Tips on getting a specific type of sound in my mix

[Jack291]

Hey all,

Thanks in advance for any help here. Been doing home recording for awhile now and I’ve got a track that I’m working on that I just can’t get to sound the way I hear it in my head.

The music is hard rock/Metal (think like Black album era Metallica mixed with a more complex Breaking Benjamin) and the vibe I’m trying to go for with this track is to have it sound like you are listening to a great band playing in a completely empty medium sized club. I want it to be powerful, but also dark, lonely, and with space. Like, have you ever seen a great band play a show to no one? That’s the essence of the vibe I’m trying to create.

Just looking for general tips on how you would approach going for that type of sound....anything that you think would be useful from what types of drums or room you would track in...to how you’d approach compressing elements...types of reverbs, etc...

 

[Steenamaroo]

Hey there,
Welcome to HR!

There's probably two main ways to approach this.
One is to track everything as dry as possible in a dead, or very tight sounding, environment, then add a one-size-fits-all reverb after the fact.
The other is to find an environment that already sounds how you want and record everything there.

If you want it to sound live, performance wise, I'd probably favour the latter, but your reference material suggests you want to make a solid polished record but with an additional unique ambience?
In that case I'd go with method one.
Also, if you go with method two and it doesn't work, you're stuck with it and have to start again.


I guess you could take some existing tight/dry sounding commercial tracks and experiment with putting a reverb over the whole thing.
At least that would give you an idea of how this might sound and whether or not you like it.

Either have your reverb on a parallel track with an eq before it, for shaping, or use a verb that lets you tailor frequency response.

Maybe try dumping 'Don't Treat On Me' or something into your daw and have a play in advance?

Hope that's useful.

 

[jkuehlin]

I want it to be powerful, but also dark, lonely, and with space. Like, have you ever seen a great band play a show to no one? That’s the essence of the vibe I’m trying to create.

Try mixing in 5.1 surround. That oughta do the trick.