Greg_L mix contest/clinic/critique - just for shits and grins

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greg_L
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Here's my stab at it. I did this using Reaper and only the stock plugins. I was trying to go for size here. I wanted to make the song sound huge, and maybe a little bit metal, since I am a metal guy myself ;)



ps: ignore the crappy mastering, it was just there to bring the track volume level up. I know the mix pulses a little bit...
 
Hey Greg I DLd the whole thing but for some reason I got an error unzipping the the kick.wav.

Could you put the kick file up just on it's own?
 
Most of these mixes are great - a couple sound close to a Greg mix too. I'd love to participate but it's my usual blather about my ISP & connection speed so I'll have to sit this one out.
I have a few ideas for lyrics though. I might make a run at that aspect so that I feel less voyeur and more part of the menage.
 
philbagg said:
Man, you track very hot...

I thought the kick was sampled, the doubled kicks hit the same peak every time :p
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I agree with both of those statements. That kik really sounds like a sample, every hit is exactly the same....and, man did I ever have to bring all the levels way down from what I'm used to.:eek:

Hey Greg. Also, what's with the stereo guitar tracks and stereo bass track??? I see that they are in stereo, but they sound totally mono. It didn't affect me during mixing at all, just wondering what those are all about.
 
trumpino1 said:
I think if you right click on the file and click open you will see the files. Just copy all of them and place them in a new folder. Hope that helps out.

Trump
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Tried that. That's when it said it was invalid.
 
Greg_L said:
You can't unzip a rar file?

Go to the google and get a rar unzipper. I thought everyone could do rar.
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I can, just not this one. I'll just download the megaupload one instead... It's double the size :confused:
 
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RAMI said:
I agree with both of those statements. That kik really sounds like a sample, every hit is exactly the same....and, man did I ever have to bring all the levels way down from what I'm used to.:eek:

Hey Greg. Also, what's with the stereo guitar tracks and stereo bass track??? I see that they are in stereo, but they sound totally mono. It didn't affect me during mixing at all, just wondering what those are all about.
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It's not a sample. I haven't gone back in to look at what's going on since I'm out of town, but I suspect I left a limiter on either the drum bus or master bus. Or I may have printed compression or effects onto that track. I do that sometimes. I really don't remember. I tracked this stuff six months ago.

The stereo/mono guitar tracks are because I burned reverb permanently into the track which makes it a stereo track. I do that occasionally too. The mono tracks are totally dry. Again, I don't remember exactly what the hell I was trying to do or why, but it is what it is. They're clean enough to mix with.

I'm gonna listen to all the mixes this weekend and see where everyone is at. Thanks everyone. :)
 
Greg - thanks!!! You've done a lot to help those of us who are less skilled than you. This is just another rung on the Karmic Ladder leading to, uh, someplace, I guess... *Insert shit-eating grin here*

OK, downloadeing right now. This should be fun.

With any luck I'll get a chance to play with them tonight after we get back from the water park.
 
Greg_L said:
It's not a sample.
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I'm sure it's not. I meant to say that it sounds like a sample becuae it's so consistant, volume-wise.

The stereo/mono guitar tracks are because I burned reverb permanently into the track which makes it a stereo track.
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Ah, OK. That makes sense. :cool:
 
RAMI said:
I'm sure it's not. I meant to say that it sounds like a sample becuae it's so consistant, volume-wise.
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I also sometimes cheat and use two feet on the kick. The steady double stuff is easy to do consistently with two feet. You're just pounding it out beat after beat. But sometimes on the faster "kick-snare-kick-kick-snare" parts, I'll go two-footed instead of doing a quick "kick-kick" with one foot like you're supposed to. It just depends on how I'm doing that day. Some days I can blaze cleanly with one foot, some days it's like my foot is paralyzed. I might have used the cheater two-foot method on this one which usually results in that second slap being harder than usual.

I've tried to figure out samples in the past, and even posted at the Reaper forum about using their stock sampling plugs, but I can't get it to work. They have one called "drumreaplacer" that people seem to like, but fuck if I can get it to work. And honestly, the thought of using samples when I've got thousands of dollars worth of real drums sitting at home makes me a little queasy. I even ripped a cracked copy of EZDrummer just to try to draw up drum ideas before I track them for real, but just installing that shit is more trouble than it's worth.
 
Here's my attempt. Didn't do a great deal to it. Just a little comp here and there, and a little EQ and reverb on guitars. Spent about 20mins on it...
 
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Just realised how similar mine is to RAMI's. Biggest differences are with the snare and lead guitar.
 
Cool. Thanks everyone that's submitted mixes so far.

I'm not gonna be on much for the rest of today or tomorrow. Yall keep mixing and I'll check back in when I can.
 
I've come to the conclusion that this competition could be a hell of a lot harder :o

Greg, the stuff is tracked so well. What I did was fairly minimal compared to my usual approaches. As Chili said, this stuff mixes itself. The only other mix I got a chance to listen to was RAMI's, and it sounded very similar to mine, apart from mine being a little louder and RAMI mixing the drums from the audience perspective, not the drummers :D

It's mainly down to two things:

1) It's mostly tracked how it should sound, so "mixing" is minimal. Anything else would only ruin it.

2) It's punk music, there's very little room to get creative.

This isn't a complaint, jus' sayin :D

EDIT:

Just saw this after I finished this post:


pandamonk said:
Just realised how similar mine is to RAMI's. Biggest differences are with the snare and lead guitar.
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:p
 
Cheezy-Petes! 5 pages in 1 day?!

This thread will be huge by the time I get a chance to take a stab at this on Monday.
 
RAMI said:
Wrong. I'm a lefty, so it's drummer's perspective for me.:D
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:laughings:

I was gonna mix the same way (panning highest rack to floor from right to left), but then I remembered the judge is a drummist :D
 
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