Lend Ears For a Punk Rock Mix

[Slimjim5792]

Hey all, I'm pretty new to recording, I actually submitted this track a while back and got some good feedback but have only now been able to do some real work on it due to college starting back up. This is a recording a did for some friends of mine and their local punk rock band. I'm very new to recording/mixing and would love some advice on the recordings. Its obviously a budget sort of recording, but I'd like it to be at least acceptable for demo/EP use. I would really appreciate any and all feedback/suggestions, harsh criticism is welcomed!

Thank you!!!!!

 

[xander.moser]

Not a bad start! The good news is that it suits the genre pretty well. It has a very natural/garage band feeling.

Sounds like it was tracked live? Were the vocals overdubbed? How much bleed do you have to deal with?

As far as levels, I think the guitar could come up considerably, and the vocals could come up a touch. The drums are dominating a bit (which is distracting because of the timing issues). It would help things a lot if you get could that guitar double-tracked. But I really like your guitar tone!

It seems to me that the bass could use some distortion/overdrive. Sounds a bit too smooth for this genre to me.

I hear some distortion on the drums. It's alright on the snare, but doesn't compliment the OH or toms too well (toms seem pretty heavily distorted). The kick is a bit too "pillowy". It really needs some more impact.

I think the tone and effects that you have on the vocal are working pretty well. It could come forward a little bit though, and be a little more aggressive. Perhaps some more slow attack/fast release compression? Take out a little 600 Hz?

Part of the biggest problem is the timing on the drums. It's really quite distracting at times...most notably during the bridge.

 

[Greg_L]

That band needs to practice more. The timing is awful. The drummer is working way too hard and fucking it all up. I hear him trying to get down, but it just aint good to me. I'd rather hear less flash and a tighter performance. Fucking drummers.....

The mix.....for a demo, it's passable. The band's not good, but if showcasing what they do is the goal, you did it. I think you did a decent job at tracking. The mix could use some tweaks. I think the guitars need to come up. I would have tried to get a better guitar tone, but what you got is what you got. Bring them up. Cut some of the boominess out of the bass. I wouldn't bury the drums, but they're way too out front. Bringing the guitars up and a mud cut in the bass could probably balance this out a little better I think.

 

[Slimjim5792]

Thank you guys so much for the suggestions! I began making smaller adjustments and then just decided to pretty much start again from scratch. I'd like the list the changes that I made, but I did so many that I couldn't even keep track. I am much happier with this result, although I still have much more refining to do, but the base to build off of is much better now in my opinion. I'd really like to hear what you guys think now that I think the mix is more workable. Thoughts?




Thanks again!

 

[Atom Bomb]

Did you use one of those little tiny Marshall amps for that guitar? I can't listen to this.

 

[Slimjim5792]

Did you use one of those little tiny Marshall amps for that guitar? I can't listen to this.

Their guitar player used an Epi Les Paul running through a Boss GT-10 with the output leading simultaneously to a Peavey 6505+ 112 combo tube amp w/ a Celestion G12k-100 speaker and to a Gallien Krueger 700rb mk-ii bass amp head w/ a GK NEO410 cab, the guitar signal also ran, unaltered, line in to the interface through a radial DI, although that signal is muted in the recording. The rig is gigantic and probably cost 3 grand, it was reminiscent of how Tool's Adam Jones sets up his rig (simultaneous guitar rig + bass rig). So no, he didn't use a tiny Marshall amp.

Thanks for your opinion, got anything constructive?

 

[Greg_L]

Well that's all very impressive, but really, the guitars don't sound very good. I think that was the point in his comment. It's cool to use all that fancy gear, but if the result is bad, so what? Ya know? That's a lot of effort and trickeration for bad results. Maybe he should have used a Marshall. They always sound good. Even a tiny one.

 

[Slimjim5792]

Well that's all very impressive, but really, the guitars don't sound very good. I think that was the point in his comment. It's cool to use all that fancy gear, but if the result is bad, so what? Ya know? That's a lot of effort and trickeration for bad results. Maybe he should have used a Marshall. They always sound good. Even a tiny one.

And I agree, the sound is not impressive, which is why I'm here. The purpose of this thread and forum is to assist in correcting such situations. Atom Bomb's comment simply did not align to that purpose, whereas your earlier comment was constructive, useful, and friendly.

How can I improve that guitar tone? Play around with the EQ some?

Overall, have I gone in the right direction from the first mix to the second?

 

[Greg_L]

You know, to me, the guitars sound like they've been hammered with EQ already. Did you cut all of the lows off the guitars? They sound like they're coming through a transistor radio. I know 6505s, they don't sound like that. Something got ruined somewhere. That's where Atom's "tiny" comment came from. It might be that you overthunk the whole thing with all that guitar amp/bass amp nonsense and have things out of phase or maybe there's some weird frequency cancellation shit happening. Can you post a mix with the guitar tracks by themselves, raw, with nothing done to them? Keep it real. No funny business. Do a mix with nothing done to the guitars. Just volume leveling and panning. No processing or effects. Maybe we can go from there.

 

[Slimjim5792]

Sure, would you like the mix with everything else muted to isolate just the guitars (with no processing at all on them)? Or should I just remove the processing on the guitars and leave all other tracks playing as is?

 

[Greg_L]

Sure, would you like the mix with everything else muted to isolate just the guitars (with no processing at all on them)? Or should I just remove the processing on the guitars and leave all other tracks playing as is?

No leave the rest of the mix alone. Drums, vocals, whatever. All the same. Just make the guitars raw. Just as they hit the mics. No nothing done to them. You can level them out, and pan them, but no EQ or effects.

And....also put up a track of just the raw guitars only. Like if you were sending the guitar tracks to someone else. Raw guitars, nothing else. Let's see how they sound solo'd.

From there hopefully we can figure something out.

 

[Slimjim5792]

Okay, so there are a total of 4 guitar parts. All done in different takes. 1 lighter distortion guitar (the intro), a heavier distortion guitar, an overdub of a couple lead parts (also heavier guitar), and the clean guitar towards the end. Each of these guitars have 2 tracks each, one track is an SM57 close mic'd on the speaker of the 6505+ and the other track is an Oktava MK319 LDC about 4 or 5 feet in front of the rig. This was the mic setup for all 4 guitar parts.

The guitars are all panned about 30%. For the raw guitars only I also removed my global effects (very small EQ and some compression). For the other recording (stripped guitars but everything else left as is) these global effects are still active.

Stripped guitars:



Solo'd Stripped Guitars:

 

[Greg_L]

Ok cool. Thanks for that. How much of that room LDC mic are you using? Based on what I'm hearing, I think that's part of your problem. It sounds like a typical phasey seashell close mic + room mic setup. Get rid of the room mic tracks completely, or drop them way down in the mix so they're just barely doing anything. A close mic and room mic blended at the same level rarely works out well unless you got some magic happening. And of course, there's not much point in using a room mic if the room sounds like ass.....and all rooms pretty much do unless you've got one that just happens to be big and perfect for ambient recording.

So, next test, do the same kind of mixes, but with none of the room mic tracks. Just the close mic.

 

[Slimjim5792]

The LDC and the SM57 were pretty much equal in the mix, I can definitely see how that would get nasty. I've got a pretty big room (around 35'x20' with 10 foot ceilings), but its untreated . I muted the LDCs on all guitars.


Guitars stripped and only SM57




Guitar stripped, Solo'd, and only SM57

 

[Greg_L]

Okay now we're getting somewhere. The room mic track is definitely bad in my opinion, so I'd get rid of it. The 57 track by itself sounds better to me, but it's still not good. That's the biggest problem. It sounds like mediocre mic placement and a really bad sound dialed in at the amp. I know for a fact those 6505 amps can sound fantastic, and you don't need something terrible like a Boss GT pedal in front of it. Really, that amp has wonderful tube gain for days, why would you stick a ghastly processor in front of it? Yuck. Anyway. So.....my suggestion would be, if possible, re-track the guitars using just the amp. No other shenanigans. Make sure you're getting a good sound from the amp. A sound you like. Then mic the speaker. And get the amp pretty loud. That speaker is stiff as hell. A single 57 will yield a great track if everything is done right beforehand.

If you can't retrack....um....you're kind of up shit creek. The guitar sounds out of tune on top of all the other bad stuff. If you just have to use these tracks, I think you're gonna have to get heavy with EQ. Do some sweeps and see where the nastiness lives. I'd start looking in the midrange. You've got some harshness in there somewhere.

 

[Slimjim5792]

First I just want to say thank you so much Greg for all your patience and help, you've helped me immensely with this recording and have considerably expanded my knowledge! You've really gone above and beyond and, while I'm still an absolute noob, I feel much more prepared now to approach more mixing, which I think is the ultimate goal of this forum. Thank you!

Now,

Re-tracking isn't impossible, but definitely unlikely. As mentioned earlier in the thread, the drumming isn't very crisp either, so I feel like if we began retracking guitars it would only make sense to pretty much scrap the whole project and begin again, which would be a bear. For rough demo purposes, I think some persistent EQ might suffice, especially since I sent a copy of the original file (the very first one I posted here) over to the band and they were excited by even that...young musicians . Here is what I was able to accomplish EQ wise, its certainly not great, but I think its better and I think they could still effectively use something like this to hand out for free (which is their plan) and promote themselves. I added the effects back in including the new EQ and left the LDC tracks off as you advised, so now everything that should be there is there. What are your thoughts, on both the guitar front and on the mix as a whole?

 

[killthepixelnow]

Sure, would you like the mix with everything else muted to isolate just the guitars (with no processing at all on them)? Or should I just remove the processing on the guitars and leave all other tracks playing as is?

Since I'm a guitarist, I'd like to hear the unprocessed guitar tracks. I recommend you to mute all the tracks, and just leave the right and left guitars hard panned so we can hear both of them without tampering.

I'm a big fan of Peavey amps because of their natural sound and their punchiness. These tracks don't honor that tradition!

 

[rpm61]

Sounds better than I thought it could, you did a great job with some good advice.