"CPR" First Metal/hardcore ep song single

Ninja_Drummer

Ninja_Drummer

New member
Hey guys, currently working on a 7 song ep for a local band and they happen to be of the metal/hard core genre.

This is a premastered mix that I wanted to get some feedback on. I'm still trying my hand at mastering, but it's a slow process :/. I think the drums may be a lil on the loud side, almost as if someone is tryin to do a drum cover or somethin, but I feel that that should get a lil better in the mastering stage.

Vocals were kinda weird to work with, especially working with screaming/growling for the first time, which, I think I did too bad at minus the "hisSing 'S'".

So murder me, or give me a pat on the shoulder, or even point in a different direction if you would have me



I'll go ahead and post what my shitty mastering has come up with. I think I overcompressed though, cause I can really hear the saturation in the guitars at points :( oh well.

 
Last edited:
Holy fucking scooped mids batman. Did you mix this on laptop speakers? All I can hear is the really really super low lows, and the tinny highs. The guitars need mid like a fat chick needs jenny craig. Bass frequencies of the bass guitar need to come down a but, guitars need to come up. Snare needs to be completely remixed, as it sounds way over-compressed. The mix has no pop or thump, which is the responsibility of the drums.

Otherwise, if that's the guitar tone you got, I really hope you captured the DI's so you can re-amp those guitars.
 
Nah, mixed on monitors, but I think I was so focused on achieving thickness that I lost sensibility for tone. But I slight eqed the guitars for a pass around the 200hz-500hz range to bring out the mids a little bit. And I miked the cabs with a 57 on the cone and a Sterling 51 about 4 ft away from the cab. Then mixed the two together while getting two takes with a different guitar sound. I then panned each take left or right.

Were you listening to the premaster or the post master? I did a high pass on the mastered version and I think that did more damage than sweeten the mix now that I realize it.

And I know what you mean about the snare. I just tried to get it to come out the mix more, I'll prolly bring down the attack and the ratio a lil bit. I also have it running into a drum buss with slight compression slapped on it so I'll probably bring it out of there a lil bit as well (working in Cubase btw to grasp where I'm gettin this from).
 
Both mixes are really bad to me. As with most amateur home-recorded metal mixes, the focus is all on the guitars at the expense of literally everything else. The pre-master is all guitar and the drums are tiny little buried clicks with no life or power. The mastered version is just like the pre-master, thin and weak, but on steroids of loudness. The bass and kick are not working well together. Your username is "ninja drummer". How could you treat the drums so badly? Traitor! ;)

In your defense though, that drummer is really bad, so you probably did him a favor by making him not very audible. Start all over. All the way over. Turn everything down, let the drums breathe on their own, and build around them, not over them.
 
Greg_L said:
Both mixes are really bad to me. As with most amateur home-recorded metal mixes, the focus is all on the guitars at the expense of literally everything else. The pre-master is all guitar and the drums are tiny little buried clicks with no life or power. The mastered version is just like the pre-master, thin and weak, but on steroids of loudness. The bass and kick are not working well together. Your username is "ninja drummer". How could you treat the drums so badly? Traitor! ;)

In your defense though, that drummer is really bad, so you probably did him a favor by making him not very audible. Start all over. All the way over. Turn everything down, let the drums breathe on their own, and build around them, not over them.
Click to expand...

I guess I'm still getting used to my monitors because the drums sound loud and clear when I'm mixing them with the guitars. I usually have them stand out the most in the mix (being a drummer and all). I always have to tone down the guitars in the mix because they just attack the drums too much and sometimes I fear I may be doing so too much to where they sound muddy or thin. I guess it's just a matter of learning the transitions and getting my ears right. Because that's really what I'm basing most of my mixes off of, my ears, as most would recommend.

And I think I just need a better kick mic, because the kick ends up being really quiet starting out in the mix. And I usually have to really bring out the output in the mix or really tone down guitars.

Any other tips for guitar from you metalboys out there?
 
Nope, the only way to get this right is to scrap this mix completely. (sorry for being so blunt, I actually quite like the track ....)
Start off with the guitars, because they sound like they're coming out of a tin can. Don't make low-cuts where there's no need to and raise those low mids for beef. And give that bass some balls...
Lay off all that compression and limit gently in steps when mastering. Do you really need to EQ so drastically when mastering? Then something's wrong in the mixing or tracking phase.
Regarding drums, take Greg's advice and build around them. Drums really ARE the most important thing in a mix! Good luck.
 
My advice would be to scrap the second guitar mic. Just go with the 57. Basically, when things are getting to complicated, you need to simplify your approach. The low end of your guitars is totally fighting with the bass, and you need to make a decision and then a cut somewhere. Either the guitars are going to sit on top of the bass, in which case you might give them a healthy high pass around 100 and then do some EQ sweeps to notch out offending low-end resonances, or your guitars are going to be loud and the bass will be drowned out, in which case you need to make some cuts around the 100 - 200hz range in your bass track, and then turn the bass down. Lastly, your kick track needs some heavy sculpting/compressing. It sounds like the drummer you recorded doesn't have the best/most consistent footwork. First I would high pass around 50hz, and low pass around 8-10k. Then I would compress the kick track pretty hard. 4:1 ratio minimum, maybe higher. fast attack, 10 - 15ms, fast release 30-35ms, and then jam that threshold down. Your goal is to get rid of the dynamics of the kick playing completely. Then, after that, I would throw a transient shaper on the kick track in order to bring out the click of the beater hitting the skin. You put this after the compressor, because you want what goes into the transient shaper to be more consistent. After this, I would EQ the kick like so. Figure out where you want to focus the "thump" of the kick. For me, this is usually around 90hz, but it will depend on the track itself. You can figure this out by careful listening and EQ sweeps. Give it a gentle/wide boost in that frequency. Then figure out where the attack is. For me, its usually 3.5k but again, this is something that can change. Then give it a high shelf starting at that point. For this genre of music, don't be afraid to really boost that shelf. The low pass that you (hopefully) placed at the beginning of this long chain will ideally take care of preventing unwanted things from getting boosted with the high end of the kick.

I would also high pass your overheads anywhere from 350hz or so all the way up to 600hz if you need to. Your overheads are mainly there to capture the cymbals and to provide the "air" on your drums. If they are producing a lot of rumbly low range in your mix, than that will just come across as needless mud that isn't helping your drum sound.

I think that the raw tracks you have may be useable, but the current mix is not doing them any justice.

Finally, for getting your mix to volume, here are four tools you abolutely must have. A clipper, a multi-band compressor, a regular compressor, and a limiter. Maybe an EQ, but generally it's not needed if your mix sounds fine. The goal is to clip, and then compress slightly and then in stages. Finally, at the end, place your limiter and lower the threshold until you hear audible distortion. Than back it off until the distortion is gone. This is NOT a replacement for really learning how to do this, but this should hopefully point you in the right direction.
 
Thanks for the help all, especially since I'm pretty new to this whole heavy stuff. They're always the potential pools for disaster for amateurs such as I.

I've never tried putting a transient shaper on a kick before, I've always felt that getting that "click" comes from hard compression and eq.
I'll see what I can do with the guitars, I myself, before posting the mix, noticed the big scoop in the mids. I always felt that I may have a bit too much hi hat sizzle goin on. But I'll do my best to work on it and get back to you guys on it. Because I certainly know that it doesn't really sit right with me right now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top