Metalheads: Comment on mix

M

Mistral

RyosaMusic
Only tune I need feedback on is the first one here (Rotten Redshield):

RyosaMusic | Facebook

If you don't use FB you can access it here: Index of /mp3

Is the mid/bass/treble balance what you expect to hear or does it come off as harsh? Be as specific as possible if you hear any problem areas. I'd like to finalize this puppy, and I'm pretty sure it's close to where I need it, but need some other metalheads input, especially those with tastes for Finnish and Swedish metal..

Thx.
 
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Extremely cool!!!!! Love the arrangement. A lot of work has gone into this. Keys add so much. The odd vocal phrase in the middle seems to pop out but other than that it seems to be very tightly mixed and mastered. Excellent writing and playing. This is in the running for the best metal mix I've heard here.
 
Sweet.. thanks, I think that may be the most glowing review I've heard of anything I've done in a while... feels like I'm back in the saddle... it's been a rough few years musically.

When you say the singing pops out I guess you mean it's a touch loud?
 
Updated the mix... clean vox in the middle are toned down a bit. Also fixed some of the bass that was bugging me.
 
Not bad. I'm not really into this type of music, but I don't hate it. This mix was very listenable. No frequencies were grating at all, and the balance seemed very nice. Drums were seated nicely, and were never completely covered up by other instruments. strings were ever-present, and guitars added just the right edge.

Nicely done! the clean vocals in the middle seemed to fit right in. Whatever you did must have fixed the previous problem.
 
Pretty good tune, very symphonic. Nice contrast between the cookie monster and the bombastic strings. Only thing i would bring up would be the drums, they sounded a bit low to me.
 
joeym said:
Pretty good tune, very symphonic. Nice contrast between the cookie monster and the bombastic strings. Only thing i would bring up would be the drums, they sounded a bit low to me.
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Thanks. Interesting about the drums, here they just about drown everything else out. Never fully understood how it can be that way for one person and for another, so completely different. Any thoughts on that? Phase of speakers perhaps? Surely the overall EQ balance can't account for it? Hmm maybe if your system is more bass heavy you would hear less of the click.

Poetic: Hehe, nice. Thanks :) I originally wrote "especially fans of Kalmah, Insomnium and Finnish melodic death metal" or something like that, but figured I might get next to zero feedback by narrowing it down too much. Glad the cleans fit better.
 
Am I listening to the right mix? Because this is not clearly balanced to me. There's no noticeable bass gtr presence, no power in the kick drums, the rest of the drums are way too low overall, the "normal" vocals are buried and unintelligible, and the guitars are harsh in the high mids. The mix is fatiguing, and not because it's heavy or energetic. It's hard to listen to.

I hate to say it, but what we have here is a typical unbalanced guitar heavy home recording.
 
Ouch. ;)

Well thanks Greg_L, I do appreciate the honest crit... It's guitar heavy I guess because I prefer it so, but you might be right that the high mids stick out a bit too much, I thought so when I A/B'd it with something else. It seems to me that it's possible that most of your problems with it could be accounted for by that alone, so could it be as simple as a little EQ tuck, creating more room for the rest of the mix?
 
It could be that simple, in addition to dropping the guitars some. Guitar heavy is fine, but not at the expense of everything else.
 
Ok, I've done the following changes:

-Smoothed the rhythm guitar tone a bit
-Completely changed the bass balance. Should be fat as f now.
-Did what I could to make the cleans warmer and more intelligible
-Worked on the kick frequencies a bit, some of the cymbal envelopes adjusted.
-Got rid of some of the nasally quality of the synth which was irking me.

I think rebalancing the bass opened up a lot of room for the toms. When I compare this new mix to the reference album it sounds a lot more similar in overall tone and balance now.

Both the original and new mix are available in the folder linked in the OP, the new mix is the same filename, the original now has OLD_MIX_ in front.
 
Wow, melted my face! :eek: Very melodic, symphonic, harmonic - all the 'ics' are there!
I guess you gotta have the growling vox - I'm not a big fan of that, but hey it works

"Nice contrast between the cookie monster and the bombastic strings" - LMAO Joe! :laughings:

Good mix for all that is going on. My only complaint is that the guitar (main rhythm I think) sounds very cheap and synthetic by itself. When it's with everything, it's not as noticeable. I guess the only current, like band that I could compare it too is A7. They have lots going on in a song, but when you hear the guitar by itself, it rocks and sounds great too. It must be hard to get that balance.

:D
 
The second mix is much better. I would still like to hear more of a hole made in the guitars for the bass and the vocals brightened a bit. Overall this sounds really fucking good though.
 
maximusbs said:
Wow, melted my face! :eek: Very melodic, symphonic, harmonic - all the 'ics' are there!
I guess you gotta have the growling vox - I'm not a big fan of that, but hey it works

"Nice contrast between the cookie monster and the bombastic strings" - LMAO Joe! :laughings:

Good mix for all that is going on. My only complaint is that the guitar (main rhythm I think) sounds very cheap and synthetic by itself. When it's with everything, it's not as noticeable. I guess the only current, like band that I could compare it too is A7. They have lots going on in a song, but when you hear the guitar by itself, it rocks and sounds great too. It must be hard to get that balance. :D
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:D

There's always something missed when time has been stretching on and you just want to get 'r done, for me it turns out that must be the guitar sound during the break. The melodic leads down center and left are different tones, which I didn't have the patience to perfect, maybe they don't compliment the rhythm part as well. I'll probably fix it.

Murders: Awesome!
 
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Thank you. They are in fact the same mix though, so I don't know why that would be, other than that perhaps the default plugins on the audio track in Vegas affected the vid's audio in some way. Moreover, the video version is double compressed (codecwise) since I did a sub render before adding some final video touches.
 
I listened to the video mix on You Tube and thought it sounded good.Great stuff and reminds me of Amon Amarth a bit.Keep on pounding away!
 
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