Metal Mix: What do you think?

[JakeAC5253]

This is partially incomplete (cup half empty?) What do you think?

[brianinogang]

nice tune. as for bashing, i think you coul trim the 2-4k of the guitars coz its giving me some jetlike freq's. maybe eq that and bring up the bass a tad more.

[JakeAC5253]

Thanks for the critique! Here is a newly mixed version.

[porcubot]

Finish it and make it louder. I like it.

[brianinogang]

the first mix sounded better. guitars sound the same to me. try cutting on more from the 800-3kthe kick is way up there and the drums sound machine like in the second one. try adjusting the velocities and bring up the cymbals / highs a bit more. hope this helps. keep us posted. did you compress the kick? if yes, then do a high pass on it.

[JakeAC5253]

Hey thanks for the info. I liked the first one because it seemed like it had more 'air' but the drums sounded better in the second. I have to bring the guitars up a bit too. Yes the kick is compressed, someone told me to put a limiter on it so, it is limited also. I might loosen up the limiter though because I think it did bad things to the overall presentation. About that hi pass, about where are we looking for a hi pass on a kick? 20Hz? 50Hz? Just point me in the right direction, because on my current speakers I can't 'hear' what sounds right, so unfortunately you'll have to let me know

Brian you mentioned that the guitars sound the same, which is relatively true. I had a boost on the guitar at 5kHz at 5dB I believe, and after you posted I increased the Q and lowered the boost to 2-3dB. On the guitar buss I had a 'lift' as I like to call it, if a few dB at 8kHz, for the second mix I moved that up to either 10kHz or 12kHz, I forget. I thought the EQing I had done in that general area might be what you were referring to, but I guess not haha. Other than that it stayed pretty constant. I will try to cut some of those frequencies you mentioned. I don't hear them though, no monitors yet, which is why my levels are all over the place and everything sounds like crap.

Nice info! Glad you guys are liking it too. Don't be afraid to cut it down, that's what I'm here for

[JakeAC5253]

OK, just spent the last twenty minutes on this new mix. Guitar problem fixed? Things more leveled out? Haven't used a limiter on the whole mix yet so it's still quiet, I'll get to that later, how does it sound?

[bozmillar]

sounds to me like you are relying too heavily on the close mics on the drums instead of the overheads. The bulk of the drum sound should come from the overheads, and the close mics should just provide the meat that is lacking from the overheads.

The guitars sound a bit roomy. That might even itself out once the drums are in place though.

[JakeAC5253]

Hehehe I got a good laugh out of that. I WISH I could do just that, that's how I usually mix a set, but these drums are MIDI lol. I'll take that as a complement though

Also, what did you mean about the guitars sounding roomy? Like not up front and in your face? How can I fix that? This was recorded with an SM57 at an angle about a half inch from the grille. Do you need me to post a clip of just the guitar so you can better help me?

[bozmillar]

hmm. like I said, it's possible they just sound roomy compared to the drums. You can get software drum samples that sound good, but if you are using a hardware drum unit, that's probably as good as you'll get them.

[paul999]

Hey guitarfreak I don't usually angle the mic's as you did. I like to mix with a bit of compression because it totally changes the mix and sound of sources. I hope you don't mind but I put your recording through some high end mastering compression to see what would happen to the mix and guitar sounds. I don't mind the guitar sounds and I am not hearing that over bearing high frequency trouble braininogang was.

So anyway I pressed the holy jesus compress button until the recording started to disintegrate so that you can get a better idea how the mix will stand up in mastering.

I put it through a manley variable mu and then a wavesmaxxbcl hardware limiter. approx. $10,000 worth of comp/limiting.

BTW notice how when you compress/ limit the mix the guitars come up. That is pretty usual. I like the guitar sound you have.

Cheers.

[JakeAC5253]

Haha, dude that's fucking awesome! What's a variable mu? That hardware master limiter you've got there has got to be some balls to the wall stuff, it made my mix actually sound CD quality... almost. Demo quality we'll call it About how much dB of limiting did you average/peak at? I am curious because the only kind of limiting/mastering I do is with the software limiter and multipressor that comes with Logic :\

I also did not know that the guitars come up when you master. Is that because the mastering limiter evens out the peaks from the kick drum and brings them closer to the level that the guitars average at? Did you EQ anything or just master it? Real cool stuff man, I am impressed! Thanks for taking the time to do that IDK how it sounds on monitors but on my cheap computer speakers it sounds bitchin.

BTW in case you were wondering about my mic technique, I put the tip of the 57 at the right edge of the cone and angle it at the hole in the center. Because of the fact that the center gives great HF response and the edge has a great bass heavy sound I think of it as getting the best of both worlds. If you say you like my guitar sound you should try it yourself Although I'm not sure if it will work as well with other types of mics, the 57 is the only one that I have tried in this position. It's great for clean passages and old vintage sounding stuff too. You still gotta chop off the low end to get it to sit right in a mix but I find that I get more the sound I am looking for with this particular position. Plus not everyone does it so I feel more special haha

[paul999]

[QUOTE]

What's a variable mu?

This was the compressor.Manley Stereo Variable Mu (Mastering Version) | VintageKing.com

That hardware master limiter you've got there has got to be some balls to the wall stuff, it made my mix actually sound CD quality... almost. Demo quality we'll call it About how much dB of limiting did you average/peak at? I am curious because the only kind of limiting/mastering I do is with the software limiter and multipressor that comes with Logic :\

Balls to the walls and then some Waves Maxx BCL Mix magazine audio studio product review of Waves MaxxBCL Hardware Processor review

I limited about 12db with peaks and 6-9 in between. In a mastering situation I would go through this process 3-5 times to be more transparent. I would only take off 3-5 db at the peaks.

I also did not know that the guitars come up when you master. Is that because the mastering limiter evens out the peaks from the kick drum and brings them closer to the level that the guitars average at?

That is one of the reasons. Another is that the bass frequencies get hit harder with the comp so the mids tend to come up.

Did you EQ anything or just master it? Real cool stuff man, I am impressed! Thanks for taking the time to do that IDK how it sounds on monitors but on my cheap computer speakers it sounds bitchin.

No eq. I wold usually roll of a little lows plus cut at about 260hz because the manley tends to boost this a little. This is not really mastering it is more of a scetch of what it will be like under the pressure of several db of comp.

BTW in case you were wondering about my mic technique, I put the tip of the 57 at the right edge of the cone and angle it at the hole in the center. Because of the fact that the center gives great HF response and the edge has a great bass heavy sound I think of it as getting the best of both worlds. If you say you like my guitar sound you should try it yourself Although I'm not sure if it will work as well with other types of mics, the 57 is the only one that I have tried in this position. It's great for clean passages and old vintage sounding stuff too. You still gotta chop off the low end to get it to sit right in a mix but I find that I get more the sound I am looking for with this particular position. Plus not everyone does it so I feel more special haha

I am going to do a shoot out of these two techniques next time I mic a cab. Thanks for showing me something.

Cheers

[JakeAC5253]

OK, so this is a rough mix that I just made through my new monitors!

I hope it sounds better, because they showed me a lot of things wrong with the mix that I wasn't hearing before. Hope you like. I fixed the EQ of the guitar, changed the compression on the drums, brought up the bass, and eased the whole mix lightly into a limiter.

Edit: 2nd file is limited a bit harder and third is crushed by limiter lol

Jake

[JakeAC5253]

Any comments?

[paul999]

Hey guitarfreak. I am on my honeymoon until about the 17th or so. I will listen when I have some decent speakers and not just an iPhone.

Cheers
Paul

[JakeAC5253]

Hey guitarfreak. I am on my honeymoon until about the 17th or so. I will listen when I have some decent speakers and not just an iPhone.

Cheers
Paul

Oh man that's great I'm so excited for you

Take your time, no rush here, my mixes aren't going anywhere. Enjoy the honeymoon!

[matainais]

No offence, but so far i like the Paul999's mix 3 the most. Yor 3rd version is waaay overcompressed, it pumps like a bloody oil pump.
I like the guitars with all their roominess - they've got a nice "bite" in them. Sounds pretty raw and staright forward. But i definitely don't like the drums. They sound much too dry. It sems to me like you have a huge hole in theyr sond - some bas and hell of high end...but no "meat" in between.

[JakeAC5253]

Good critique. The drums are indeed MIDI. I tried to make them sound as good as possible, but I guess there is a limit to how good they can sound. Or maybe I am doing it wrong. And did you mean the guitars had no mids or the drums had no mids? Or the entire mix itself?

To be blatantly honest, I only have a faint idea of what I am doing with a limiter. I also used a multipressor on the entire mix just before limiting to get the drums pumping.

[matainais]

it is the drums tht have no mids

[JakeAC5253]

The guitars are the only real instrument in the whole mix and I know they need something. Can you help me out, I am thinking it is something mids related but I need some more opinions on how to make them jump more. Or do you think the reason they seem set back a bit is because of the room noise?

[matainais]

I don't really feel that gitars would be set back too much. But i will check it again when i get home on my system, maybe i'm jst missing something. If you wish, i could try to fool around with the guitars on that track and see if it gets anywhere

[paul999]

This is a tough one to critique. You are doing well and with just getting monitors your mixes will change leaps and bounds as you hear them more and more. With digital compression that comes with cubase or other programs it is really hard to get them to be effective. Any more then 2 or 3 db gain reduction and it sounds terrible but this is not quite enough compression in most cases. It is tough to comment on the tracking because the "mastering" compression is making everything sound dark. I would look on the free plugin sticky for good compressors. Parallel compression on the guitars with extra high eq on the duplicate tracks would work nicely. I would still compress the original track the 2 or 3 db you can get away with. I would stay away from big eq changes at this point because it will introduce more unpleasant artifacts. I wouldn't even touch the eq until I had the compression sorted out. I hope this helps.

[JakeAC5253]

I would look on the free plugin sticky for good compressors.

Do you know which ones are good or not? Right now I am using Logic so I am limited to AU, but I am trying to get Cubase LE4 to work so whatever plugs are operable there are viable as well.

Parallel compression on the guitars with extra high eq on the duplicate tracks would work nicely.

I have heard of this parallel compression many times but I don't really know what it is. Can you explain please?

Thanks for the critique.

[paul999]

[=Guitarfreak;135941]Do you know which ones are good or not? Right now I am using Logic so I am limited to AU, but I am trying to get Cubase LE4 to work so whatever plugs are operable there are viable as well.

Honestly I don't use any compressor plugin's because of this very problem. I use the one I posted here as live for certain gigs and have used it for demo's etc. It sounds better then any of the free compressor plugs I know of and is economical. Unfortunately it's behringer.
Buy Behringer MULTICOM PRO-XL MDX4600 Processor | Compressors & Limiters | Musician's Friend

I have heard of this parallel compression many times but I don't really know what it is. Can you explain please?

Basically the technique is this. Get your track sounding good with minimal or no compression. Next copy this track. With the new track add a lot of compression. Sometimes I will add high or low eq as well. Listen to 1st track and tuck the 2nd one underneath until you feel it thicken up. You can do this on any instrument. I have done it on full mixes as well.

In your situation I would compress the guitars until you just hear it and then back off a bit. Then do your 2nd track. I would add some highs and take out some of the low mids 250-450 on the 2nd track.

I hope this helps.