80's metal ballad revisited

  • Thread starter Thread starter antichef
  • Start date Start date
antichef

antichef

pornk rock
all this talk of the Ranch Bowl - https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=281930 - made me remember my syrupy metal ballad remake project, so I dug it up. Since I dropped it last time, I've picked up better monitors and plugs (stock UAD and Stillwell compressor), as well as slightly upgraded skillz and better knowledge of routing and things like that, so I figured I'd go for a remix.

Rather than link to the old version so you can hear what (I think) are the improvements, I think I'd rather just hear nits on this one. The drums are still sampled :( but hopefully better.



There are lyrics for this - I think I wrote them 20 years ago, but they sucked and I forgot them and everyone's better off. Maybe I'll work on some more.

Lemme have it ...
 
Listened twice:

Wow, there's a lower frequency that's totally ringing in a bad way on my monitors. I would try and find that frequency and bring it down. The drums, especially the toms, sound really hollow, and maybe ring a bit too much. There's also a crash in there that's not sounding to good. The clean guitars sound really good, but once the distortion kicks in, it gets a bit thin.
I'm not the best at mixing advice, I just try and describe what I hear. The separation might be a bit extreme on the distorted guitars as well. To be honest, I'm not diggin' the mix very much, it starts out good, but once the distorted guitars come in it gets weird. The bass gets lost too....that said-

I think the song is cool. I can really see the potential in it. The right mix could make this song sound really, really cool. A great vocalist on top of it all would make it even better. I would wait and see what a few other people say, gather the advice, and remix it. I'll be watching out for one..
 
That's what I'm talkin' about :D

While I wait for more, I'll try out some different sample banks for the drum sounds, and see what's going on with the bass (could be as simple as switching the drums, or I may have to pull some lows out of the guitars).

By separation on the guitars, do you mean stereo field separation?
 
The problem for me with this mix is that everything seems super isolated. This guitar goes here, and this one here, and here's the toms, and here's a crash, etc. There's no feeling of unity. Yeah, you want everything to be clear and audible, but the parts still have to make up the whole. There is no easy answer. You just have to keep mixing - panning, reverbing, etc.

And those are some of the craziest tom samples I've ever heard! I actually kind of like them. BOOM! Lol. They don't work for this song at all, but I think they're cool. It's like, "we're gonna mic this tom and record it, but we're only gonna mic the bottom head. Hit it! BOOOOOM!" :D

Definitely look for different drum sounds and give them some wider stereo spread if you can.
 
OK - I listened again, and yeah, the toms are embarrassing - what sucks is that the actual drummer on this was really good, and had a kickass tama set.

Here's another mix, probably with still too much isolation, but using tama samples and trying to clean up the low end some.



I cut some low from the guitars - still trying to get my mind around the thinness thing. It's worth noting that I'm actually trying to simulate two guitar players, rather than double track - we had two, of which I was one. I used different guitars for the left and right, to try and pull it off.
 
This last one sounds better. The thing that I find most problematic is time-wise. A little on the guitars and a lot on the drums, specially on the crashes and hats. The distortion guitars could us e a lot more meat on them. They sound very thin. Also the bass can come up a lot. I cant hear it. Keep up at it. You are getting there, my friend.
 
Hi there, the first thing that comes is the drums with no dynamics, the kick is panned and no feeling at all, try using presets, and then change them to get what you want, they have a lot of life.

I can't hear the bass, if there is one, is buried under the guitars and drums.

The guitar solos aren't well performed, specially the fast parts, i didn't understand anything, just "noise", practice them a little more to clean the sound.

Keep going!
 
thanks everyone - I must spread rep before re-awarding to Zero00

Fast parts? The solos are pretty much what I want, but it's good to hear the perspective on them - I didn't think there were any fast parts :D

I must have my subwoofer turned up too high, because I can hear the bass - I'll take another stab at it soon. The irony here is that when we recorded and mixed this the first time, in, I think, 1987-8, you couldn't hear the bass, and one primary goal of mine in this project was to rectify that :)

By "more meat" on the distorted guitars, do we mean more mids?

edit: I did some more work on it, but I'm going to reference on a few systems before I post - that may take a day or two. I'll be back...
 
Last edited:
The fast part i was referring is exactly at 3:27 is like a very fast guitar solo... I should told that on the other post, sorry about that...

Cheers...
 
Can't hear the bass.

Drum temp AND guitar tempo are off in places.

Guitar sound is on the right the right track. I don't have nits with the leads just the tempo in many places.
 
Greg_L said:
And those are some of the craziest tom samples I've ever heard! I actually kind of like them. BOOM! Lol. They don't work for this song at all, but I think they're cool. It's like, "we're gonna mic this tom and record it, but we're only gonna mic the bottom head. Hit it! BOOOOOM!" :D
Click to expand...

Hehe..... Very reminiscent of Alex Van Halen's tom sounds.
 
Hey there Chef!
Gotta admit I dig the snare sound with that ring....:D Kick has to go in the middle though and the toms aren't that bad either. What I'm missing is that typical wall of sound from the heavy guitars. More low end and gain on the bass would help. Keep working at it and sing something on it! ;)

Joey :):):):)
 
I think if it suffers from anything, it's a general lack of damping, most notably on the drums. The hollow ringing juxtaposed against the tight, focused crunchy rhythm guitar is a jarring thing. The mix of spatial pallettes is difficult to get past; it forces you to concentrate to hard to hear the things you want to listen for. I think the tune is really well written though, and it's just some acquisition/mix/mastering issues away from being really special.. If you have a click track, you could retrack the drums and that would probably solve almost all of the problems... I loved the rhythm and lead guitar sounds.
 
There's a click track, yes - actually, the drums are tapped out midi --

here it is again, but with some different drum samples for the kick, and more bass. I could totally hear the bass in my wife's minivan just now, so hopefully you'll be able to hear it too.



oh yes - 3:27 - I accidentally turned that "solo" up too much (and it's still up in this mix) - I palm muted that run of notes to go for a pitiful rodent-scampering-in-cage effect - I pulled it off, no? :D - I'll bring that whole thing back down a few db - it's supposed to be more atmospheric than heard.

Thanks again everyone!
 
Last edited:
The toms super saturate the bottom end on the end of the run.
This'll be good - keep at it.
You do need to deal with the sub freqs mate - they seems to be doing something evil to their sympathetic cousins.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top