Drums are bothering me.. everything sounds muffled?

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TheToddGreen

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ill post two links. the first is my most recent mix, the second was prior to it. Some say the second is better, which is why im posting it. The only difference i did was adjust some levels, and change my snare pitch really. But some say it ended up making the guitars not sound as good as the older one (second link). And regardless of mixes, everyone says its "dark" or "muffled"... Help?

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drums sound fine both times really, the guitar tones seems a little to bass-y for my liking though, i prefer a "cutting" crunch as opposed to a "crushing" crunch :o
 
hmmm, well before these mixes (a few mixes back actually), before i even started mixing drums and working on the guitars. they seemed why too "thin" so i added a post EQ. would you like to hear it without any post effects? so we can start from scratch to get that guitar sounding better?
 
IMO, guitars are way overpowering. I am listening on laptop speaks at the moment and the drums are almost non existent by comparison. I bet you are the guitar player. :) For music like this, I will almost always parallel compress the hell out of the drum bus (no overheads/cymbal/ride). This allows the drums to punch through the needed 'thick' guitars.
 
Well I'm getting on it all now, I'll post something soon! Thanks again for the feedback :)
 
Hows this one? I messed with the EQ on my guitars. Turn the bass down. Fixed the lead volumes. With drums: EQd and compressed snare more, changed a tidbit of EQ on kick. Brought both levels up. Added the OHs to my parellel reverb bus. Changed the compression on my OHs. Fixed some levels. Hopefully this will sound more pleasant, and less muffled. (i feel the guitars are weak now though, maybe bc im used to hearing the guitars that you heard, mix after mix after mix while working on drums)



Am I going in the right direction?
 
That is sounding much better to me. In the studio now too so I compared with the first posted. Coming along nicely! :D
 
The snare is a little too fat and dead. It doesn't crack out from behind the barrage of everything else. In fact I think the whole mix has too much low energy going on. I like some bass, but this is really rumbly in the way down lows. But kudos for making a metal mix that doesn't focus solely on the guitars at the expense of everything else. As for the guitars, I think they're a little thin, but not too bad. A little more meat in the guitars, and a little less meat everywhere else. You can bring the overheads up a hair too.
 
So i just realized my right guitar is accidently completely different than my left guitar as far as my settings in Podfarm *Facepalm*, but when i put it to what i meant to have it... i dont like it... but it bothers me that the 2 guitars are really different.... is this bc the tones compliment each other?

Too fat and dead? Before, i thought it was TOO cracky, so thats why i changed it some, it was just POW POW POW POW, to a point where the snare was annoying :/ as were the volume of the Overheads. I guess i just went too far when i was fixing them? lol

Thanks Jimmy. And Gred, thanks for the Kudos hahaha. I play everything from piano, to drums, to guitar, to mandolin, to violin etc etc. and from jazz, to metal, to orchestra, to coffeehouse lol So i like having mixes well rounded. No, the drums are just basic, so i can get the quality down, so dont judge my drumming by that hahahaha
 
Okay, so here's two new links. I think the guitars are sounding better. I used a combo of some Engl Impulses on them. And dont have completely diff tones on them anymore. The second link, is the same, except i decided to try using SSD EX instead of Superior. I think I will end up using pieces from both. I like S20s cymbals a lot better so far. Maybe use Slates Hats though... hmmm what do you think about these mixes? Guitar and drums



 
The snare in the second link is a lot better. The guitars sound good to me. The little solo fill things in the end are a little too low, they don't stand out like they should. I'd like to hear more of the hats and cymbals. Overall, the song sounds good, nice job.
 
Okay, so i decided to do a hybrid of SD2 and SSD EX. Got kick and snare just on SSDEX, got cymbals on SD2, and i got Toms and Hats running on both. EQd the kick and snare a little too. Doubled guitars with impulses. Heres a link, hopefully its better....

 
Just my opinion, but the snare to me needs to be more alive with less bottom end. Too bad you cant just take the Moongel off!

I would try this: Kill the boomyness around 200hz and download Transient Monster trial. Give the snare some life with 'Sustain' and a bit of 'Attack'.

Sounds pretty damn cool otherwise man. :D
 
I liked the power the snare had in the third mix, but man... it needed more "sizzle" or just high end in general. The guitars still sound too thin to me in the last mix. I also felt like something was lost from the snare.

Overall though, good mix... and great performance! I personally think the rhythm guitar is too thin, needs some bottom... and I don't hear a bass guitar, but I'm not listening very loud right now. I would recommend miking the bottom of the snare as well as the top... you can really use that in place of eq to add in that sizzle when you want it. Like, if I had the fat snare sound I hear in mix three... I wouldn't try to eq that, I would bring up the bottom snare head a bit with a high pass filter set pretty high. I might push the highs on the bottom head a bit too... and maybe even pull the mids, but if possible leave it as flat as possible. The louder you hit the snare drum, the more shell you get and the harder it is to hear the snares from the top head. I started miking the bottom head over a year ago just as an option, and it really became something I use regularly now.

Great job though overall bro.
 
Kick is too quiet. Brass is too quiet. I can't tell if there's bass guitar or not.
 
"ImpulseSlate.mp3" takes the cake so far. Drums and guitars sound 1000% better than what you posted in the original message. So you're working with programmed drums and real guitars? I'd say bring up the snare a bit in the mix, a nice pop will really make the tight riffs kick. Also, the symbols sound a bit washy to me and lacking attack, but I can't really offer much advice on how to fix that if they're prog drums. Maybe you could increase the eq on them around 250k and it might offer a bit more "weight" to the sound if you know what I mean.
 
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