Flames - Mix & Master

J.M.

New member
Good evening Home Recording forum!

My name is John and I am looking for feedback through a fresh pair of ears for this mix. It is a metal track from the band Black crown and the song is called Flames. All mixing and mastering were done by me through a pair of Yamaha HS 7s in an untreated room. If someone with a better pair of monitors could have a listen to this I would be grateful. Keep up and thank you!

John
 

Attachments

  • Black Crown Flames Mix-Master 1.6 mp3.mp3
    12.8 MB · Views: 28
I hear reverb on the drums ? Something is making the drums indistinct. Overall the mix sounds distant to me with the exception of the vocals, they sound great to me. You may get suggestions to turn the vocals down but I like present vocals I think you need to match that presence with the rest of the mix. The tonal balance sounds good to me. i.e bass, mids, hi's, all sound in good proportion. It might be a bit too compressed for 2020. Mastering engineers are backing off real hard limiting nowadays. Overall a bit of tweaking will make a nice mix/master.
 
Feedback

Thank you for the feedback!

You are correct on the Reverb note. Since there were many "Room" elements in the mix I may have gone too far with it. I noticed that it was not lacking even though I muted the channel. It did help with the definition of the drums. Toms were also treated a bit differently in order to cut. An L3 Limiter was set but with a more moderate setting this time. I did not check Lufs reading but my RMS is around -8 to -9. My goal was to have a loud master ..not necessarily one for streaming platforms since it is only mixing and mastering to promote part of my work. May I ask on what system you are listening on? It would help me greatly to know.

I did trust your judgment though.

Kind regards
John
 

Attachments

  • Black Crown Flames Mix-Master 1.7 .mp3
    12.8 MB · Views: 9
v1.7 is definitely better. It's still very vocal-forward for most metal, but it matches some of the poppier sub-genres.

I wouldn't mind if the kick and snare popped out more during the choruses and other loud parts. They start to get a little buried.
 
Thank you for your comment Steve

Yes, I guess automating some choruses and fills of the snare and kick would get me closer to where I want to go. On the HS 7s is a bit of trial and error process though, this is why I am seriously considering the purchase of a pair of Adams a77x or similar model. If you would like to share your setup with me I would appreciate it. Might even make my decision easier.

Cheers
John
 
Thank you for the feedback!

May I ask on what system you are listening on? It would help me greatly to know.

Kind regards
John

I listen on Kali L6. Just Curious... how much do you filter the muck out of your tracks ? This is an example of EQ's I would Apply to a Snare and a Kick. Its hard to see the numbers but everything below 75hz on the Snr is Gone everything below 40hz on the Kick is gone. Its not for everyone, but it does buy you some headroom if your mixing Rock.


EQ's.jpg
 
Thank you for the information.

I reworked some aspects of the mix and the master. Basically I mastered a bit higher.

To answer your question: I have used filters of this nature that you mention (perhaps not with such a steep roll-off) in the mix. Certainly. Though, there are 2 considerations I had in mind when mixing:

The first was the fact that I can actually hear low frequencies (like..really low). The second is that I actually like them too. Listen to DGM's "Reason" as to how approximately I hear - frequency-wise a "heavy" mix.

Simone Mularoni is the Guitarist and Engineer of DGM. Of course, the Master of this particular track is ridiculously high and it quite eludes me as to how he pulled this off. But yeah, besides the fact that some frequencies will crop up after hard compression and have to filter all over again I have used filtering just maybe not to the extent someone else might have. I am exporting my final version of this mix - master right now. I would love to hear your opinions (I even automated the Kick and Snare for maximum impact hehe).

Cheers
John
 

Attachments

  • Flames Master REWORKED.mp3
    12.8 MB · Views: 9
I like the down tuned guitar tones. Good separation between guitar and bass. Some nice progressions and change ups. Quite a rockin jam. Nice job
 
The perceived volume of the kick and snare doesn't change going into the chorus now, which I think is pretty optimal.

Double check some of your compressors tho. The cymbals are pumping now.
 
Good evening Steve

I tried to listen to what you said. There seems to be a trade-off between how much hats and cymbals I have in the mix. In general, now there are more cymbals that are less compressed but the issue that you mention doesn't seem to be rectified. I believe it could have something to do with the recording (compression maybe?). I also did a thing of my own where I duplicated a mono room track and panned this and the original left and right respectively with the appropriate treatment. In general, I like this mix-master, it suits the music and is punchy. Thank you for the feedback.

The second song is from an online competition that I took part in. If you are up to it have a listen. There surely must be some aspect of the mix or master that could be better through a fresh pair of ears.
 

Attachments

  • Flames Master 2.0.mp3
    12.8 MB · Views: 14
  • Dragged Under Chelsea Mix& Master - J.M..mp3
    6.5 MB · Views: 38
Good evening Steve!

Yes, it seems the send level of the main crashes origin - which was the OHs and the Ambience tracks - was a little bit too much for the parallel compression channel's compressor. Your observation indeed helped matters a lot. I had a talk with one of my teachers and he noticed that I was not referencing. Which I did not. I admit. For this master, I pushed a compressor more, I automated his threshold for constant gain reduction across and introduced some saturation more along with another (2nd) EQ after most of the processing but still before my main Limiter. I also noticed that a clipper softened the transients beyond my taste that is why I did not use one. I can't help but get the feeling it still lacks some volume. Personally I would just turn the volume up if I was a listener just a tiny bit, but since I am not there is something more I need to do obviously. Any ideas?

Cheers
John
 

Attachments

  • Flames Master 2.1.mp3
    9.7 MB · Views: 9
I update this

The second EQ was a bit too much. I managed to do the same with one instance and some mid-side processing. I believe it is way more natural this way. It still lacks 10% to be fully competitive. Purely my opinion.
 

Attachments

  • Flames Master 2.2.mp3
    9.7 MB · Views: 4
Oh yeah... cooking with gas now!

I'm listening on HR824 v2's

The vocal is still getting lost in the mix competing with the cymbals and guitars for high end presence... the level's right, just the freq content isn't quite there.
It sounds like you've pushed up the mid range of the vox to help it, but lost the breath sounds as a result.

Vox high end is tricky to get right, in this case I'd try taking a high pass feed (> 3kHz) of the vox track (pre-fx) into a limiter (3-6dB reduction at most)
Feed that back into the same destinations as the original vox goes to.
You might even want to EQ the top end of the limited feed to bring up >6kHz for shine.
Mix it back in to taste, but just enough to hear all the words clearly.

This will probably introduce subtle phase issues, but the vox will stand out better.
Swings and roundabouts.

The whole mix sounds like you've dropped out fequencies above 10kHz or so... I'd lift that low pass up to 15kHz if you've got one on the master buss.

All the best, Br3ttski
 
Good evening br3ttski and thank you for the feedback!

It seems I need to get used to this technique. I tried what you suggested and indeed it makes a great difference in the mids and high mid frequencies of the vocals. They are more present and you can actually blend as much as you want into the mix (which is always a good thing). Makes things easier for the mastering stage also. So..kudos to you for the legit advice! There is some sibilance going on and I tried de-essing the limited track only to make things worse, this is why I avoided it, but now that I hear it again I may need to do just that. There is also the possibility that now the vox is too much upfront but it is better to have this problem than the other way around. I think I burned my ears with this piece and will try mixing another for a while. Here are my most recent results:
 

Attachments

  • Flames Master 2.3.mp3
    9.7 MB · Views: 2
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