Constructive criticism please

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GuitardedMark

GuitardedMark

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Hey all,

I'm looking for some constructive criticism to improve my mix. I feel there are a lot of areas lacking and I'm not quite sure where to begin. I am currently reading through Yep's sticky and learning a lot but I thought I would post a link to a song I'm working on in the meantime. Please disregard the pathetic lyrics, they are not permanent and really only something to sing so I could mix vocals. The link is here: MP3 Player SoundClick

Thank you in advance!
 
Overall the tracks are pretty good. The mix does need some help. I found: drums are buried. The Kick sounds very robotic in the beginning, then all the drums lose their prescence. The guitars have that high end digital fizz that is not pleasing (to my ear). One guitar comes in with some low-mid that sounds better, but I think the one on the left has no warmth/bottom. The vocal sounds quite good to me. For what its worth, dats wut I hear.
 
Thanks a lot! I have both guitars eq'ed identically but I notice that they don't sound that way. Especially in the "verse" when the second guitar comes in it just sounds weird and I don't know why. Is it typically preferable (for this style of music) to have the left and right guitars eq'ed different? I've also panned the guitars 100% left and 100% right. So when only 1 side is playing is sounds unbalanced but I want to have the "live" effect and dynamic of 1 guitar playing and then another jumping in and doubling the part. Any suggestions?
 
My goal is sound a little more like this: YouTube - My Curse - Killswitch Engage (As Daylight Dies)

Although I want to do a lot of things different tonally, I love how massive and brutal the sound is. There are clearly some issues with the high end but overall I like the sound very much.

I understand that a lot of people don't respect this type of music or it's production (I understand why) but I still am most interested in this style of music and it's the most appealing to me so I ask that you please abandon your hatred for this style and offer some of your expertise for a fellow music enthusiast and hopeful engineer like myself :)
 
You have a really good voice for this style of music. I hear Corey Taylor, the dude from Mudvayne (but not as nasally), etc.

The drums need some work though. They have no body or power. And I can't really hear the bass guitar at all either. I can kinda feel it there, but it has no power.

The actual drums sound bone dry, while the overheads actually have a decent amount of verb on them. You should try to be consistent between the elements of your mix when it comes to reverb. That's not to say drench ever element of your mix in reverb, but if you put it on your overheads, put it on your snare, toms, etc.
 
Thanks for listening! I agree with what you said. I'm using steven slate drums (crack metal preset) with some adjustments. I don't have any reverb on the drums but I'm noticing that the decay (I think thats what I mean o.O) trails off for too long compared to sounds of bands I like. I also want the snare to be tighter and more "woody" and less "snarey" so I'm going to try to eq it a bit. SSD does have an option to turn down the overhead mics so maybe I'll try that for the cymbals and now that I think of it, I did cut out most of the overheads on the snare and kick to get a more "in your face" type of sound which, as you noticed, is lacking for the cymbals.

As far as the bass, I have NO IDEA where to begin lol. I do the whole "mess with the eq while soloed for 20 minutes, un solo bass track, *facepalm*, repeat until 2 am, wake up the next morning and listen to the vortex of shit that I have created with my indulgent eqing of the bass o.O How should I eq the bass and any suggestions on the compressor settings for it?
 
Solid vocals! A person either has what it takes for this or not. You sure do.
I hear kick drum only when it's being "2-footed" otherwise it disappears and, of course, this style of music is all about kick drum (after punchy guitars).
Very solid.
But... I'm new here. Lots for me to learn.
 
No wonder the drums and bass are lifeless and buried. Quite simply, the guitars are way too loud. I'm sure there's more wrong with the mix, but that's the most glaring problem to me. The guitars also sound over EQ'd. They sound thin, like key frequencies are missing. You wanna sound like Killswitch Engage, right? Listen to that clip you posted, and then listen to yours. Are KE's drums buried? No. They sound fake and robotic, but they aint buried. Listen to the intro to your mix. Things seem okay for the most part until the wide rhythm guitars come in and stomp all over everything. I tell people this all the time - never lose the drums or bass! Don't mix like a guitar player or a singer. Mix everything like a drummer or a bassist. Mix until you think the drums are too loud. Then, in reality, they'll probably be just right.
 
Dick Dammit said:
Solid vocals! A person either has what it takes for this or not. You sure do.
I hear kick drum only when it's being "2-footed" otherwise it disappears and, of course, this style of music is all about kick drum (after punchy guitars).
Very solid.
But... I'm new here. Lots for me to learn.
Click to expand...

Thanks man! I'm not sure if I should turn the gain up on the kick or eq in some mids. I've gotten into a nasty habit of turning dials and worsening the mix so I'm kind of afraid to mess with it any more without direction. I'm definitely at a roadblock so any specific advice is greatly appreciated :)
 
GuitardedMark said:
I understand that a lot of people don't respect this type of music or it's production :)
Click to expand...

Lol, who cares what people think, thats some rippin shit, (I'm not even a metal guy)

As with any mix you cant have more than one or two things on any frequency. You've got to learn to carve out a spot for each instrument.
For example listen to the killswitch @ :36sec. Hear how the highs are rolled off that guitar. The mids give it the growl. Taking fizz (roll off everything over 7-8k) on the guitars will make room for the cymbals. The bass and kick are layered the way I like to do it. Bass is the only thing in the subs, (125hz and under) then the kick. Get the idea?

Anyway you've got alot of talent, Joey M is the guy here that really knows that sound, he can help you more than I, I'm sure.
 
Greg_L said:
No wonder the drums and bass are lifeless and buried. Quite simply, the guitars are way too loud. I'm sure there's more wrong with the mix, but that's the most glaring problem to me. The guitars also sound over EQ'd. They sound thin, like key frequencies are missing. You wanna sound like Killswitch Engage, right? Listen to that clip you posted, and then listen to yours. Are KE's drums buried? No. They sound fake and robotic, but they aint buried. Listen to the intro to your mix. Things seem okay for the most part until the wide rhythm guitars come in and stomp all over everything. I tell people this all the time - never lose the drums or bass! Don't mix like a guitar player or a singer. Mix everything like a drummer or a bassist. Mix until you think the drums are too loud. Then, in reality, they'll probably be just right.
Click to expand...

Thanks Greg. I feared you responding to this o.O I agree with your statements though. I did EQ THE CRAP out of the guitars and I know I shouldn't need to do that. I'm not sure if the problem is the source or not. I am recording DI from my Peavey Vypyr Head's headphone out because I live in a studio and I can't mic due to noise issues. I was thinking that I might need to use some impulses to simulate a speaker but I'm warey of the whole idea of "mixing to fix". I do trust your experience more than mine. Do you have any specific suggestions?
 
PDP said:
Lol, who cares what people think, thats some rippin shit, (I'm not even a metal guy)

As with any mix you cant have more than one or two things on any frequency. You've got to learn to carve out a spot for each instrument.
For example listen to the killswitch @ :36sec. Hear how the highs are rolled off that guitar. The mids give it the growl. Taking fizz (roll off everything over 7-8k) on the guitars will make room for the cymbals. The bass and kick are layered the way I like to do it. Bass is the only thing in the subs, (125hz and under) then the kick. Get the idea?

Anyway you've got alot of talent, Joey M is the guy here that really knows that sound, he can help you more than I, I'm sure.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot! I'm not sure I really followed you when you said "The bass and kick are layered the way I like to do it. Bass is the only thing in the subs, (125hz and under) then the kick. Get the idea? " Could you elaborate a little please?
 
Basically he's saying that he is high-passing the guitars around 125, so that the only thing generating any low frequencies are the kick and the bass guitar. Generally when I EQ guitars, I start with a high pass around 100 - 125 hz, and a low pass from anywhere from 15k- 12k (depending on how busy my mix is). The next thing I do is slap a multi-band compressor on my guitars and compress the low-mids area (general from about 90 - 280hz). Then i slap a frequency analyzer on my guitars and use that to hunt down any nasty frequency peaks, and I correct them with narrow EQ cuts. The only real EQ boosts I ever end up making on the guitars are a high shelf from about 6k on, and occasionally a boost around 1.5k if i feel they need some more "meat," but I'm always cutting more than I'm boosting.

Then i get my bass tone nice and beefy, and turn the bass track up to where it makes up the meat of my mix. The guitars should sit on top of the bass frequency-wise, but not actually be that much louder than the bass.

As for your drums, you should be getting waaay better results with steven slate. I don't know what you are doing to your snare, but you are absolutely destroying its body/decay. It has basically no power right now. What kit/drums are you using?
 
FadeToMuffins said:
Basically he's saying that he is high-passing the guitars around 125, so that the only thing generating any low frequencies are the kick and the bass guitar. Generally when I EQ guitars, I start with a high pass around 100 - 125 hz, and a low pass from anywhere from 15k- 12k (depending on how busy my mix is). The next thing I do is slap a multi-band compressor on my guitars and compress the low-mids area (general from about 90 - 280hz). Then i slap a frequency analyzer on my guitars and use that to hunt down any nasty frequency peaks, and I correct them with narrow EQ cuts. The only real EQ boosts I ever end up making on the guitars are a high shelf from about 6k on, and occasionally a boost around 1.5k if i feel they need some more "meat," but I'm always cutting more than I'm boosting.

Then i get my bass tone nice and beefy, and turn the bass track up to where it makes up the meat of my mix. The guitars should sit on top of the bass frequency-wise, but not actually be that much louder than the bass.

As for your drums, you should be getting waaay better results with steven slate. I don't know what you are doing to your snare, but you are absolutely destroying its body/decay. It has basically no power right now. What kit/drums are you using?
Click to expand...

A lot of good info there muffins thanks! When I try to cut the high and lows out of the guitar it sounds really weak and dead. Do you have a suggestion on how to get it big fat and heavy while retaining the punch of the highs without boosting the high and low frequencies?

As far as steven slate, I'm using the cracky metal (wet) set that came with the SSD ex. I agree it sounds REALLY thin. I also feel like the cymbals have too much reverb or decay (not sure if decay is the right word there). I felt the same way about the kick and the snare so I toned down the overheads for each to make them more upfront and less reverby.
 
GuitardedMark said:
Do you have any specific suggestions?
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On the guitars? Well, I've never used your amp, but I'd imagine coming right out of the headphone output isn't a good idea. Find a way to mic it, or use a good amp sim software.
 
GuitardedMark said:
A lot of good info there muffins thanks! When I try to cut the high and lows out of the guitar it sounds really weak and dead. Do you have a suggestion on how to get it big fat and heavy while retaining the punch of the highs without boosting the high and low frequencies?

As far as steven slate, I'm using the cracky metal (wet) set that came with the SSD ex. I agree it sounds REALLY thin. I also feel like the cymbals have too much reverb or decay (not sure if decay is the right word there). I felt the same way about the kick and the snare so I toned down the overheads for each to make them more upfront and less reverby.
Click to expand...

Well, the guitars should sound somewhat thin and weak on their own. The idea is to get them to sound good in the context of the mix. Don't build your mix around making one element sound as good as possible. The idea is to get everything to fit together like a puzzle. If anything, the drums get the highest mixing priority in terms of what you should worry about making sound good.

My personal favorite snare in the steven slate library is snare 17. It has a nice woody sound to it and sounds a lot like Newer Arch Enemy/Fredrik Nordstrom style productions, but also works equally well for rock.

You don't want to turn down the snare in the overheads. The overheads are the most important drum mics in your mixing process. Keep them there, nice and loud. The overhead mics capture the way the drums sound in the room, giving them their power. If all you have in your mix is the close mics, then it's going to sound like shit.

The snare reverb is not really coming from the overheads, so much as it may be coming from the room mic, which is also an important mic. if you want to turn that one down, then go ahead. otherwise, make sure you haven't added any other reverb to your drums, and you should be fine.
 
First off, you have a good voice for this stuff and it happens to be the best sounding instrument in the mix. I'll throw you my 2 bits about SSD if you want. I like them and use them a lot. Here's what works for me: I don't do anything to SSD drums. No eq. No verb. No mixing. Coming right outta the SSD interface in Kontakt, most of the perspective levels (kik, snare, hats, etc) are right where they need to be. Some guys might not agree, but after I get them into my DAW and on a bus, I just watch the kick and snare levels while I push up the whole drum mix bus fader until they reach around 0db (just before clip). Then it's always loud enough.
As far as the bass and guitars, go find those Poulin_LeCab free plugins and learn how to use them and you'll be set. Get good sounds and you won't have to mess with eq so much.
 
FadeToMuffins said:
The idea is to get everything to fit together like a puzzle. .
Click to expand...

Exactly, I also wanted to mention this.

The only time I solo an instrument is to make sure there are no artifacts like clicks or whatever. I used to mix by the logic, make everything sound its best, then it should all sound good together.

I found it doesnt work. I may solo the Bass, Kick and Snare and work to get them sounding as "one thing" together. But the key is the big picture, overall.

Keep at it, everyone here willing to learn gets alot better.
 
"Thanks man! I'm not sure if I should turn the gain up on the kick or eq in some mids. I've gotten into a nasty habit of turning dials and worsening the mix so I'm kind of afraid to mess with it any more without direction. I'm definitely at a roadblock so any specific advice is greatly appreciated."

That's my problem, too - and why I am here. I "twiddle" my way into corners a lot with EQ - sometimes I think because my source sounds are lousy to begin with.
\
 
Dick Dammit said:
"Thanks man! I'm not sure if I should turn the gain up on the kick or eq in some mids. I've gotten into a nasty habit of turning dials and worsening the mix so I'm kind of afraid to mess with it any more without direction. I'm definitely at a roadblock so any specific advice is greatly appreciated."

That's my problem, too - and why I am here. I "twiddle" my way into corners a lot with EQ - sometimes I think because my source sounds are lousy to begin with.
\
Click to expand...

As a general rule, you know you have good source sounds when you are cutting more than you are boosting. It's not "always" that way, but it generally means that your source is producing plenty of frequency where it should be in the mix, and you are just trimming the fat.
 
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