I recently tracked a friends band with the intentions of NOT mixing their record. I'm much more of a tracking engineer/producer when it comes to the world of recording music and mixing is hands down my weakest skill set. However, after we finished up tracking they said they really wanted me to have a go at mixing it and after two days of feeling like I'm banging my head into a wall I've created the above mix (and there's a first pass mix after it on my soundcloud page as well if you listen through).
The thing that I find most frustrating is that things I've tracked and had mixed by others turn out great. My source tracks are pretty solid and can sound great mixed. I simply have no idea how to get them from point A to point B and my mixes always sound like garbage to me... very 'demo' quality as opposed to a legit release.
A big thing I feel that I'm missing out on is clarity of all the instruments and having the mix itself have that nice round/full sound all around.
Hopefully this isn't some crazy book full of stuff but a quick run down of what I'm working with:
Kick In
Kick Sub
Kick Sample
Snare Top
Snare Bottom
Snare Sample
Rack Top
Rack Bottom
Floor Top
Floor Bottom
OHs
Close Rooms
Far Rooms
Front of Kit Crush Mic
Bass DI (Clean Tone in Amplitube)
Bass DI (Dirty/distorted Tone in Amplitube)
Guitar 1 is a pair of mics on the same cabinet
Guitar 2 is a pair of mics on a different cabinet
Lead Vox
Couple tracks of backups
8 mono gang/woah tracks
So definitely not a ton of tracks but a good amount I'd say. It's not some 100+ track dense mix by any means. Most items in the mix are bussed down to master faders and processing is done mostly on those tracks. Anything else you'd like to know? Please feel free to ask and I'll fill you in on what I can if you think it'll help! Much thanks in advance for checking out the song and for any critiques/advice/help you might be able to send my way!