Hebrew Slave

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WyndBalduram

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Hey guys - just found a good stopping point on a mix and wanted some feedback.



What are some problem areas with this mix? Is there anything clashing or masking other instruments and do you have suggestions on how to fix these issues? How might I go about improving the tonal balance of the mix (especially the low end)? Is this a good swing at something that would not totally frustrate a mastering engineer to hades and back or does it need more work?

Thanks for any feedback or criticisms.
 
Like good breakfast cereal - nice and crunchy. For me, there's a kind of disjunct between the guitar sound and the drums - the drums sound a bit too upfront to my ears. I'd put the whole drums submix through a light verb to move them back in the mix a bit. I'd pull the bass guitar up just a wee taste too.

Nicely played, sir.
 
I thought this was pretty good. I liked the drummer. All the playing was good, but I liked the drummer a lot.

I thought the distorted guitars and the snare were missing some high-mid energy. They sounded just a bit on the dull side. For the guitar you might try an EQ bump in the 3K-6K octave. Make the bump small (1-2 dbs) and wide. For the snare I might try a high shelf and give it 3-4 dbs.

Bass sounded good. I might like a little more attack to it.

You'd be able to tell a lot more with vocals.
 
i'll affirm what's been said. it all sounds muffled. kick sounds nice. don't know how it will be when everything else gets brightened up.
 
Look, I got a question about this mix. If he (she?) mixed this brighter, would it:

a) sound better?

or just

b) sound more like commercial stuff?
 
on another listen, a lot of stuff sounds good. the guitars don't need it. they will sound more "commercial" if highs were added. it is hard to really listen to a bunch of tracks and have your ears hear the tone change from one song to the other and not think that it's a bad change.

this even happens when i play different guitars. oo! this fender has a lot of mids...uh...this martin has none...i think i had to get used to it.

anyways

the toms and the snare could use some highs though. the snare has a lot of body to it, and there was some really great mic placement and tracking done here, but a little shimmer to the toms and snare would be helpful.

I don't know if i love the kick or would want to change it. it sounds great, but it might be hogging some room down there. top end of the kick sounds good though. not clicky and not dull.
 
Probably if some stuff was cut from the drums it would make everything sound brighter.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. I took many of them into consideration when taking another listen to the mix.

Just to clear things up, the drums were actually sampled - so I REALLY appreciate the compliment on the "drummer", which happens to be Addictive Drums with the new Metal Xpansion pack. :D So, all the mic placement that has anything to do with drums is thanks to the recording engineers at XLN audio. All I did was program in the beats.

I did do some tweaking in FL Studio to take advantaged of getting both beater and front mic samples for the kick drum and top and bottom mic samples for the snare into separate tracks, and also separated the trigger sounds they added into the metal xpansion into separate kick and snare tracks.

So essentially I got three tracks for each kick and snare:

Kick Beater
Kick Front
Kick Trigger

and

Snare Top
Snare Bottom
Snare Trigger

This allowed me to get definition and fullness for these two instruments.

Guitars were mic'd - Peavey Valveking 1x12 with an Eminence Man O' War - two SM57's. Also double tracked and panned hard left and hard right.

I brightened up the snare a little bit to give it some presence and snap. Also brightened up the guitars in the 6k range with a slight narrow boost to give them some airy brightness - I thought it allowed them to gel with the brights in the overhead and added some definition. Didn't want to overdo it and make them brittle (also tried to avoid boosting the 5k range cause that's where the kick click sits).

Brought the bass guitar 1.5db. Also added an FX bus to the Drums bus and dialed in some reverb. Subtle, but I think it adds some glue to the drums as a whole. Tweaked the toms to take some of the low end mud out where they were conflicting with the bass guitar (there was some whom-whoming going on during one part).

Anyway, here is the tweaked mix:


BTW, I'm a he (male).
 
The second mix had the bass level about right. But I think the problem is not in the level: it's probably more the note selection and rythmic figure [none...straight 8ths] the the bass plays.

The A part's second chord is really weak with the bass playing...ah...the 5th?...way up high. I think the chord is a IV? If the bass socked the root, like it does in the B parts...and played the bass drum figure more [ space], to give it a groove with the drums...ricochet against the guitar's thing..... the whole tune would fill out nicely. It's a groove- deficit thang.
 
WyndBalduram said:
BTW, I'm a he (male).
Click to expand...

Good for you. The drums on the new mix are more polite. Split the difference between the drum settings on the new and old mix, and you'll be belly up to the ice cream stand with money in your pocket. (The good thing about the new mix is how the drums don't dominate, but they could still be bigger.)
 
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