Classic Hard Rock Band - Need Mix Help

  • Thread starter Thread starter ibleedburgundy
  • Start date Start date
ibleedburgundy

ibleedburgundy

The Anti-Lambo
OK this is my friend's band. We recorded the guitar, drums, and bass live at my house and then overdubbed the vocals. All comments welcome. Most of my music is instrumental so mixing vocals is kind of a new thing for me. Thanks!

Edit 1: I tried to do all the suggestions. It's less loud and less fried - hopefully. Thanks again!

Things I changed for Mix 7:

Notched vocals at 600.
Reduced guitar around 2500 (bite).
Reduced guitar at 200 a little.
Added 2 DB shelf of guitar at 6K.
Drastically reduced compression/reverb aux track volumes
Put limiter on bass drum, snare drum, and overheads but it only engages a few times in the entire song. There were a few drum hits that were way louder than anywhere else - those are the only ones effected.
Turned down the guitar.
Tried to add a little low mid warmth back into the guitar.
Removed the gain and limiter on the master volume.

Edit for Mix 8:

I did the old guitar copy track panned hard right and left with one of them delayed 20 ms and a slight variance in EQ.
Same for bass.
I also boosted bass between 100-200Hz. That seems to have added a little something that was needed.
I increased the vocal delay track a little bit.
 

Attachments

Last edited:
How much of the room sound is in the mix, IBB? The room sound or your choice of ambience is leaving the track a bit hollow-sounding, rather than solid like a traditional classic rock mix.

The vocals sit pretty well with what you've got. I'm assuming that you didn't multitrack this, as it's just occurred to me that nothing sounds panned. If that's the case, that's not a terrible recording at all. :)
 
Cool song. There's some harshness in the midrange that may come from whatever boosting you're doing on the master bus. The vocalist has some piercing frequencies that are overwhelming everything. I'd start right there. Tame those frequencies and the rest of the mix should fall into place. For me, the guitars are too loud in relationship to the bass. I'd bring the guitars down and try to get the balance between guitars, bass, and drums right. There is a tendency to raise the guitar levels too much in hopes of getting a "heavy" sound, but "heavy" comes from the relationship between guitars, bass, and drums, not from loud guitars. If you can get that balance, you might be able to lower the vocal a bit and have it sit better.

What's that effect on the bass?
 
Bubba po said:
How much of the room sound is in the mix, IBB? The room sound or your choice of ambience is leaving the track a bit hollow-sounding, rather than solid like a traditional classic rock mix.

The vocals sit pretty well with what you've got. I'm assuming that you didn't multitrack this, as it's just occurred to me that nothing sounds panned. If that's the case, that's not a terrible recording at all. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the listen and comments! There are 7 drum tracks (4 piece set, top and bottom snare mics with 2 OHs). 1 mic on bass 1 mic on guitar.

I barely panned anything. OHs are 23% left and right and floor tom is 17% right and upper tom is 17% left. I should probably do more separation but I'm not sure what.

Room sound is mostly overheads. There is a little bleed on the guitar and bass mics but not a lot.

I've also got an aux compression/reverb track fed by guitar, bass and a little vocals - trying to glue things together. Maybe I should just kill off that concept - it may be adding mud. Or dial it back.
 
If you could pull the room sound or reverb sound back a fair bit, this track would start to sound pretty good, I reckon.
 
Robus said:
Cool song. There's some harshness in the midrange that may come from whatever boosting you're doing on the master bus. The vocalist has some piercing frequencies that are overwhelming everything. I'd start right there. Tame those frequencies and the rest of the mix should fall into place. For me, the guitars are too loud in relationship to the bass. I'd bring the guitars down and try to get the balance between guitars, bass, and drums right. There is a tendency to raise the guitar levels too much in hopes of getting a "heavy" sound, but "heavy" comes from the relationship between guitars, bass, and drums, not from loud guitars. If you can get that balance, you might be able to lower the vocal a bit and have it sit better.

What's that effect on the bass?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've got an expander on a "silver" setting on her voice. It makes her really cut through the mix but I probably overdid it. I will dial it back.

The aux compression/reverb may be adding bad mids. I'll dial that back as well.

Will take the guitar down as well.

The bass player had a whole rack of pedals. I tested levels on everything but not real sure what he was doing. We did 8 songs in a few hours.

Overall I think this mix is a bit fried and I'm going to try and bring things down to more natural levels.
 
Man, that's pretty loud! I think the guitar sounds awesome myself. The singer is definitely hitting some higher notes that your processing is accentuating or maybe not taming like it should?

I think Bubba is on to something as far as the amount of room/verb too. The whole thing should be more in yer face I think for the style. So, basically I guess I'm just echoing stuff you've already been told (sorry), but I think you could get this sounding quite nice by exploring some of those suggestions.

It's got some great, driving hard rock riffs and the vocals are cool, other than the piercing quality at times.
 
I think the instruments need air, maybe +3dB shelves at 6k or so, as needed per track. The vocal could use a cut at 600 and the guitar at 200. Then I'd look at finding some upper midrange clarity on the bass and kick. There's a fundamentally good balance between the instruments, it just sounds to me like the eq needs to be fine tuned before it will really come together.
 
The opening guitar has a harsh/brittle frequency. Sounds like a typical "sim" frequency problem. Is this a sim or real amp?
The beat is great and has my head bouncing the entire time. The singer has vibe.

The only main problem I hear is the harsh guitar. Find that frequency and notch it out like 4db.
 
Nola said:
The opening guitar has a harsh/brittle frequency. Sounds like a typical "sim" frequency problem. Is this a sim or real amp?
The beat is great and has my head bouncing the entire time. The singer has vibe.

The only main problem I hear is the harsh guitar. Find that frequency and notch it out like 4db.
Click to expand...

It's actually a Gibson Les Paul traditional played through a Marshall DSL half stack mic'd with an SM57 pretty close to the center of the speaker into a Joe Meek TwinQ but no compression. And the guy was playing at a nice healthy volume. So I have no excuses lol. I notched out 5.5 db's at 3050Hz with a thin Q for the very reason you're talking about - there's something harsh in there. I think my shitty mix is to blame. The raw track is good. I'm hoping the reverbs I was using and the fact that the guitar was too loud in the mix was the main problem.
 
Last edited:
bouldersoundguy said:
I think the instruments need air, maybe +3dB shelves at 6k or so, as needed per track. The vocal could use a cut at 600 and the guitar at 200. Then I'd look at finding some upper midrange clarity on the bass and kick. There's a fundamentally good balance between the instruments, it just sounds to me like the eq needs to be fine tuned before it will really come together.
Click to expand...

Good ear dude. I just did all those things and I think it is an improvement.
 
Hey burgundy, nice recording man! I listened to mix 7. The vocals came out really well imo. Feels like the bass could use some fattening up somehow, there's a big boomy kick and then the little bass. Maybe thinning out the drum a bit might be easier, maybe try a cut at 400, see if that feels better. The ride and crash (hope I got my drum anatomy right) seem kind of quiet on my headphones.
 
Listened to mix 7. Dramatic improvement. The lead vocal has lost those piercing frequencies. Lowering the guitars has opened up the mix, leaving more room for the vocal to sit. The low end is a little bit weak in my listening environment. Although the guitars are lower, they are overwhelming the bass. I'm not hearing that tight connection between bass and guitars that you often hear in heavier music, where the bass sounds like a low extension of the guitars. The vocalist is pitchy here and there, for example that descending line that starts around 1:45 and repeats a short time later. It's not bad, and maybe even adds the the live feeling that I'm getting overall from this track. Personally, I would probably tidy that up unless the singer has a problem with tuning.

You're just the engineer on this project, right?
 
Really good tune, love the wah in the breakdown. Your vocalist is real good. IME micing the amp close to the cone will accentuate the fizziness, out at the edge will sound rounder. What the mix is lacking is the in-your-face aspect. A tune like this needs fatness and balls. You can use parallel compression on your stems to beef things up. Also make sure your bass and kick aren't getting in each others way.
 
Everything seems a little odd - there's nothing happening on the side opposite the rhythm gtr.
The intro bass (?) sounded like a clavinet having a bad frog in the throat day.
Def no meat with the potatoes.
 
ibleedburgundy said:
It's actually a Gibson Les Paul traditional played through a Marshall DSL half stack mic'd with an SM57 pretty close to the center of the speaker into a Joe Meek TwinQ but no compression. And the guy was playing at a nice healthy volume. So I have no excuses lol. I notched out 5.5 db's at 3050Hz with a thin Q for the very reason you're talking about - there's something harsh in there. I think my shitty mix is to blame. The raw track is good. I'm hoping the reverbs I was using and the fact that the guitar was too loud in the mix was the main problem.
Click to expand...

Hm, interesting. 3k was the biggest problem? I'd look at 1-2k and 5k, too. There's something else brittle sounding in there. Les Paul usually sounds really thick and dark.

rayc said:
The intro bass (?) sounded like a clavinet having a bad frog in the throat day.
Click to expand...

I noticed that, too, and a trend overall in scooping the mids out of bass in modern mixes. I say give it low end! Maybe with better low end in the bass the brittle guitar will smooth out.
 
rayc said:
Everything seems a little odd - there's nothing happening on the side opposite the rhythm gtr.
The intro bass (?) sounded like a clavinet having a bad frog in the throat day.
Def no meat with the potatoes.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the listen!

Yeah, I'm not scooping him, that's his sound. He's using this semi hollow body gretch bass with an ampeg head through a Harte 4x10 cab. There is no low end ass to be had. I am actually boosting 30-100Hz to no avail.

Maybe I could have angled the mic for more bass response but that ship has sailed. Lesson learned.
 
Bulls Hit said:
Really good tune, love the wah in the breakdown. Your vocalist is real good. IME micing the amp close to the cone will accentuate the fizziness, out at the edge will sound rounder. What the mix is lacking is the in-your-face aspect. A tune like this needs fatness and balls. You can use parallel compression on your stems to beef things up. Also make sure your bass and kick aren't getting in each others way.
Click to expand...

I have parallel compression on bass drum and snare drum. I'll give it a shot on guitar and bass. There is only one guitar track on this.
 
Robus said:
I'm not hearing that tight connection between bass and guitars that you often hear in heavier music, where the bass sounds like a low extension of the guitars.
Click to expand...

Me neither, and I searched for it. There are times in the song where i think they linked up but many times they do not, and in parts they are not in perfect tune either. There was also one huge screw up that I edited out with a mild degree of success lol.
 
Robus said:
You're just the engineer on this project, right?
Click to expand...

Yup. At some point I may add tidbits with pads or minor guitar harmonies, probably not on this song though.

It was cool to just be able to go around setting levels without actually playing. It helped me dial in some of my gear. And I'm learning a lot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top