Blow your head off mix

  • Thread starter Thread starter ecktronic
  • Start date Start date
Lol. What does a 'blow your head off' mix sound like? :D

What I heard sounded great. :)
 
I think your mix sounds really good! It's not as loud as the example you put up but I don't think anyone would expect it to be.

Only thing in the mix that jumped put a bit to me was the single tom hits on the left. I would drop those down some. If it was a roll it might work fine at that level but it stands out too much as is, imho.

The mix is quite punchy and heavy like it when it comes back in after the quiet part. I would say that hit's you in the head pretty damn good and is nicely done with the short fade in. The way you didn't fade it in to loud before it hit's gives it good impact.

The bass sound is cool.

Ive been messing around with renisance bass on my kick drum and bass guitar. I don't know if you have it but that's something you could mess with and see what happens.

Are you compression on the main? I't doesn't sound like you have squeezed the life out of it. Sounds real nice.

Guitar might need a little more high end or poss just a db or 2 of volume. Not a must though. It's good the way it is.

I don't know that I'm much help. Would be nice to know what compression you are using and where.

Cool sample. Would love to hear more.

F.S.
 
Thanks Freudian Slip.
Yeah, for some reason when I mix I tend to forget about the volume of the stray toms! Good one for pointing that out to me.
Yeah he track hasnt been mastererd, its just the raw mix that I stuck an L2 on to make it a bit louder. Didnt check the RMS or anything.

Yeah the bass is nice. I used an Ampeg tube amp and Ampeg 4x10cab with a Shure Beta 52a.
I also used the Shure BEta 52a on the guitars! Strange that using a bass mic sounds good on guitars. Its good at picking up the heavy los and for clean guitars its really good at picking up the warmth.

I amnt fond of the RBass. I have tried it but there just isnt enough control to get anything decent out of it. I just use Rcomp them REQ and any peaks I just volume automate out.

Ive been bad for having harsh guitars in my past so im going for the smoother sounding guitars this time. Kinda Deftones sound, you know almost muddy but not quite. :)

Oohh, yeah compression on the stereo out. NO! I dont like to use compression that way or even at the mastering stage. This could be becuase I have never got good results from trying to use compression in this way. Id be interested to see what a mastering engineer could do with compression on this track though. Very midl compression might work nice.

Cheers,
Eck
 
sounds good man. :)


I'm kina sad to find out that no vocals kicked in :D. I'm there bobin my head telling myself, "those vocals are probably comming up anytime now".

My only observations are light ones. The tom might have been one of it, but I'm thinking more of the distorted guitar sounds. Just a little hissy in my opinion, but still pretty legible.


How did you go about the mix, if you don't mind me asking?


In terms of "blow off" mixing, that's really another kina monster man. There's some serious time and gear that goes into that. But I think more important than that, it's just a matter of a lot practicing and tuning the ear. That fortunately, can cost very little :D/


edit:

I just read the previous reply, I think that gave me more input on the guitar sound.
 
If you want head blowing you'll have to sort out the snare. It sounds like you're compressing all the attack out of it so its robbed of a lot of power. Have a listen to the snare in FNMs We Care aLot andcompare it to yours
 
I amnt happy with the snare sound. It has been compressed but not so much that it kills much transients. I am aware of not killing drum transients with over compression. I think its just the sound of the snare that is a bit dead sounding. Thats it even with a bottom mic!

Id loke to try using drum replacement, but I have no programme to do so and I dont have the time to do it manually as we are already a month and a half late for the record label.

The song has still got a lead guitar part to add to the choruses. Ill post it soon.
Sorry about no vox. :) Not got round to them yet. Think we are getting one of the guys that played in Pink Floyd to record our vox which will look nice on the album cover. :)

You asked so Ill tell. :)
Drums were mixed using compression and EQ and the toms were sent to a bus with a stereo reverb on it. The kick and snare were sent to a bus with a stereo compresser on it and hit quite hard but only used a bit of it in the mixto get more punch.

Bass was lightly compressed since the bass player played the part so well. I love when a bass player plays consistently, makes it soo easy to mix. Means little volume automation is needed.

Guitars were lo and hi passed. I cut some at around 8K and scoopsed out the lo mids a bit. I scooped the lo mids on pretty much every instrument since this is what heavy rock/metal suits best.
I lightly compressed the guitars so as not to squash them as you hear in Deftones for example. Deftones whole mixes are far too squashed for my liking.
A bit of automation was used with the volume and panning of guitars.

If you want to know any more just ask.

Cheers,
Eck
 
Pretty good mix eck - and lots of great mixing info in your posts... Will we hear this with vocals sometime?
 
off to a great start. I think the drums are a little too loud/forward in the mix. they didn't seem to mesh with the other stuff going on. also they were a little too punchy/snappy.
 
fuzzrhythm said:
off to a great start. I think the drums are a little too loud/forward in the mix. they didn't seem to mesh with the other stuff going on. also they were a little too punchy/snappy.
Click to expand...
Thanks man.
Yeah the drums are a little louder than they will be in the final mix. Thats just the way that I mix, always having the drums a little louder than when I bounce the final mix.

Cheers,
Eck
 
Good mix, and good tone in the gtrs at :45. Agree that the snare needs more definition. I’d fix that flat Bb in the gtr line at :38.
 
Second listen.

Drums are pretty much all about attack right now. pretty thin to me. I don't know if you've changed files or not? I would have thought I'd have noticed before but I may have dipped in to the skyy a bit much;)

I would not worry about the drum levels untill they are a bit fatter. I also have always found that in a "blow your head of mix" Quite a bit of ring in the snare is par for the course. I'd try hyping around 900hz and add a few some db's centered around 175 to 200 to fatten the snare up. I like sound of that tom on the left not to thick not to thin, nice ring.

Personally to me in a blow your head off mix drums and bass take center stage. I (in my limited expieriance) always try to make sure they are at least audible even in the very loud guitar and vocal parts.

I still LOVE how you have the song coming out of the quiet part at the end of the sample:) Wack to the forehead!!! Little fatter drums and bass and my chair might tip over;)

I'd also try a couple dbs of 800 in the bass and maybe a bit of 80 to 100. I love the tone and slinky springy thing you have going just a bit nasal though to me. I'm not hearing the notes as much as I would like to more of just the slap. I love the slap but a little more tone around it would help to my ears. Not too much though.

Later

F.S.
 
Cheers all.
Yeah the snare is thin, I cant do anything aout that. I have played about with the EQ in many ways and it just sounds dead and lifeless. :(
The toms are ok I suppose but not totally happy with them. I am happy with the Kick apart from it has too much of a metal sound to it. Im going for the more slap/punch sound which I usually get in all my mixes, but cant manage to get the kick to sound like that around this song.
I thought the bass was pounding! Maybe im getting mixed up with old and new mixes.

Ill post my new mix today and call it "Blow yer Head off mix #II"

Cheers,
Eck
 
Cool! Sounds way better to me. Toms are working good. Kick & Bass too.
Ya snare is a little thwaky.




F.S.
 
eck...you know I love you guys sounds. :cool:

The drum performance is great. They sound like the energy has been compressed out of them though and if you wanna blow my head off, you're gonna have to get them babies snap, crackle and poppin. :D :p

I love the guitars...tones and performance on them is excellent.

True
 
Nice yin!
Sorry bout the compression on the drums but it is asked for in this mix since the style of druming is so dynamic. I am considering using drum replacement to get a better snare sound, but im not very good at using Drumagog. I tried it last night but it sounded kinda fake and machine like.

Cheers.
Eck

Any pointers on using Drumagog are very welcome :)
 
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