Mix Advice and Tips for 3 Tracks

[IllAdvised]

Hey guys. I'm new to HR and pretty new to mixing. I'm a 20 year old college student who writes and records everything for my band. In another thread someone recommended getting some tips and advice on some tracks, so here goes nothing.

'Thanks For Nothing'

This track is a song I recorded for a final project for one of my arrangement classes. It's an older song I wrote and I only had a few hours to get a rough mix. I have about 34 audio tracks and am having trouble finding a good balance and getting the vocals right (I may want to re-track them). Some tracks for the song include two main vocal tracks (doubled), four harmony vocal tracks (they vary in the verse, chorus, and brdige) that include high and low harmonies, two rhythm guitar tracks, one chorus harmony guitar track, one chorus lead guitar track, bridge guitars, a four track string arrangement in the bridge with a glockenspiel, two scream tracks (high and low), and some other random things I may be forgetting. The mix is really rough and I need to spend a lot more time on it, but I was hoping to get some tips going into it before I started.

Link:

'Alive'

I mixed this song with the assistance of a friend. It's still a work in progress aka a 'demo', but any suggestions mix wise would be appreciated.

Link:

'Not Afraid'

This song was recorded about a year or so ago. It's pretty rough. I was just getting into recording on my own with my friend and since we didn't have an audio interface, we hardlined a direct in signal from my Line 6 MK II Bogner Tube amp and EQ'd the guitars quite a bit. My friend mainly mixed it and I made some tweaks on my own, but I definitely want to re-do the whole thing. Any suggestions for re-tracking would be appreciated.

Link:

This was remixed in one of my audio classes in a quick two hours. The vocal harmonies are all way up which is really odd and the engineer went a bit overboard with effects in certain places, but the song fits together much better. Any advice as far as things I should keep when I re-track the song that work and things that need to be improved would be great.

Link:


Thanks. Any advice, suggestions, and tips are super appreciated!

 

[Steenamaroo]

Hey there,
I only listened to the first track.
My first impression is that everything sounds slightly further away than you'd want.
I'm guessing that's down to your tracking environment?

The performances seem dead on; It's just that the vocal doesn't have that upfront quality you want to hear and the drums kinda sound room miced a bit.
For me the vocal double tracking does more harm than good. That might just be personal preference but I find DT vocals can really take away the focus and presence that a single track can have.


You asked for tips to proceed with so I'd suggest maybe working on kit and bass solo'd. That's your foundation.
Once you're happy, bring in the essential guitar and vocal parts. Treat that as your mix.
Everything else is extra or luxury; Your mix should stand up without those extras.

Once you're happy again, introduce your extras and layered vocals so that they contribute to the mix without stepping on it.
That's just my approach. YMMV.

 

[heatmiser]

I listened to Alive first and then the first track after that.

I thought Alive sounded pretty good. There was a fair amount of room sound to it, but I thought it sounded good that way. It seemed like maybe you struggled a little with pitch when trying to reach the lower notes maybe? I thought the guitar felt a little boomy and I wonder if you could make a judicious cut or two somewhere in the low end to make that a little lighter. Both tracks certainly have enough going on in them to keep it interesting.

I agree with Steen about the drums/bass in the first track. Start there, bring up the snare and get the kick and bass sounding nice and tight together. Right now it seemed kind of rumbly down there to me and the snare sounded kind of dull. Solo the rhythm section and get that sounding good, and then I bet the other elements fall into place easier.

 

[IllAdvised]

Hey there,
I only listened to the first track.
My first impression is that everything sounds slightly further away than you'd want.
I'm guessing that's down to your tracking environment?

The performances seem dead on; It's just that the vocal doesn't have that upfront quality you want to hear and the drums kinda sound room miced a bit.
For me the vocal double tracking does more harm than good. That might just be personal preference but I find DT vocals can really take away the focus and presence that a single track can have.


You asked for tips to proceed with so I'd suggest maybe working on kit and bass solo'd. That's your foundation.
Once you're happy, bring in the essential guitar and vocal parts. Treat that as your mix.
Everything else is extra or luxury; Your mix should stand up without those extras.

Once you're happy again, introduce your extras and layered vocals so that they contribute to the mix without stepping on it.
That's just my approach. YMMV.

Thanks for the feedback, Steenamaroo. I definitely agree with you with the vocals not coming through the way they're mixed. Everything kind of sounds like it's meshed together to me, not too clean. I actually tried mixing the drums first and got them the way I wanted them and then added the bass, but once I got to the vocals for some reason the way my friend tracked the vocals, if I boosted them loud enough to get over the drums, they started clipping. So, I had to quickly (running out of time for the assignment at this point) lower the drums and the bass and guitars and so on so the vocals could make it through. I'm not sure if that was an issue just with the level I was monitoring at or some novice error with the tracking. I'll definitely give it another go like you suggested and just monitor higher when mixing just the drums and bass.

I listened to Alive first and then the first track after that.

I thought Alive sounded pretty good. There was a fair amount of room sound to it, but I thought it sounded good that way. It seemed like maybe you struggled a little with pitch when trying to reach the lower notes maybe? I thought the guitar felt a little boomy and I wonder if you could make a judicious cut or two somewhere in the low end to make that a little lighter. Both tracks certainly have enough going on in them to keep it interesting.

I agree with Steen about the drums/bass in the first track. Start there, bring up the snare and get the kick and bass sounding nice and tight together. Right now it seemed kind of rumbly down there to me and the snare sounded kind of dull. Solo the rhythm section and get that sounding good, and then I bet the other elements fall into place easier.

Hey heatmiser, thanks for the feedback dude! The room I track/mix in is pretty much just a small finished basement room with concrete on one side and finished walls on the other 3, so that probably explains the room noise on the guitar. I usually don't sing as low as I did on that song, but any pitch issues are mainly because of getting caught up in the emotion of the song since it's an important one for me. I definitely agree with your suggestions on the guitar. I want to add more strings and some other auxiliary instruments to kind of fill it out and keep it interesting.

The snare and toms have really bothered me on the first track. The way the toms were tracked...they just sound like the tom is muted or like I'm hitting a pillow at times and the snare I tried gating and compressing but it either sounds really loose or too artificial. Any suggestions on how I could possibly make them sound a bit better? The toms in the bridge, although not too evident in the full mix, really bother me tone wise.

Thanks!

 

[cobaltaudio]

You need to give everything its own place in your mixes, either in the stereo image or in frequency. This basically comes down to panning and eq, and will make the final balance of the mix much easier.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Thanks for the feedback, Steenamaroo. I definitely agree with you with the vocals not coming through the way they're mixed. Everything kind of sounds like it's meshed together to me, not too clean. I actually tried mixing the drums first and got them the way I wanted them and then added the bass, but once I got to the vocals for some reason the way my friend tracked the vocals, if I boosted them loud enough to get over the drums, they started clipping. So, I had to quickly (running out of time for the assignment at this point) lower the drums and the bass and guitars and so on so the vocals could make it through. I'm not sure if that was an issue just with the level I was monitoring at or some novice error with the tracking. I'll definitely give it another go like you suggested and just monitor higher when mixing just the drums and bass.

Thanks!

Hey.
I should have said, of course a mix should be treated as a mix and everything should have its own place within.
Generally working at things solo'd isn't the way forward, but in this context I think it's a good idea.
(Just covering myself there).

The problem you described is two things, I guess.

One, your vocal is competing with the kit. For whatever reason there isn't space for your vocal so the temptation is to turn it up.
It could be that you need to roll bass off the voice or boost the higher frequencies.
It could be that the snare is really full and is clashing with the vocal range. Those are hypothetical, btw.
I'd need to hear the raw tracks to be sure but I suspect that kit and vocals are you main problematic tracks due to room ambience?

The other problem (that you realised when you turned the vocal up) is that you're tracking or mixing too hot.

I suppose solo the kit, bass, main guitars and main vocal. Now look at your master meter.
Turn everything down one by one, except the master, until the master meter looks healthy and everything's roughly where it goes.

Now deal with making everything be heard. In a perfect world everything will be tracked to fit.
Realistically I guess you're going to be playing with eq plugs and panning to make everything fit.

Ditch any and all reverb for now just until everything finds its place.

Hope that's useful to ya,

 

[IllAdvised]

Hey.
I should have said, of course a mix should be treated as a mix and everything should have its own place within.
Generally working at things solo'd isn't the way forward, but in this context I think it's a good idea.
(Just covering myself there).

The problem you described is two things, I guess.

One, your vocal is competing with the kit. For whatever reason there isn't space for your vocal so the temptation is to turn it up.
It could be that you need to roll bass off the voice or boost the higher frequencies.
It could be that the snare is really full and is clashing with the vocal range. Those are hypothetical, btw.
I'd need to hear the raw tracks to be sure but I suspect that kit and vocals are you main problematic tracks due to room ambience?

The other problem (that you realised when you turned the vocal up) is that you're tracking or mixing too hot.

I suppose solo the kit, bass, main guitars and main vocal. Now look at your master meter.
Turn everything down one by one, except the master, until the master meter looks healthy and everything's roughly where it goes.

Now deal with making everything be heard. In a perfect world everything will be tracked to fit.
Realistically I guess you're going to be playing with eq plugs and panning to make everything fit.

Ditch any and all reverb for now just until everything finds its place.

Hope that's useful to ya,

Very useful! Thanks!