New hard rock mix, looking for feedback!

F

FadeToMuffins

New member
So I just finished another song. It's sort of a long one at six and a half minutes. I'm looking for any comments on the mix and even the song itself.

guitars: Jackson DKMG -> gearbox.
bass: some POS bass I have lying around -> gearbox
drums: Steven Slate drums
vocals: recorded through my behringer B-2 condensor -> gearbox pre-amp sims

The whole thing was mixed using Reaper.

Thanks guys!



If the player doesn't work correctly, press the back button on it a few times, until it actually says "Nothing Changes" by Oceans to Ashes
 
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I tried to listen telepathically, but I'm weak in the force today. Maybe you could post a link? :)
 
Buffering...

buferring...

Impatiently clicking the back button a few times...

buffering...

Perusing other threads while waiting for it to start playing...

Buffering... >:(

Sorry man, it's just not loading.
 
Listening now. Good intro. Guitars sound good, just the right amount of dirt. Panned nicely, good wide mix. Vocals sit just about right to my ear. Drums sound pretty good to my non-drummer ears. Vocals sound a touch dry compared to the rest of the mix, intentional? Pretty tight production, well performed and mixed. Nice job.
 
Sounds good to me... your hi hat is pretty in your face in some spots. but it could just be my shite speakers....

Crunchy Guits bro. Nicely done.
 
This is an awesome song, I like it a lot. I don't know much about how this could be any better, mix wise, because with my equipment I just compare to what the commercial stuff is and go from there and from what I can tell this is right up there with that commercial stuff, so rock on dude. This is a great song. :)
 
Sounds pretty solid.

There is one cymbal that sounds a bit closer than the rest of the kit. (I think it might be the hi-hat that Atom Bomb mentioned.)

I like the use of falsetto.
 
Hell yea, dude. This song rocks. :D

The mix sounds good - overall the track is big and ballsy but not smashed-to-death...a tricky balance that you've done well. I see you put that the drums are Steven Slate's samples - are they programmed and entirely synthetic or did you sound-replace / blend them with real drums using Drumagog or something? At times the toms "synthetic-ness" is pretty obvious. Not bad-sounding, they just don't sound real / natural. Like the exact same sample is being triggered over and over again in some of the fills - don't the Slate samples come with multiple hits? I suggest varying them more...or maybe I'm just imagining it all. :p
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. The drums are programmed, and then exported down to each individual track (snare, bass, tom1, tom2, tom3, OH, plus some room samples). There should be some velocity variation in there, but after listening to them again, they definitely sound pretty plastic.

Yeah, I think the high-hat is a little loud. That's probably a result of me mixing the various elements of the overhead track with headphones, and pushing the hi-hat in there too loud.

no, i didn't gate the chugging part. Would that have helped me?

Again, thanks for listening and giving me your feedback guys, I really appreciate it.
 
Wait a minute - I just looked up gearbox, and you're saying that all the guitars are run directly in and there's no real amps on anything in this mix?! Holy hell, I gotta make some phone calls. A few "it'll never happen" old-school goobers are in for a shock, lol. :laughings:
 
Wow! I like it! I also feel that the Hi-Hat is a little loud during the beginning (I'm listening on KRK monitors), and the toms are the only things that are obviously samples. The rest of the kit actually sounds fairly "believable", like some of the other metal music I listen to. even the cymbals which is surprising.

I'm curious how you got such a full sound. What kind of interface are you using? Are you using any external clock or A/D-D/A? a nice analog front end? None of my recordings have that sound that I can only describe as "expensive" because of the apparent increase in overall clarity, and this song has that "expensive" sound. :)
 
There's no real amps anywhere in this recording, although that's not generally my style. I've played around with gearbox enough to figure out some pre-sets and rhythm guitar combos that sound 80 - 90% of the real thing.

The only interface I used here was my Line 6 tonepurt UX2. No additional pre-amps, A/D converters, etc. i realize that I'm kind of cheating here, but I'm just trying to make the best of what I have, equipment wise. I just purchased a Motu 8-pre that I plan on using to mic real drums. In conjunction with my toneport, that gives me 10 inputs.

As for the drums, I start with a midi track, import it into steven slate drums and load up a kit preset and mix each drum to a random track. Then I use drumagog and individual steven slate drumagog files so I can tweak each drum and fine tune my overal kit sound. Steven slate also comes with room samples to help add to the overall fullness of the sound.

Pretty much this, and some basic knowledge of compressors and EQ's and I get something that sounds not too bad given my cheap setup :)

edit: I forgot to mention a few key plugins that I put on my master mix. I put Waves Stereo VComp on it to thicken it up just a bit. I also use Voxengo Analog flux, which helps to add some of that analog tape-bus "warmth" to the whole thing. It really ties the mix together.
 
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Bare graves said:
what is your gearbox? and what does drum a gog mean? because i now want both haha

good work
Click to expand...

Gearbox is line6's amp modeling software that comes with the toneport UX2. There's actually much better software out there (Revalver, guitar Rig) but the experience I have with gearbox, combined with it's simplicity got me something of a pretty decent rhythm guitar tone. (it also got me the clean tone, which I happen to quite like :))

Drumagog is a nifty little vst plugin that you can insert onto a track and use it to replace your drum tracks with other samples that sound better. Let's say you mic and record a drum set, and after listening to your mix over and over, you just can't get your snare drum to sound good in your mix. Just insert drumagog onto your snare drum track, and load up one of your favorite snare samples (WAV file, or custom drumagog files [most, decent drum vst's out there include drumagog versions of their samples]) and presto! New snare drum!
 
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