Getting rhythm guitar to it in the mix

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Spyk Saturn

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So my main issue right now is getting it to set it without it being too loud but all the tones coming out of it I want. Everything else in the mix is perfect, but the rhythm guitar is just a tiny bit off and it really becomes more noticeable when it goes into the master. The tone sounds great on its own but, again, just sounds a little out of place in the mix. Attached is the mix. Any thoughts on how to get this to come out better would be much appreciated. If any more information is needed please ask.
 

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What do you currently have on the track? Compression? EQ? Reverb? Limiter? And what are the associated settings? The answers to these questions will give you more-useful information than someone just listening to the track and trying to figure it out.
 
Spyk Saturn said:
So my main issue right now is getting it to set it without it being too loud but all the tones coming out of it I want. Everything else in the mix is perfect, but the rhythm guitar is just a tiny bit off and it really becomes more noticeable when it goes into the master. The tone sounds great on its own but, again, just sounds a little out of place in the mix. Attached is the mix. Any thoughts on how to get this to come out better would be much appreciated. If any more information is needed please ask.
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If everything else is perfect to you, then I would take a step back. What are you monitoring with and is your room treated? Which I don't even quite understand, because it is thin and harsh in headphones as well.

I personally would say that you have a decent mix from what you may have to mix with, but on my system it sounds incredibly thin. No low end and no 'power' to the mix. Synonym=no balls.

I mean no offense, but man this needs a bunch of low end to make it work IMO.
 
jimmys69 said:
If everything else is perfect to you, then I would take a step back. What are you monitoring with and is your room treated? Which I don't even quite understand, because it is thin and harsh in headphones as well.

I personally would say that you have a decent mix from what you may have to mix with, but on my system it sounds incredibly thin. No low end and no 'power' to the mix. Synonym=no balls.

I mean no offense, but man this needs a bunch of low end to make it work IMO.
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Where would I put the balls at :-P. The master does sound much more full but if my mix before the master should sound much fuller as well, where am I missing this, and do you mean the rhythm guitar, or the mix as a whole?

Everything I am using is through an interface, some free VSTs and Amplitube as well, and EZ drummer. I take no offense to anything as this is my first step out into asking for advice on mixing and mastering and will except any help I can get. I have a strong urge to do this on my own and I am extremely OCD so consider me super humble. Thanks!
 
gregoryg said:
What do you currently have on the track? Compression? EQ? Reverb? Limiter? And what are the associated settings? The answers to these questions will give you more-useful information than someone just listening to the track and trying to figure it out.
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The rhythm guitar track I have A gate, TSE 808 VST, Poulin LeGion head, Poulin LeCab, a limiter, EQ boosts, EQ cuts, and finally a maximizer.
 
So it may sound thin because I am trying to get that djent tone but find if I add low end on to it, it takes away from the clarity of that "djent". Is there a magical frequency I am not tapping into on the low end of the spectrum that keeps this clear? Also could it be the impulses I am using?
 
Spyk Saturn said:
Where would I put the balls at :-P. The master does sound much more full but if my mix before the master should sound much fuller as well, where am I missing this, and do you mean the rhythm guitar, or the mix as a whole?

Everything I am using is through an interface, some free VSTs and Amplitube as well, and EZ drummer. I take no offense to anything as this is my first step out into asking for advice on mixing and mastering and will except any help I can get. I have a strong urge to do this on my own and I am extremely OCD so consider me super humble. Thanks!
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Not in your mouth. lol!

What I meant was what are you listening to this mix on? Monitors/headphones? It is obvious that whatever you are using must have a huge bass response with what you are mixing with because there is no solid low end in my monitors. I have spend much to get them to be accurate.

Give some details as to your room and setup. I think that is going to be the first issue to contend with.

Again, don't get me wrong. I am not trying to judge. Only to help man. :)
 
Spyk Saturn said:
So it may sound thin because I am trying to get that djent tone but find if I add low end on to it, it takes away from the clarity of that "djent". Is there a magical frequency I am not tapping into on the low end of the spectrum that keeps this clear? Also could it be the impulses I am using?
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Naw man, there is just now low end at all. My sub doesn't even say hello.
 
jimmys69 said:
Not in your mouth. lol!

What I meant was what are you listening to this mix on? Monitors/headphones? It is obvious that whatever you are using must have a huge bass response with what you are mixing with because there is no solid low end in my monitors. I have spend much to get them to be accurate.

Give some details as to your room and setup. I think that is going to be the first issue to contend with.

Again, don't get me wrong. I am not trying to judge. Only to help man. :)
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I have a set of M audio monitors. There cheep but there better than computer speakers :-P. There is a bass boost button on them and I just noticed it was on. That may have been part of the problem :-P. The room its self is a tiny apartment, so as for acoustics, well lets just say I'm in front of the speakers and its not many steps back to the back wall. As for the judging, as long as its constructive feel free :-P
 
So already without the bass boost button it sounds a lot clearer. I am face palming... well... my face off right now. I can hear what you mean by no low end now as well. That bass guitar could really stand to come out a bit more. It was super huge before. That alone was a big help.
 
Kick drum needs to come up as well. There is no easy answer to get things right. Only trial and error. BUT, first you have to be able to hear what is actually going on in the mix.

It sounds like you have a knack for the mix, it just was obvious that you were making your judgements with an improper monitoring situation.

Keep on mixin man! )
 
Spyk Saturn said:
So my main issue right now is getting it to set it without it being too loud but all the tones coming out of it I want... The tone sounds great on its own but,
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Without listening to your track, I want to comment on this part. I know you've got a perfect tone for the rhythms and I can understand how long it might have taken to dial it in, but... you've got to make the part fit the song and not the other way around. Sometimes that means sacrificing the perfect tone. My philosophy is to record your guitar with the perfect tone, but don't be shy about adjusting EQ and levels once you are mixing. If that means notching out the lower freqs so you don't have mud or conflicts with the bass, then that's what you have to do. It may no longer sound perfect, but it will fit the song perfectly and in the end, that's what you want.

Sorry I'm not gonna listen to your clip right now. Got a song brewing in my head and I don't want to get distracted. lol
 
wildschwein said:
Unless I'm mixing modern Metal where the guitars are well into the bass region I often find myself rolling off the low end of the guitars at about 180-200Hz. For leads I would even roll off further. I usually shelve or roll off the tops at about 10kHz -- as most electric guitar speakers don't go past that anyway. Then I might also boost or take something out of the midrange as well. Depends on who many tracks the song has and what the guitars are doing in the track. Often these EQed guitars aren't going to sound great by themselves but they will sit nicely in the mix. Where you have guitars playing by themselves or with minimum other instrumentation, where it might be too thin you can duplicate that section of the track and EQ it separately to get a bigger sound. For me about 80-90% of the EQ work on any project is subtractive.
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Did you even listen to the track man? There is no low end to begin with. Not even from the guitars or the bass guitar...

I don't find the low end of guitars being an issue here. I am going to guess it is a monitoring/environment issue. There is no low end to anything. If there is no accurate reference for you as to how the low end sounds, then there is no way to work with it without guessing.


I am here to help you in any way I can Spyk. Please do not take my criticism as offensive. Just being honest.

:)
 
No didn't listen to it -- just gave general advice. Will delete the post.
 
To everyone replying that there is no bass. I do appreciate the honesty :-) that's what I am here to get. To comment back on this though, that issue has been addressed and fixed. As mentioned prior, I have a bass boost button on the back of my monitor, and when asked about my monitors and people claiming to hear no bass I suspected something awry. I have been mixing with this button on for quite some time and it has been literally FLOODING everything with a high amount of bass. As mentioned, huge face palm moment. It would explain why it felt like it was over powering my guitar tone as well because as soon as I turned that bad boy off, the tone came in crystal clear, but as observed, the bass section does sound week. This in mind, if my bass drum and bass guitar are getting close to clipping and I have decent compression on the kick drum to make it punchy, would this be a drop everything down around it in volume issue or are there other ways to increase the low end but keeping the clipping down? Or rather, should I say not increase if I am bringing the volume of other things down but making it come through the mix more?
 
Spyk Saturn said:
To everyone replying that there is no bass. I do appreciate the honesty :-) that's what I am here to get. To comment back on this though, that issue has been addressed and fixed. As mentioned prior, I have a bass boost button on the back of my monitor, and when asked about my monitors and people claiming to hear no bass I suspected something awry. I have been mixing with this button on for quite some time and it has been literally FLOODING everything with a high amount of bass. As mentioned, huge face palm moment. It would explain why it felt like it was over powering my guitar tone as well because as soon as I turned that bad boy off, the tone came in crystal clear, but as observed, the bass section does sound week. This in mind, if my bass drum and bass guitar are getting close to clipping and I have decent compression on the kick drum to make it punchy, would this be a drop everything down around it in volume issue or are there other ways to increase the low end but keeping the clipping down? Or rather, should I say not increase if I am bringing the volume of other things down but making it come through the mix more?
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If you are anywhere near clipping on any track, then you need to take a step back and realize that you are not working in the way a DAW is meant to be used.

You can't really clip a DAW channel within the tracks themselves. You have enough headroom to get away with that-BUT-most VST effects are expecting line level equivalent input level. This is around -18dBFS. If you are hitting the effects hard, you are asking for trouble. Especially with those that are emulators of analog gear. Those that claim to give 'warmth' like saturation plugs.

You should post a new mix now. There is not much I can comment on without hearing what you have done after the 'switch' thing. That in itself tells me your monitoring is not so great. No biggie, you gotta deal with what you have.
 
Turn your monitors up. They suddenly have a lot more headroom!

Turn everything else down until it stops clipping.

Repeat as necessary.
 
So the bottom end has come up quite a bit now that I can hear a bit of whats going on, but as the bottom end comes up I get much of the same problem as I did with the bass boost. I hear more of an annoying scratch than I do that djent tone. Soloed you hear the djent in there fine, but in the mix its just indistinguishable as to what note I am palm muting. Its just a SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHSHHSHSHSHSHS instead of a DJENT DJENT DJENT if that makes any sense. Problem worsens when volume is lowered. It just becomes more distinguishable what it is as its volume is lowered.
 
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