Jackslab's Hated Love

[jackslab1]

Well I'm not real happy with it but I really didn't get much time to play with alot. My real job is kicking my ass right now. Maybe it'll slow down so I can contribute more to the contest. Hope you enjoy and thanks for listening.

[fHumble fHingaz]

I love the vocals on your mix, Jackslab - very glossy, slick & pro sounding. The drums & bass sound cool too. Overall a very good mix.

The main thing I found a bit difficult was the RH guitar tone - it sounds very "buzzy" - lacking in low mid "meat" & a bit fatiguing. Perhaps high passing it less aggressively & rounding off some high end might have served the song better.
A few more minor points: The harmony vocals could do with a little more ambiance to "smooth" them over somewhat & set them "behind the main vocal. In the bridge, the vocal felt a little too high in level, because the instrumentation drops out there - simple automation would fix that.

Overall, nicely done, especially considering your limited time.

[danmanisa]

Must be June. More people are saying they are busiest now than ever. So what does Brandon do, makes us work hard on being creative!

Cool intro with the drums. I love the fact that you applied reverb to the kick and the snare, sounds nice.
The vocals are nice and in front during the first verse and the guitars sound nice and crunchy.
Something happens once the chorus kicks in, that to me, does not work. I've listened three times and I can only guess at a couple of things. The right guitar is very fizzy and just seems to buzz throughout the whole lot. Because it so fuzzy and high gainy, it is really hard to distinguish any notes, so it just sounds like constant static. Secondly, the vocals sound too dry in this section and need to open up with a bit more reverb to give it a contrasting sound and some more air. (of course when I say "need to" you know I mean "may need to". Only a suggestion )

Pretty much everything else sounds good and spacious, well balanced and tonally solid. There are some serious timing issues that needed editing, especially the bass in the build up section (2:44), as the performance was not great to begin with. Don't get me wrong, this mix is really solid and it is just the not quite identifiable thing in the chorus that is bothering me. Good work!

[ChronoWulf]

I really like the sound of the drums - and the kind of "live" sound of the mix.

Did you run the mix bus through a limiter or maximizer etc? I think you might want to ease up on that some as the dynamics of the mix suffered - felt like it was going full loud the whole time which takes away from the energy which you get out of the builds/climaxes. Also the stereo image felt unbalanced to me - I think its due to the distorted electric guitar being a bit loud and panned right - so the left sounded quiet by comparison. You could try to control it with a low pass filter and lowering the fader.

For a mix you didn't get to finish - it sounds pretty good - hopefully you get some time this month, I know i hate it when I dont get to bring a project to the level I had wanted. Good luck with it!

[Jjsodarock]

Hey Jack,
All good from me except that right chanl gut. At first it was good but not for 2 min strait. It was distracting me from the other good stuff. Good work, Jojo

[Magnolius]

This sounds like a live act at full blast Maybe a little too loud though as there is some audible distortion throughout the track... There is some tonal issues when I play the mix on my monitors, the kick and snare sounds a little dark and damped while the overheads have a lot of energy in the highs. The guitars are also very treble heavy. To me this becomes a little tiring and sort of clouds what's happening in the mix. Back of the highs and I think this mix is on the right track

[dudermn]

I dig the curt kobain guitars

[JoshERTW]

Hey man, looks like you've cleared out some of the muddy stuff from your monitoring environment, good clarity on all your tracks here! I'd say parts of the mix sound a little over-compressed, I noticed some clipping on the drums in the intro part and a couple other artifacts/clipping in places. It might be the bus compression playing havoc with the less dense parts of the mix.

I think there's some automation stuff you could do with the different guitar tracks to make them more effective in certain parts (i.e. the guitar solo feels a bit empty, could have maybe changed the "focus" of that section) - I assume this is due to lack of time.

Vocals sound awesome, I like your reverb choices and general instrument tonality too (I agree wit the guitar distortion comment above - cool sound, but might have been more effective used a little more sparingly for flavour),.The loudness/compression issues are holding this one back a bit I would say. I'm a compression-phobic though (my limiter almost never cuts off more than 4 dB), so take that advice with a grain of salt

[jackslab1]

@ fHfH- Thanks alot for the good words (specially from someone kicking ass in this comp.). I spent most of my time on the vocals and drums. Those are the areas that give so much trouble in all my mixes. Everything else was just kinda blended as best I thought. Thanks again man.

@ danmanisa- Thanks for the listen. Yea I thought about the timing issues at the end. Just didn't get that far. I am remixing this for the portfolio

@ChronoWulf- On the drum boss I used the T-racks Black 76 comp. I think there is to much going on on the 2bus. I put the T-Racks deluxe on it to try and get the dynamics goin. Maybe too much? Most of the mixes I post alot of people say there isn't much going on for dynamics And I seen where Brandon said he uses a comp. and limiter on the 2bus to get the levels up to the -6db range while mixing. I'll work on that for sure. Thanks again.

@jojo- Thanks for listening. I now know what you men by the guitar on the right channel. It'll get toned down in the remix.


@ magnolius- Seems my 2bus is working to hard. Thanks for the listen and I'll try not to kill the 2bus next time.

@dudermn-


@Josh- Thanks for listening. It took a few days but Igot my room back in order. A couple more bass traps and moving the desks helped alot. Thanks for noticing the problems I didn't know I was having. It helped abunch. I think july's mix will be much better. I hope anyways. Thanks again for all your help bro. and I'm going to set down and listen to a few mixes and try to be more active here.


Thanks again everybody for taking the time to listen and vote. Good luck to everybody.

[redworks]

big sound with plenty of room in it. it is good to hear. and your subtle use of the synths was really well done. i think you could have given the ahhs even more ambiance and fill the bridge out even more. the guitar solo section after the bridge has some inherit problems. i personally cut it out altogether and felt that worked better. if you really want it in there then maybe move the solo more front and center.

[wireman957]

Nice mix, man! Your vocal treatment is excellent - I feel like the singer is right in front of me. The harmony vox seem a little "left-balanced", but that may just be the right hand guitar creating that illusion. Like fHumble said it's a bit "buzzy". that's one reason I took the "easy" way out in my mix and ditched it in favor of the DI track Low passing and some surgical EQ up around 3-3.5k might have helped give it more power and body. I understand the whole thing about time constraints, though - I've been plagued by the same thing. Hopefully you'll have more time for July.

All in all, this is a good solid mix. Nicely done!

[jhkillam]

There is something I'm hearing other than the bass guitar that is really mudding up the low mids. Maybe it's one of the guitar tracks? Bass sounds like it could use a few dbs cut from the 200hz ish range as well. Vocals sound really nice, just a bit covered up by the low mids of a couple other instruments. Drums sounded awesome in the intro.

[bholst]

Hey! As always, I love the Ren and Stimpy pic. lol. Mix is actually sounding really good as I listen through. Not a lot to be unhappy about
Overall has a very 'live' vibe to it. You did a really good job of putting that same vibe to all the tracks, as in, same sonic 'space'. Good levels, good panning. No big issues with compression or hyped frequencies. Most any EQ adjustments would be pretty minor. The only other thing that stood out was the tone on the dirty guitar. It's a bit like the infamous Boss Metal Zone pedal in terms of tone. That's is entirely a personal taste thing, but still, I'd be tempted to roll off some of the highs in that track to help it not stand out quite so much. But, like I said, that really is a personal taste thing. Many big names have pulled off that trashier guitar tone and did well with it. Really solid sounding mix. I think you're really making progress dude! Especially considering the limited time you've been able to put into it. I can totally relate. That real life job thing can be, well, you know. lol

-holster

[jackslab1]

Hey thanks guys. Really appreciate the kind words of encouragement.I've gone back to the mix and have been working on it although it doesn't do much good at this point other than to make it better for my portfolio. Think I'm getting it about there. Many thanks for taking the time to listen and commenting.

[willj]

Hey Jack! Im going to have to start a seperate thread saying "If i didnt get to your mix PM me" I try to get to all of them and sorry i missed ya.

Lots of good going on here man. Outside of the distorted guitar the mix has nice cohesion to it and fits together pretty well. A killer guitar tone could have really stepped you up into the next level tho.

If youre boosting a lot of highs with your overheads, its not something that is really necessary. My EQ curve on the overheads is probably pretty close to this....HP@350hz -3.0 @ 420hz Q= 2.0 +2.0 @ 8K Q= .05 LP @ 15K.
Not much else after that. Its always different.

Vocals sound good and the synths are spot on. You might do yourself a favor by trying to give the instruments a bit more of their own identity/achieving greater seperation between the instruments to get your mixes to the next level.

Nice work man!

This feels nice and bassy right now. Just about exactly what i hope to hear from this mix on the low end side of the spectrum. The kick drum has so much weight to it that it makes for a great kick/bass relationship.

[dudermn]

Ya its pretty hardcore listening to this same song a million times. It leans towards insanity.

High pass from 350 on the overheads seems a little to little. I find myself going all the way to 800, you know seek and destroy.
Was the snare intentionally left the way it is to make the bass drum sound that much heavier?

Here's some little thing I can mention going on with the mix now that I can type again !
1:20 lead doesn't really stand out over here. And the thermy seems buried alive.
2:20 vocals just jump up to much.
2:54-2:58 there's some butterflies flying around on ya mix than again at 3:17
I feel obligated to mention 2 more so
1. The noise at the beginning
2. 1:08 audible click on what seems like the left channel, right within the fuzz of the guitar.

All of this months mixes were great, and by great I mean better than good..it'd be great if everything on bash this sounded this good!.
It really made me think that this forum is either fill with professionals or that everyone really wants those plugs

[jackslab1]

Was the snare intentionally left the way it is to make the bass drum sound that much heavier?

I was going for a big kick and snappy snare. I'm still struggling to get the drums exactly the way I want them. Thanks for listening Dude.

[Jeronimo Mora]

Nice mix !

That kick sounds a bit like a thud. Scooping out of those nasty resonant frequencies with an EQ sweep might help. Those guitars are a bit fizzy. Slapping on a low pass filter o doing another EQ sweep would have tamed them a bit. Once the guitars aren't as scratchy, I would suggest turning them up about 2 db or so. The vocals sound nice, if a bit loud. The OHs were a bit harsh sometimes. Either taming the highs with a shelf or bringing them down about 1.5-2 db may have helped.

Good mix !