Master This Metal Madness

[Pinky]

Well here's attempt #2. I did some EQ'ing pre AND post compressor. Feel like I'm trying to reinvent the wheel since the raw, live nature of the recording give it its own kind of attitude/life and tinkering too much steals from it.

soldier narcotic boogeypro master attempt 2.mp3

[ashcat_lt]

I only listened to the original and Pinky's first attempt. Does anybody else feel like there's a wall right in the middle of the stage? I mean, hard panning is one thing, but those guitars on the far side sound like they are completely isolated from everything else in the mix, off on the sides all by themselves. It's the weirdest damn thing, and I suspected some sort of phase fuckery causing it. Collapsing to mono makes the whole mix sound nasty and trashy and the guitars drop out. It just feels really wrong for some reason. That's on speakers, I think headphones would be horrifying!

Frankly, all of the issues with this mix would better addressed in the mix. Maybe putting some of the spill and bleed back in would help, but it is kinda just turd polishing at this point.

Pinky's first attempt had something strange going on in the way low region, too. It felt like the lowest frequencies from the bass guitar was playing almost perfectly between the beats. Don't know what that is. Might just be me, but there is some disconnect between the sub region and the rest of the mix that freaked me out.

[Btyre2013]

Thanks on the compliments. I recorded this using presonus studio/live board + studio solo with an old studiomaster board 24 tracks wide plus monitor and foh mixes. It was a pain in the ass to null the monitors and mains out of the mix, plus control all that bass and guitar bleed in the drums. I have it out in distribution on an EP, but looking at a go around in re-mastering of this track on a two song single for the merch table. what I am looking for is an all around loudness increase. maybe something stronger mids and possibly something in the highs. I tried the guy at Mercury, but what he gave me was to ploppy in the kicks and a breathy master compressor. But it seemed he was more interested into mixing the song himself (for a fee, of course). I am willing to pay someone to master this without it sounding like someone is overdoing it.

mine is quieter but will sound better when you turn the volume up, take a listen

[Pinky]

I only listened to the original and Pinky's first attempt. Does anybody else feel like there's a wall right in the middle of the stage? I mean, hard panning is one thing, but those guitars on the far side sound like they are completely isolated from everything else in the mix, off on the sides all by themselves. It's the weirdest damn thing, and I suspected some sort of phase fuckery causing it. Collapsing to mono makes the whole mix sound nasty and trashy and the guitars drop out. It just feels really wrong for some reason. That's on speakers, I think headphones would be horrifying!

Frankly, all of the issues with this mix would better addressed in the mix. Maybe putting some of the spill and bleed back in would help, but it is kinda just turd polishing at this point.

Pinky's first attempt had something strange going on in the way low region, too. It felt like the lowest frequencies from the bass guitar was playing almost perfectly between the beats. Don't know what that is. Might just be me, but there is some disconnect between the sub region and the rest of the mix that freaked me out.

I was trying to get too much done with a multi line compressor while not doing the proper EQ'ing necessary. I agree that the hard panning makes this somewhat challenging, which is maybe why I took the opportunity to see what I could do with it. [should be noted that hard panning is common in this genre with two guitarists] The second attempt feels a little more meshed and I reduced the bass in the multi compressor and made those adjustments with EQ'ing instead. The bass guitar gets lost quickly as the song progresses and I couldn't devise any clever way of retaining its presence without muddying the low end.

My second attempt is much more in line with what I would find acceptable.

[drtechno]

I only listened to the original and Pinky's first attempt. Does anybody else feel like there's a wall right in the middle of the stage? I mean, hard panning is one thing, but those guitars on the far side sound like they are completely isolated from everything else in the mix, off on the sides all by themselves. It's the weirdest damn thing, and I suspected some sort of phase fuckery causing it. Collapsing to mono makes the whole mix sound nasty and trashy and the guitars drop out. It just feels really wrong for some reason. That's on speakers, I think headphones would be horrifying!

Frankly, all of the issues with this mix would better addressed in the mix. Maybe putting some of the spill and bleed back in would help, but it is kinda just turd polishing at this point.

Pinky's first attempt had something strange going on in the way low region, too. It felt like the lowest frequencies from the bass guitar was playing almost perfectly between the beats. Don't know what that is. Might just be me, but there is some disconnect between the sub region and the rest of the mix that freaked me out.

yea I had massive isses mixing this. its hard to make it sound good with 80% bass bleed. I did eq my bass out of most of the drum mics, doing that with the guitar made them sound funky in a bad way. but when i mixed a little bass back in it it started shifting the phase of the guitars more stereo and it started cancelling. It did steal the air when I did cancelled the monitors but at least it doesn't sound like an echo chamber.

live tracks are the hardest thing to record. because there is no control what happens in the accustic enviroment. (in ear monitors would have helped) And it is hard to make stage noise and instrument bleed sound good.

and it seems like live recordings want to live in the 10 db dynamic range area instead of being slammed crunched down 6db to 3 db of dymic range (normal delivery of this gender).

but there is nothing wrong with 10 db of dynamic range, its just not common. these days and it seems like people associate 10 db being a bad recording. which it isn't always the case(listen to some rush, Trees, or "2112" on vynal they had 10 db of dynamic range).

I hate the loudness war. I just want music to be music. This isn't a race.
However, I've been contemplating on slamming this thing into tape and see what happens.

[BillyBoBBizW]

Thanks for posting,

Cheers

[drtechno]

thanks to everyone that participated. I'm going to review these masters.

I think I forgot to mention I used the old 70-80's way of mixing with eqing differentially. There was no sidechain processes like the current stuff is done.

[Pinky]

thanks to everyone that participated. I'm going to review these masters.

I think I forgot to mention I used the old 70-80's way of mixing with eqing differentially. There was no sidechain processes like the current stuff is done.

I never use side chain techniques for standard multitrack mixes. But for live stuff where you only have the 2 channels, it may actually be of great benefit.

(assuming we're talking about the same thing here)

This video demonstrates how to cheat a mix, but really that shouldn't be necessary in most mixes and I can only see this as necessary in mastering where the mix isn't quite right (but you can't go back and remix it, like in your case). It's also useful if you like boiler plate hot mixes/masters.

[drtechno]

I never use side chain techniques for standard multitrack mixes. But for live stuff where you only have the 2 channels, it may actually be of great benefit.

(assuming we're talking about the same thing here)

This video demonstrates how to cheat a mix, but really that shouldn't be necessary in most mixes and I can only see this as necessary in mastering where the mix isn't quite right (but you can't go back and remix it, like in your case). It's also useful if you like boiler plate hot mixes/masters.

yea but its more of bass ducked by kick . vocal and guitars compressors with eq'ed sidechain (have not seen a clean way of doing that in a daw other than creating a buss and inseting an eq on the buss and don't assign it to my stereo out but use its send to sidechain and use a copy not in the mix ,vocal or guitar channel sends to it) for Metal and EDM. Mainly its because I sacrificed dynamic range for output mixing close together. This one, I mixed where it wanted to be so it has a more organic sound than a percision studio mix.

[Pinky]

After I posted I did some youtubing and learned a lot more about the process. Looks promising but again it appeared only useful for really pushing mixes. If everything is given its proper space and it doesn't need to be at 11 at all times, then it's really just a trick for mashing as much as possible by way of tricking the ears. I'll always prefer a balanced mixed over a hot one. Although I appreciate a well done hot mix when I hear it. In metal it seems those are the norm now.