RidgyBeatle's Fire Inside mix

[ridgybeatle]

Nothing to say really... I just hope there's less forehead smacking in my future. [not likely]

Oh, and thanks for the tracks! It was a pleasure to mix!

[JoshERTW]

Hey RB, pretty solid work, I'm going to be really picky on this since you've proven yet again this month that you have some solid skills. Loving the wall of guitars in the choruses, and the fact that you managed to keep the vocals audible - I might have snipered a couple of frequencies in the guitar distortion to get a little more clarity on them, or perhaps tried keeping a little more space panning wise between individual guitar tracks. I often throw a compressor across my guitar bus but this month I found even a few DB of reduction sucked the life out of them so I let my chorus guitars go commando this month and found it gave them a lot more clarity - that and panning no guitar within 15% of another (I wanna say I went something like 85%, 65%, 40%, 25% on the various electrics, and 25% 50% on acoustics?)

I think the bus limiter is yanking things up a little too much during the verses. I liked the acoustic only first verse, but the guitar itself probably could have been automated down at least 2 dB - that or maybe automating the bus limiter to back off about 1 dB in the verses - 1 dB doesn't sound like much but I've found that's about all I can get away with without it sounding obvious, and it creates enough of a dynamic shift between sections that it gives the listener a bit of a reprieve from the "GO GO GO" nature of the song.

All in all this is pretty epic stuff. Only other thing I woudl suggest is doing something about that "tiiime" backing vocal - he doesn't actually finish the word on the track so it needs to be faded out or something or else it tends to cut out weirdly - Nice work man.

[Egavas]

Hey man, This is a good strong mix

The only real suggestions I can make would be to gate the snare bottom track, just to remove that nasty raspy noise without effecting that nice meaty sound you've got. It's quite noticeable in the verses.
If you also backed the snare off just a little, by just a dB maybe, during the verses it would help add to the dynamics a little.

Nice one dude

[BillyBoBBizWorth]

Sounds pretty rocking to me,a few things stood out to me.

Good work on the drums,kept it true to the original tracks but made them sound and work better,it also sounds like you didn't use any samples or such at all? which i applaud you for!!

The snare has abit of rattle which is probably from the bottom snare mic track,it actually sounds good to me,i like it.It has a natural yet powerful kind of "slap" to it which i dig.

Although in saying that,if more of the bottom mix track has been used than the rest,it would explain why some of the snare fill/s during the track don't cut through as much as i would personally like them to,example is 1:54-1:55.

I mean for the most part,the snare cuts through and sounds good doing it.It may be because im listening on a system rather than headphones,i may check on that and get back to you.

But yer,i had 3-4 listens and i quite liked it,nothing majorly stands out to me in a bad way at all.

Nice work on the mix.

Cheers

[fHumble fHingaz]

Good mix! I like the sounds you've achieved here. You managed to present a well controlled low end that doesn't sound muddy, which was no easy task on this mix.

I quite like the "weight" in the snare - it sounds nice & fat, but it could use maybe just a tad more "snap" from a transient designer or similar.

The high end in the mix is good, although I did find some of the hihat hits a little abrasive at times - tape sims are often good for taming that without making it dull.

The vocals sounded good for the most part, but I did find the acoustic right at the beginning was competing with the vocals for frequency space somewhat - try dipping out a bit of 1- 2k on the acoustics to make room for the vocals.

Overall, top job!

[TopBobSecret]

RidgyB,
I like the sound of your mix. It has a bit more beef in the bottom end than mine. (restrain comment about wives)
I see what fHumble means as the acou. competes w/ vocals at the beginning. You could also have dipped the instruments at all the vocal sections and then kicked them back up into place. A sidechain compressor, or just due diligence would help to get the guitars out of the way.
As I get further into this process, and hopefully more adept, I am treating every track with EQ hunting down ugly areas, automating volumes, and eyeing the prize with the 2bus chain. I am currently searching for overload peaks and selectively dipping volume as I try to get louder overall. But by then I don't know half of how I got there so it's hard to have specific comments.
I just noticed a bit of dynamic flat-ness in the main rhythm guitar that could use some peaks and valleys. (more like mesas and dells)
Good job-TopBob

[The-Zeronaut]

good mix very well balanced
really liked the sound during the verses
the distorted guitars sound too "fizzy" on the rest of the song. need a little clarity.

[kakeux]

Hi,

Cool one! the snare surprised me at first but it seems to work finally.

You were able to deliver a powerful mix with tight low end. That's a good point.

The verses however seems to move a bit levelwise, like if the limiter release the pressur during the verses because less crowded part. It's not really pumping, but like if the instruments feels moving a bit. Well, that's what I hear.

Vocals are rocking good and are well placed in the mix.

Good job!

[michaelspek]

Hi, powerful mix!
aside from the already mentioned snare bottom, and what seems to me like a bit overly enthusiastic 2bus limiter (I also noticed slight pumping, especially in the verses),
I can only share my personal taste: your mix sound very dry to me, some ambience and liveliness I think would be nice. No long reverbs, but small rooms or short delays (4-30ms, stereo if you want wide sounds)

[IMF OnSite Recording]

Hey , here's my new critique. Nothing is sugar coated and the point is to help you the best I can to my ability without my personal taste getting in the way. I'm overloaded on my end and in life in general so I've put this together to still fulfill my duty of helping as many people as I can.

DRUMS:I like your tight drums. Sounds like heavier compress on the source track though. You're better off doing that compression parallel that way you don't kill the natural decay of the drums. Nice, dry, and punchy though. Nice. There's a weird decay thing going on with the snare.. and alot of these source tracks have less than ideal noise ratios going on. Brandon's really killing us with these drums and his secret test he's got going on. I can see him laughing menacingly with his feet up on the console as we try to mix these drums.
BASS:Bass is real washed out and struggling to be heard. Keep it mono and a little limiting and gain increase will bring it right to life, because I can hear it sitting fairly well in the mix already.
GUITAR: Rhythm tone is not bad. I would bring it up slightly and watch the low end while doing so... may need some high passing and balancing between the left and right tracks.
VOCALS: Vocals are pretty well set, the fade in the outtro could be faded out more smoothley, and possibly copied
OTHER ELEMENTS:
COMMENTS: When the acoustics first kicked it, it seemed more in my face.. which was odd.. that's a level issue and the acoustics, naturally, shouldn't be louder than high gain guitar rigs

OVERALL MIX:
Good job overall man, just some tweaks here and there and this thing is on fire, no pun intended .

[danmanisa]

Hey RB,

Typing as I listen, and I figure (without having read any comments) that that snare is likely to be a topic of conversation. I love how you've gated it. It works really well in the choruses and riff sections, yet I am not as much of a fan in the verses, mainly because that gating effect is a little too prominent. Awesome guitar sound, well controlled artificial harmonics too.
Outstanding use of the acoustics, some of the best I've heard and more importantly, only used when needed!

As I listen, I really cannot fault anything in this mix. There are a couple of things I would personally tweak (I'd bring the bass up a db or two to deliver a little more power, yet I am a bass player and your bass is fine as is!) but overall, your mix did what it should do, which is rock out! That's 5 from me, job done, no forehead smacking!

[jerze]

Nice mix .nice job on the arrangement ideas. one thing I’m hearing in the 2nd half of the verse the bass seems to bring the level down of the acoustic. Not sure but maybe h-pass the acoustic a little when the bass comes in (the acoustic sound was good.).
nice guitar sound . the toms sound good .
overall nice job.

[bobbybovine]

Hi RidgyBeatle. Very nice stuff here. Really like how them ix comes in nice and powerfull. Your rhythm instruments throughout sound fantastic!! Love them. My main critisisms are of only 2 things. First the vox level, just not quite loud enough and just doesn't match the power of the instrumentation. It is probably only a 3db adjustment to fix that. The other one is the leads. They are sooooo low that I can barely hear them. I really think if you got them to really pop out as leads usually do this would be damn near a perfect mix for me. ohhhh so close.

[ncls]

Hey, great mix here. I really like your drum sound. I wish I could make mine sound like that
I also really like the way you build dynamic through the song: the final chorus sounds wider and powerful than the others to me.
Kudos for that great job.

By the way, dynamic in other sections is less wonderful to me. I dunno what you did for the final chorus you didn't do in the previous sections
Plus, the guitar parts become clearer and wider throughout the song, meaning that in the first verse / chorus, it sounds more messy to me.

Very very great mix to me. Really