11 track rock song - Know it all

T

Turkeyoverlord

New member
My mix:
https://soundcloud.com/voodoowedo/knowitall-mixed

This is the first song I've mixed. It's one of our bands tracks we recorded on the laptop. I've read quite a lot of tutorials and forum posts and feel it's a fairly good effort but I've heard some of the tracks you guys have mixed.

I'm hoping some of you will be interested in having a go at mixing it and showing me how to make it sound more professional. I've read a lot but just can't seem to get it spot on. :confused:

Even if it;s not your thing or don't have the time to have a go mixing it, all criticism and advice appreciated.

I hope I'm providing the right thing here. I've given the individual tracks ported out as wavs and have split the drums in to snare, kick and other drums as I didn't want to port them all out separately. There shouldn't be any effects or panning on anything.

Tracks:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v3dwwpn43eaqd96/WholeTrackWavs.rar
 
I'll try and give this one a shot some time soon. It may be a good idea to put up all the drums separately. I know I'm gonna have to tame those cymbals and at the same time bring out some attack on the toms and carve some mids out.
 
Nice mate. There's quite a few different toms and snares. Can I output the 'other drums' track into 2 tracks then, one for all hats+cymbals and one for toms?

Would love to see what you come up with. There are a few little sections I would rerecord if I could but they're not my parts and we haven't got time to do it at the moment :(.
 
Hey man, let me know what you think about my mix, hope you like it.
 

Attachments

  • KnowItAll_Mix2.mp3
    8.7 MB · Views: 52
@Laes: The drums sound pretty snappy. I think the bass tone is nice but it overpowers the whole mix. Doesn't seem to be enough high end. Lead seems weak and rhythm gets lost in the mix a bit.

@TylerFG: Better overall sound and balance but drums are a bit low for my liking and I really don't dig the lead tone.

Thanks to both of you though. It's really cool hearing other peoples interpretations of a song.

I think both stand up nicely against my original mix I linked. I personally feel like the latest mix I've done is pretty much how I like it though. If any of the real pros on the forum can show me how to get it better then that's awesome, I'm in no way saying it's perfect.

If anyone wants to just play around with the mix and get advice from others on the mix then feel free too. I'll leave it up here forever more to be used by others to practice their craft with :-).

As a point of reference our rhythm guitarist who came up with the main riffs for this one said he got inspiration from 'in bloom' by Nirvana so for this latest mix we tried to copy that sound as much as possible.
 
Turkeyoverlord said:
@TylerFG: Better overall sound and balance but drums are a bit low for my liking and I really don't dig the lead tone.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I couldn't get much of a good sound out of it. At first, I was considering just leaving in the ending solo, but in my opinion, it made the song feel incomplete. That, and I didn't really want to bury the guitar in the mix, and no offense to your guitarist, I think some his playing was a bit sloppy at times. For the guitars, I had to run them through an amp simulator on Mixcraft and just messed around with delays and such, and I think it sounded best on the rhythm guitar tracks, but that's just me.
 
Spent a few hours on it, middle of the night, only referenced on one set of speakers plus there's a fan on in my room, here's my first mix, will check it again in the morning with fresh ears.
 
Turkeyoverlord said:
@Laes: The drums sound pretty snappy. I think the bass tone is nice but it overpowers the whole mix. Doesn't seem to be enough high end. Lead seems weak and rhythm gets lost in the mix a bit.
Click to expand...

I mixed it again from scratch, but this time with reference and tried to fix what you said you don't like. Let me know what you think, this was first time I mixed something in this genre, so I would also really like to hear from some pros what do they think about my mix.

By the way great song, I really enjoyed mixing it.
 

Attachments

  • KnowItAll_Mix_3.mp3
    8.7 MB · Views: 6
Laes said:
I mixed it again from scratch, but this time with reference and tried to fix what you said you don't like. Let me know what you think, this was first time I mixed something in this genre, so I would also really like to hear from some pros what do they think about my mix.

By the way great song, I really enjoyed mixing it.
Click to expand...

Cheers man. I'm not going to critique as I'm not pro enough to pinpoint what makes a mix sound amazing and just ok. There's a lot of pahtcubs mix that I just am really impressed with and maybe he can shed some light on what he has done.

Pahtcub said:
Ok so soundcloud is down....great...here's my second version of the mix.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19229896/Know it all 2.wav
Click to expand...

Ok I'll start with what I don't like as I've got a lot to say on what I do like! I don't like the obvious delay on the vocals. It's not bad per se but it's not my thing (EDIT: It actually sounds amazing in the song linked in your sig but not so much in this song imo). Secondly I'd prefer to have a more laid back less distorted sound in between the choruses (like the second mix I did rather than the first). Also I find the breakdown bass soloey bit towards the end a bit loud (compression maybe).

Now on to what I do like. Mate, it's an amazingly powerful mix that really pops out! Compared to mine the chorus especially is just so much more powerful and well defined. I really need to pick your brains on it!

I am trying to work out what you've done with each part. I'd like to know especially the drum and bass sounds. How did you EQ them? What amp VST did you use on the bass if any or was it just in built effects and EQ? For the rhythm guitar did you cut off the low end (sounds like you did but then the bass sounds very full)?

I'm going to try and remove the reverb on drums for the chorus on my mix and see how it sounds. I quite liked it for the verse to add space but your chorus just tears mine to shreds! Basically if you could tell me how you set up rhythm, drums and bass on the chorus it would be massively appreciated. Great mix!

EDIT: Been trying to copy what you've done for the last hour. Not sounding anything like it :(. Oh well I think it's down to the drum tones. If I can get the bass and snare drum tones I should be getting there I reckon. Was focusing too much on the bass guitar tone.
 
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Snare: Big EQ boost at 400 and shelf cut, smashed attack with an envelope shaper and added tape saturation and compression
Kick: Little boost at 71hz, notched out 150hz, big top shelf cut and small bottom shelf cut, added some attack and shortened length with transient shaper added a bit of tube sat and compress
Bass: LA-3A compressor, Amplitube Ampeg SVT pack (love this, put it on almost every bass track ever) notched out 338hz and low shelf cut

I put a highpass filter on every track I mix if it's a non bass instrument I set it around 80-90 and if it's a bass instrument I set it around 20-30hz cause unless your working on a movie sound track there's nothing there that you want.

Was a fun little song to mix, next time spend some time getting the tracks recorded better ie: double every guitar part weather you plan on using or not, double your vocal parts, send mono tracks (your tracks came out stereo panned to one side which made it a pain to set up) and give every drum part. I think the biggest problem with the recording of this song is the drum overheads sound like crap.

Get your sounds and tones good going to tape"recording" and you can really have some fun mixing rather than fixing everything first.
 
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