07]

www.cherryhillrecording.com/mp3/Question.mp3

This is my first mix of this song, please bash the shit out of it. There are some timing issues, the snare replacement needs tweaking, and I got pretty Chris Lord-Alge with the compression on the 2-buss. I think the guitars might be a little fizzy but the guitarist was nagging the shit out of me to "make it wet...no dude not reverb WET" whatever the hell that means

[Futant55]

I agree the guiatrs are fizzy. The Vox are a little loud for my taste in the beginnning, but I get told all the time mine are too low, but thats the way I like them. I think the guitars and vox need to be brought down to let the drums settle in more. All in all it sounds like a really good start to me. Can you please give my mix a listen its the thread titled here's some texas metal.

[brandondrury]

Well, I'm back to my only hearing one side of my stereo again.

Okay, I just took 5 minutes to fix it and I think I just made it worse. It appears I'm back to mono in both speakers and everything sounds weird now.

With that said, I think you hit the 2 buss too hard. It feels like this was well tracked, but everything sounds distorted to me. I listened to some mp3s I have laying around and they had some of this too, but your mix was smashed way more aggressively. In other words, I think my speakers malfuctioning is making the excessive 2 bus limiting / compression more obvious.

The guitars sound pretty good to me. If you have EQ on them, I'd reduce the boost @ 3-5Khz 1dB. Generally speaking, I like the metal guitars a tad darker.

A :58, I'm totally loosing the snare. This should be knocking a whole in my chest. At 1:24 that guitar sounds great. At 1:26, it sounds like your mix was put in a blender. While that seams like a great thing, I think the L2 or whatever you have on the 2bus is wreaking havoc on this mix.

It's hard to tell with my speakers sounding so weird right now, but I'm thinking the problem is in the drum levels. How hard you hitting the drum bus with compression?

If it was me, I would try hitting those harder so I didn't have to squash the entire mix so much on the 2bus. It may not work, but it would be a good start.

I'd like to hear more drums in general, however you need to do that.

I checked Muse and a few other mp3s I have that are pretty loud and yours is a tad louder. So that tells me you can get away with 2dB less reduction. That may make all the difference in the world...especially if you hit your drum bus with a couple dB of very fast attack fast release (not too fast or you get low end distortion) compression.

By the way, this is going to be a damn good mix when we get the kinks worked out.

Brandon

[Andrew07]

Thanks guys

Pro Tools uses a post fader 2-buss so you have to work through the master fader and plugins. Cubase is pre-fader and I'm still trying to get my head around that. How do you lower all the tracks at once together in Cubase by the way?

The drums don't have individual compression and about 6-9db on their Aux. Also there is something like 20db reduction on a parallel Aux. I was listening to Underoaths new cd earlier in the day and those drums are fucking SQUASHED...they just sound like "ppprrr ppprrr". I think I'll compress the snare and kick individually, but will also automate the snare so it doesn't get as lost.

Where should the low end be on the guitars for music like this? I have Waves' C4 with the Andy Sneap settings on the guitars, but I'm wondering if I should also pass them up to about 100hz and suck even more 200-350 out

[brandondrury]

Pro Tools uses a post fader 2-buss so you have to work through the master fader and plugins. Cubase is pre-fader and I'm still trying to get my head around that. How do you lower all the tracks at once together in Cubase by the way?

I've never had to lower the volume of my 2bus. I start with the drums hitting -10dB on the 2bus and go from there.

The drums don't have individual compression and about 6-9db on their Aux. Also there is something like 20db reduction on a parallel Aux. I was listening to Underoaths new cd earlier in the day and those drums are fucking SQUASHED...they just sound like "ppprrr ppprrr". I think I'll compress the snare and kick individually, but will also automate the snare so it doesn't get as lost.

There are a lot of different theories as to how to deal with the modern loudness war. I always compress the "dry / clean / whatever" drum bus a little. I only compress individual tracks if I'm going for something specific (for metal, I probably would).

It doesn't have to be much, but here is my theory on it.

If loud drums hit the L2 hard, it screws up the entire mix (bass, guitars, vocals, etc) are all pulled down for a second...even if this happens fast, it is still clear as day. On top of that, the L2 is still crushing the drums. So, I like to go ahead and smash the drums (usually a Waves C1 set very fast, but you probably have something better). The drums will lose something, but they would have lost something hitting the 2bus hard anyway. At least with this method, you don't screw up the rest of the mix everytime the drums hit. You can really hear this on over- L2'd double bass parts.

I've heard a lot of mastering guys say that they never L2 more than 2dB. So, this is a good practice for you. Forget the 2bus for a little while. Don't even touch it. Get the damn thing nice and loud without a limiter or compressor on the 2bus and then go from there.

I was listening to Underoaths new cd earlier in the day and those drums are fucking SQUASHED...they just sound like "ppprrr ppprrr".

Yeah, a lot of bands have gotten into this type of thing...luckily not all. I refuse to intentionally make shitty sounding drums. Of course, that was probably some label asshole that did that.

Where should the low end be on the guitars for music like this? I have Waves' C4 with the Andy Sneap settings on the guitars, but I'm wondering if I should also pass them up to about 100hz and suck even more 200-350 out

Oh hell, this is a great / shitty question. har har

Well, are they palm muting on the low E....low C (down full step drop D)....F# etc? Are they palm muting at all? Are they using bolt-on guitars or set neck guitars. How much low end do they like?

All of these come in to play. So, it depends on the song and the band.

I think low end (in the conventional home recording guitar way) is a total crock. Guitars very seldom have this massive floor rattling low end in the palm mutes that 16 year old kids think they want. However, the guitars do have energy down there in general.

Personally, I've never used a C4 on electric guitars. I generally like to compress them pretty hard (which effectively pushes any excessive low end down but brings up midrange harmonics (which is good) and fizz (which is bad)).

When in doubt, don't EQ at all. I'd love to hear your mix with compressed guitars (maybe 5dB reduction most of the time) and then go from there.

Brandon

[Andrew07]

Hey dude so how do you lower the volume of everything at once? In Pro Tools you put everything in a Group, then you can lower all the tracks while maintaining the balances

[brandondrury]

Can you change the 2bus effects to be post fader? I know you can by pushing the middle button on just about every other insert / send.

Brandon

[Andrew07]

Sorry dude guess I'm not being real clear. How can I select all of the tracks, put them in a group, and lower everything like 10 decibels so it's not hitting the 2-buss so hard

[Andrew07]

Click-shift all channels, Control-click a channel, choose 'Link Channels'

[brandondrury]

Sorry dude guess I'm not being real clear. How can I select all of the tracks, put them in a group, and lower everything like 10 decibels so it's not hitting the 2-buss so hard

Oh okay. I'm curious if there is a difference in sound quality from yanking all faders down vs just pulling down the 2bus fader with the effects set on post fader (like what you said Pro Tools can do).

I'd be concerned about sends and stuff losing their relative levels. Let me know if this works for you. I'm just curious.

Were you not able to switch the 2bus stuff to post fader?

Brandon