Tomb Raider - VHS collaboration with Greg_L

VomitHatSteve

VomitHatSteve

Hat STYLE. Not contents.
Hi folks!

The magnanimous Greg_L has graciously provided me with some drum tracks for my next project. This, of course, means I have no idea how to mix the drums on these next few songs I'll be posting!

So here's Tomb Raider. Please let me know what I screwed up so I can fix it!

File Leaker | Regdar and the Fighters
 
Thoughts

I Can clearly hear every single word YEAH!

I REALLY like the drum parts - the snare rolls in the intro are cool and the hatwork that starts around :28 (Gerg will hate me for this) reminds me of pure awesome DEVO. With that said - the drum mix seems way low and really odd.

You have a cool bass tone and track going on with this one and I'd love to hear it gel up with the kick more. I mean gel up in the sonic sense as everything is grooving time-wise.

High Beach Boys sorta vocal from about 2:40 on is AWESOME, but would LOVE to hear them louder and probably more hi freq and roll off the low end...

In general - I really like where you are going with this.
 
Thanks Chuck! I'm surprised you can make out all the lyrics. I had trouble in a few spots! :D

I had a bit of trouble with the drum mix. Greg is a lot heavier on cymbals than I'm used to. The OHs and tom mics are actually WAAAAY down compared to the kick and snare. (The former being down 6-10 dB and the latter being up... 15 I think?)

Unfortunately, I'm on a Kickstarter deadline to get the album done by mid february, so I probably can't retrack any basses. Hmm...

I'll see about bumping the fallsetto vox in the last choruses. That's my favorite part too! Less low end on that you say? Perhaps. I don't have any EQ on 'em right now.
 
The song is great. read along with the lyrics and enjoyed.

Your mixing has come along way. I too think the drums should be more prominent. Start with just drums andx get them sounding good. Then add in bass and vox and nothing else until they all sound good together. then bring in the rest at lower levels. Only slowly nudge those tracks up if absolutely necessary. ymmv.

Yeah, I agree about the bass tone. What is your rig??
 
Chili said:
The song is great. read along with the lyrics and enjoyed.

Your mixing has come along way. I too think the drums should be more prominent. Start with just drums andx get them sounding good. Then add in bass and vox and nothing else until they all sound good together. then bring in the rest at lower levels. Only slowly nudge those tracks up if absolutely necessary. ymmv.

Yeah, I agree about the bass tone. What is your rig??
Click to expand...

I did start with drums, bass, and lead vox (in that order). (I think you've given me that advice before.) My mixes are really busy though, so it's tricky keeping those 3 prominent.

Phantom Piggy said:
Well I really liked it :)
Click to expand...

Thanks!
 
Busy boy. Yeah the drums seem buried under all the production. The bass is a bit too wide like its stereo and seems to help mask the low end of the kit. Maybe, I have some sorry cans on.
Little pitch issue at 2:42.
The phrasing seems a little robotic as if you aren’t really comfortable with the delivery yet. I noticed this same thing on the last tune Dwarf. Maybe you intend that.
Minor nits, Catchy pop tune almost bubble gum feeling. I like it.
 
Loved the song. Vocal sounded great. Playing all around was great. Love those background vocals.

I don't know - I thought the drums were at about the right level. But if they came up, I wouldn't complain either.

I thought the low end of the mix was a bit muddy and overly thick. It's kind of gummy. My only complaint really. Oh wait - there was a clean little keyboard part on the right that wasn't loud enough. it was cool, but tough to hear. Comes in on the chorus. Maybe too heavy on the reverb. OK three complaints. Minor though.

Like the song.
 
Hmmm... The primary bass is down the middle. I wonder where the stereo issue is coming from.

I hear the pitchiness at 2:42. I think it's within the margin of error for rock though.

I'm not sure about the robotic delivery. I think that's just how my voice sounds! :D

Thanks, Manslick!
 
kick is non-existent... snare is way too .. "snare-y" ... not a lot of body or crack in it.. just a lot of snare noise. drums are definitely low in the mix... cool vocal ideas, not a fan of the crazy distorted bass or guitar whatever it is, its kind of dull sounding.
 
Yeah the drums are buried. And I aint saying that cuz I recorded them and wanna hear them on top of everything, they really do be buried.

Try this just for shits and grins -

Put the kick and snare at 0 on the fader. They should be pretty far from clipping. Drop the OH's to like -5 or something. Toms maybe -3 or so. See if that gets you in the ballpark. Then bring in the other stuff one at a time, never losing site or sound of the kick and snare. If you ever get to a point where the kick and snare are vanishing, you need to back shit down a little. Once you've got a level balance you can start EQ'ing and compressing stuff as needed and tweak from there.

On the plus side, I REALLY like the rest of the mix. I think the bass in the middle and the little weirdo bits sound fantastic and this is the best I've ever heard your vocals. This is like a huge leap forward from your other stuff.
 
Man... using real drums really brings the song to life! I like it! Great playing as usual too, Greg.

As for everything else, well it's been said before, I agree with all of it.

I've listened to a few of your tunes since joining and I must say I wasn't keen on your guitar tone at first... But now I think it's kind of cool.

Can't imagine a VHS song without the fizzy/buzzy distorted goodness :D
 
LOL...that is really crazy hearing Greg play on one of your tunes. It sounds great.

In terms of the style of drumming, it sounds remarkably like your past work, only tighter and with more variation. Greg doesn't seem to have injected as much of himself into this stylistically as I would have guessed, which is actually kind of impressive in a way. The cymbal work here is awesome.

Overall mix-wise it sounds pretty good to me - similar to your recent work, but you've gotten some good suggesions too.

These drums just add an extra amount of both precision and energy that propels your work further. Well done both of you.
 
Sounds like it's going to be fantastic.
All the drum mixing suggestions will help but Greg's, obvioulsy, will help most, (I admit to being daunted by mixing Greg's drums - it's not a quick fix for someone unfamiliar with mixing 5 tracks or so of precussion).
I can see that you also don't want to have real drums take away all the geek from the song so, in your instance, it's going to be a case style and sonics.
My only crit beyond what's been mentioned is the A in a T-Rex. It just sounds inserted. Is it the normal use of the emphasis for you?
 
Thanks, everyone.

Ok. As soon as my interface is warmed up, I'll take another stab at this.

I hadn't noticed how hard I hit that "A" in 'a t-rex' before. I may just sing weirdly! :D

I also realized that I completely forgot to EQ the guitars. That'll probably help with some of the mud.
 
Hey man - first I want to say that I was not in any way suggesting that bass needs to be re-tracked! The part is great, the tone is great, the playing is great and it's good with the kick - it just needs to gel up sonically with the kick. I would follow gergs suggestion - faders down, get the kick and snare levels up. Then this is what I find a decent strategy - Add the lead vocal. Get those relative levels right and set that shit in stone, literally lock the faders. Bring in the bass and get it to gel with the kick with compression/eq whatever - then lock that in place. Mix everything else around that, either with panning or frequency cuts/boosts were needed. I'm glad someone else noticed the cymbal work it was awesome. And the vocals, best recording and performance I've heard yet. I'll say it again - I love where this track is heading!
 
I thought you'd said "timing" in your original post. If the bass doesn't gel with the drums on timing, there's not much to do besides retrack it or heavily edit one or the other. (Or ignore it! :D)

Second mix is finished:
File Leaker | Regdar and the Fighters

I could have sworn that I could hear the kick drum in the first mix, but after doing the second I'm not so sure.
The OHs and toms are still much quieter than the kick and snare, but they're a little louder (and there's a fair amount less in terms of EQ and drum replacement on the kick and snare now)
The guitars are noticeably quieter now. I feel like it may bring down the energy a bit? I dunno.
Oh, and the falsetto "oohs" are a bit louder!

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Keep it coming!
 
VomitHatSteve said:
I thought you'd said "timing" in your original post. If the bass doesn't gel with the drums on timing, there's not much to do besides retrack it or heavily edit one or the other. (Or ignore it! :D)
Click to expand...

Oh no, I said the opposite - I said 'I mean gel up in the sonic sense as everything is grooving time-wise.' :-)
 
I wouldn't mind a crack at this tune. Would you be willing to submit it to the Mix This forum?? If so, give jimmys69 a PM and he can set you up. It's a fun tune and I hear so much going on, I'd like the challenge. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get to it for a couple of weeks as I'm heading out of town and my studio is currently in disarray.

I'm still hearing the guitars overpowering everything else. And all instruments seem right up the center. It feels one dimensional. Keep at it!!!
 
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