Prog Rock band - Mixing feedback and advice

P

PlatinumAudio

New member
New forum member! How's it going?

I've just gotten back into composing/arranging after an 8 year ... diversion, I guess. Now I'm getting back into it, I'm trying my hand at mixing too.

A friend's band has asked me to have a shot at mixing some of their songs. So as to not completely embarrass myself, I thought I'd run my progress past some of you guys.



There's a bit of a story behind why this mix sounds so horrible haha I was given ONE drum overhead track and the kick and snare were totally buried/underwater. So I went pretty overboard on compression. I will back off A LOT once they supply the close mic tracks.

So this is mostly about general tone at this stage.


In terms of harmony, I've got one stereo guitar track and one stereo synth track (with stereo effects rendered into their tracks). My approach (after listening to where the majority of the sweet energy was for each) was to high/low pass the guitar at around 600 - 8k and use the Snyth to add some body back. The guitar's sweet spot was around 2k, so I notched the synth there and added a high shelf to get a bit more sparkle. They still feel like they're fighting each other a bit.

What techniques would you trial to get more separation between them?


I haven't really battled with the vocals at all yet. I will do some manual (auto)tune to sharpen the worst flat parts, get a bit of a slap-back delay sending to a wet reverb. I've just pinned a preset on it for now (and I know it sounds pretty bad).

There's a heavy section that comes in later in the track that I haven't worked on yet.

Anyway, I'll have about 12 songs total to do, but no real time frame. I'll check back in as I make more changes.


Cheers! :thumbs up:
 
Hey man
Try better kick snare samples, there's a lot of good stuff out there today, combine it with a solid bass sound (I usually get the bass solid with putting some distortion in send0

Also sound like the cymbals are too loud and harsh

I'd start with that
 
I would try knocking down some of the 12K+ range (maybe roll off), pull the drums down, then revisit the vocals. Those three things are so far out, hard to provide feedback on the rest. Once you have those things working, go back and check your pans make sure everything has a place in the mix.
 



Thanks for the tips. I've isolated the drums and done some more work on them. Still need to fine tune. Too much sub bass in the kick. I think this mixdown rendered with a track or two missing. Sounds different. Snare is missing some crack to it. I haven't touched the toms yet.
 
Can you reupload the song with the instrumentation as well as the new drums?
Just listening to the drum track won't do us much good.
 
rather than waste time trying to save a terrible recording,
i would lobby the band for a 'RE-TRACKING" session.


for every minute you waste trying to salvage those drum tracks,
the new tracks would be right to start with, and super quick to mix.

saves time in the long run.
 
Where's the prog? I'm hearing adult contemporary, although it's clearly just a song clip. I expected prog though...

I agree with Gonzo here if it is possible. Right now, you are engulfed in a situation where you have to "fix it in the mix". I did this for years and the biggest thing that I really ended up learning from it was "I should have just re-tracked this".

You can still learn and have fun this way, if this is what you want to be doing. You will be able to make this sound "better", but making it sound "great" will be a significant challenge, if it is possible at all.

I don't have any more to add than what has been said already above though, if re-tracking isn't possible. Take care of what has already been suggested and then more opinions can be shared, but until then, the stuff mentioned above is too prominent to go any deeper.
 
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