"Hothead" New Drums, New Mix

JohnnyAmato

JohnnyAmato

New member
Spent two nights re-doing the the drums and re-mixing this nutty tune, need a break. Something's just not right, maybe multiple things, I'm chasing my tail trying to find it. Maybe nothing's wrong, I don't know.

I EQ'd all the guitars a little, they were raw in the original mix, and lowered the leads a hair. Also EQ'd and compressed the toms and snare, not sure if it worked well or not.

EQ'd and compressed the bass and turned it up a tad, feel individual notes weren't coming through enough on the original version. Not sure if I pulled it off.

Lowered the keys some. There were more keys tracks than I remembered, 4 total, often with 3 going at once. Turning them down a little seemed to clean up the mix.

Definitely going to give it a few days rest and work on some other songs. Super curious to see if anything jumps out to anyone.

Edit: I could've just posted this in the original thread for this tune, but that thread has "Drum Help" in the title, so I figured I'd start a fresh one for the completed mix.

Hothead (Demo) | Johnny Amato
 
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Sounds fantastic to me. killer guitar work man! The drums sound great. I think it's radio ready.
good job!
 
I hear that Toontrack snare. I have the same one somewhere in my collection. I can hear clear velocity variations now. Nice work. Tedious, ain't it? :)

This could be called "done" and I wouldn't give it a second thought. Sounds good. Is there master bus compression on this?
 
andrushkiwt said:
I hear that Toontrack snare. I have the same one somewhere in my collection. I can hear clear velocity variations now. Nice work. Tedious, ain't it? :)

This could be called "done" and I wouldn't give it a second thought. Sounds good. Is there master bus compression on this?
Click to expand...

Yep it's the Ludwig Black Beauty. No master bus compression, I always take final mixes into Soundforge and use a compression preset there that I'm used to. Gives it a nice volume boost with minimal tweaking of the parameters, and stays pretty faithful to the sound of the original mix, and seems to give it a nice subtle glued together feeling. I haven't messed much with ProTools' master bus compressors yet.

Good to know you think it's done, two days straight of hearing this crazy, busy tune over and over while mixing it, I'm more than ready to move on. :facepalm:

Thanks!
 
JohnnyAmato said:
Yep it's the Ludwig Black Beauty. No master bus compression, I always take final mixes into Soundforge and use a compression preset there that I'm used to. Gives it a nice volume boost with minimal tweaking of the parameters, and stays pretty faithful to the sound of the original mix, and seems to give it a nice subtle glued together feeling. I haven't messed much with ProTools' master bus compressors yet.

Good to know you think it's done, two days straight of hearing this crazy, busy tune over and over while mixing it, I'm more than ready to move on. :facepalm:

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Of all the snares I have, I think that's the one I keep going back to. My last two tracks, though, have used Tama snares from the Metal Machine kit. At least the last posted song did; the second one might be something I'm working on now. But any of my older tunes are using the NY Avatar's Black Beauty. It's pretty well-rounded, in my opinion. Fat bottom and crisp top.
 
Sounds great to me. Nice guitar playing as usual, really good soloing and tone. Everything sounds good to me-drum fills are pretty realistic sounding, after working for many years with vi drums I understand the pain. Mix is clear but not harsh and everything is audible. Sounds done!
 
Great job fixing the drums. Sounds like a royal pain.
I don't notice anything wrong with the beats and everything seems lined up. The crash/splash cymbals sound a bit...washed out yet dull, which is an odd thing. Otherwise the mix sounds great.
 
I'm not hearing much wrong with this at all. Everything sounds smooth and musical. If you are knocking yourself out trying to chase down problems nobody else can hear, time to give it a rest and move on to something else.
 
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