Help me with my first Pro mix - Indie/post/rock band

B

BurningBridges

Member
Hey guys. I'm kind of new here, but I've been a long time lurker/reader. I'm 22, fresh out of boring person college, and looking to break into the music industry the hard way. Impractical? Maybe so :) Anyways, I run a small project studio out of my band's practice space and through various shmoozing and making friends I eventually got my first professional job - a 5 song EP for this indie band with a high-pitched male singer who was previously in an emo group. Oh boy...hahaha

Anyways, my goal is to make this sound as big, full, and live as a pro mix. I want something that shows of my ability and will hopefully help me get more jobs in the future, maybe even some jobs/internships with some pro studios some day...

The drums were recorded live in my studio space. We set up some 8x4 sheets of plywood underneath the drums and leaned them against the walls to brighten up the sound and kill the standing waves that populate this shitty rectangular room. Overheads were SM81s in a spaced pair formation. Snare was Audix i5 top/SM57 bottom, kick was Audix D6 inside/Shure Sm7b outside, rack tom was Audix D2 and floor tom was Audix D4. Guitars were all Fender Telecasters (except rhythms, which were a Gibson SG with EMGs) through a Marshall TSL head on top of a Randall Slant Cab miced with a singled SM57 -> Focusrite ISA one -> Focusrite Saffire 40 interface (which was the same interface I recorded all the drums through). The bass was DI through the ISA one, and the vocals were SM7b -> ISA one -> Saffire 40.

My main concerns are the Low-end and the vocals. I mix in a mostly non-treated accoustical space so I worry sometimes about the low end. The only way I have to monitor is to mix down to a CD and play it in my car, turn the volume down to make sure that ONE FREAKING BASS NOTE that is so much louder than all the others isn't just a resonant frequency causing my desk to vibrate, ya know, all sorts of fun stuff.

Also, the vocals aren't done yet. We just have the first verse (which needs help) and the choruses/ending. I'm just posting this rough mix to get any and all feedback that some of you veterans out there may have to offer. Also, ignore the intro to the song, the drummer randomly decided to hit his fucking toms AS LOUD AS FUCKING POSSIBLE during the intro and I didn't know what to do with them so I turned them into echoing trash can lids. haha...ha....

Anyways, thanks for stopping by my thread and taking the time to listen and respond.

Old Mix:


New mix:
http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?id=30636
 
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Not too bad... The toms at the beginning sound great, in my opinion. Couldn't even tell they were toms, truth be told. Thought they were a cool effect. Here are my thoughts as I'm listening to this (I monitor through Adams A7X in a moderately treated room that I have a lot of experience in)

1st verse - Drums were a bit too loud (and I'm a drummer. I never think drums are too loud) Vocals were a bit loud, and had some upper-mid freq problems... Probably around 2.5K area... I'd scoop em' just a abit.

Chorus - Dude... Something was *really* grating about this. The guitars seemed to have a crazy peak (usually right around 3K for me), and it made it almost unlistenable. I'd EQ the guitars a bit when they all come in full force.

Ending - Drums are almost completely buried, all I heard are guitars with the main vocal screaming, with hints of drums here and there.

Got a bit of work to do on this one, IMO, but it doesn't sound bad. Just tame the crazy freqs, work with the drum levels a bit (might need to automate with such a dynamic song like this), and it could turn into something awesome.

Thanks for sharing, BB.
 
There is a lot to like about this track, however for me the vocal and some of the subtle sounds are obliterated by there simply being too many things competing for the peaks at the same time. With my limited experience, I'd be inclined to drop all the levels to zero and pull up the vocal and then gradually bring in all the other elements to see how they dynamically and harmonically effect how the perception of the vocal appears, then tailor each element so it has it's own charateristic. The brightness of the track and the very many clean sparkling sounds when combined are to my ear becoming harmoniacally interlaced to the extent that it is very difficult to process from a listener's perspective. It's a great wall of sound that might be better if it is broken into chunks that occupy their own sonic and percieved place in the stereo plane. I know from my own experience that it's great to have richness and lots of pretty ornaments to admire but a few minutes of listenning is sometimes not a big enough area to be able to find all the gems quickly enough, hence the need to place them for maximum ease of discovery without having to delve through a whole heap of stuff at the same time.

thanks for posting

Tim
 
Pretty chill needs some mixing but you got great creativity



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PoeticIntensity said:
(I monitor through Adams A7X in a moderately treated room that I have a lot of experience in)

.
Click to expand...

Cool those are my monitors too. I love them.

I agree the guitars in the chorus are not pleasant at all, but alot of guys seem to want that sound. I prefer a much smoother tone. I would LPF to take out that harsh fizz which is stepping all over the high end.
 
Wow guys, thanks for the very detailed feedback. I put a LPF on the rhythm guitars during the chorus around 12k - is that not enough? I will go back and try a more aggressive roll off or a lower cut off point and see if that helps out. As for harsh frequencies in the vocals, yeah they definitely need some more mixing. They stick out to me now that I have some fresh ears - I'll go back and try to find the offending frequency and notch it out.

As for the drums during the ending, to my ear it sounds like the kick and snare are at ok levels. They may get burried a little more than they do at other parts of the song but you can still hear them. The toms fills are definitely getting burried for sure - was that what you were talking about?

I have some decent monitors - yamaha hs80m's but my room blows tyrannasauras diarheah so I appreciate thee feedbac.
 
HS 80s are good monitors, almost bought a pair.

I meant the distorted guitars sound fizzy.(didnt notice the rythem) Also there's alot going on in the tune, so you've got quite a challenge there.

Welcome to HR. Thanks for posting.
 
I thought the playing/singing was real good.

Sounds were mostly pretty good. I liked the distorted guitars. But they seem to dominate everything else.

I didn't care for the snare sound. Heavily compressed and had a little too much "click" to it (I'm hearing the click mostly in the chorus for some reason).

I thought the vocal could come up a little bit.

Things get kind of "cluttered" in the chorus. Everything is fighting everything else trying to be heard.
 
I think it sounded pretty good. I've listened to some of this genre (I'm gonna call it post-emo?), but probably not enough to accurately compare your results to the other bands doing it.

The only thing that stuck out badly to me was that the kick sounded really clicky, especially in the chorus.
 
I really like the band!! but the kick is too clicky for my taste and the snare has a really unnatural sounding attack (as if the EQ were a bit too boosted at the 5kish area)... i dont usually have that opinion on this type of music... and this is the type ofmusic i listen to. i think the guitars in the chorus are a bit cloudy and perhaps just a bit too loud..

in the intro it'd be nice for the guitars to have a very low volume delay going panned left aswell... my left ear feels left out of what should be a very pretty part.

the kick and snare during the verse sound a bit loud, but in the chorus they blend well... im guessing tahts because i also think the distorted guitars in the chorus are a bit loud. i'd snip a couple db out of the (at least) double tracked guitars in the chorus and a couple db's out of the drum bus.

Aside from that im pretty happy so far.

a band i would listen to for comparison in your mix would be circa survive.... kinda sounds like the sound they are going for.
 
I'm no expert, but I thought it was very good. Main niggles are probably personal taste, but are the kick drum being a little clicky, and I personally prefer a little more rattle on the snare. I thought the drum on the intro was alright. All in all though very good.
 
OK guys, sorry, been busy the past few days and haven't had a chance to make it to my studio. Finally got a chance to sit down and work with this song again and I took a lot of the suggestions here into account.

I added more automation to the drums. Turned them down during the verses a little, helped to emphasize the contrast between verses and choruses. I went over each and every guitar track with a fine-tooth comb doing frequency sweeps to isolate noisy/harsh frequencies and notch them out. Same for the vocals. I remixed the snare drum. Switched from r-comp to C1, tried to make it sound less compressed. Found out that for some reason the snare bottom mic was muted in the last mix (LOL) so I unmuted that and that made me go back and re-do my snare drum EQ. Lowered the drums parallel compression bus in order to make the drums less clicky. Lowered the high shelf on the kick and made the mid scoop on the kick drum less deep so that it wouldn't sound as clicky. It was a very good sounding natural kick (if I do say so myself) so I didn't need to do a lot of work to make it fit in the mix. Instead of low-passing the rhythm guitars at 12k I changed it to 8k. Turned down the vocals a little in the first verse. I think this sounds a lot better, but I'll let you guys be the judge! Once again, thanks for taking the time to listen and post any thoughts or feedback you may have, I really appreciate it.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?id=30636

I also changed the link in my first post as well.
 
My only suggestion is still to bring the volume of the chorus guitars down a couple DB total (depending on how many layers you added).

seems to be too much hiss on those guitars aswell..

But another reason why i suggest that, other than them just sounding too loud for my ear, is SOMETHING is hiding the kick when the chorus comes in, which is why im guessing you made it so clicky the first time. dont go back to the click, but find whats hiding that kick drum and notch is where it needs it on the EQ
 
Sounds like a winner to me. I'm listening on cans right now, but I like this enough to come back tomorrow and crank it on the studio monitors. Nice dynamics, very textured--but everything has it's own place.
 
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