New Project, want some mix advice, hep me make this sucker huge...

  • Thread starter Thread starter tubedude
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tubedude

tubedude

New member
I'm about 60% through this mix I think and would like some new input on the direction to take. I want to get as close to that elusive big radio mix as I can, and I think overall its approaching the ballpark, and I think the tracking is good enough to pull it off.
I LOVE this song, and this band is becoming one of my local favorites. Kinda crazy that these guys are as young as they are. If you like somewhat heavier stuff, check this out.
Anyway, there is a lot of breath noise and room noises in between vocals, guitars etc that still need to be edited out. I'll get around to that tomorrow I guess.
Give me some feedback please.
If interested, the drums are U195 and c451b overheads, Senn 441 snare, e504 and e609's on toms, e602 kick, OH's comressed with RCL
kick I backed up with a snappy sample, too
Bass: RNP direct into RNC, I think a put a little vintage warmer in there to dirty it up a hair
guitars: Md-441 up close, U195 about 5 feet back, both into RNP
Vocals: cleaner vocals U195 into RNC inro RNP, screaming vocals used SM57 same chain
Reverb is from Timeworks 4080L, tweaked myself, I like that better than the Rverb been using lately. Sounds more real. To me anyway.
No eq-ing on anything except some high pass on the guitars and some bass added on from vintage warmer. Everything is pretty much as it was tracked. I think its a tad cuttered freq-wise and needs some ceaning up. Thats the tricky part. Whattaya think?
This sounds totay fanatastic on my monitors, but far away and crappy in the car. Which is it? Irritating.
Vocals may be a tad loud still.
Questions, comments, pointers and ideas welcome, I have about a week to get this song mixed and try to replicate the mix on 4 other songs.
Thanks!
Paul


--> Cick hi-fi on Isolation <---
 
man, it already sounds really good to me! Nothing to offer here....sorry!
Jason
 
Great as usual, tubedude. The vocals are very clear. Drums sound good as always, how did you mic them exactly?
 
i think you're right that the tracks are probably good enough for a nice 'radio mix'...........i think the guitars need to be bigger.....part of it seems that they seem to be a tad light on presence and/or mids.........also, the mix doesn't have to seem the space of a radio mix yet......the backing vocals are panned really wide (and are a touch loud), but the guitars are to centered in the stereo mix......maybe a couple extra guitar tracks would help add space and punch........

this is all being super critical, it sounds great........
 
Thanks guys.
Fatt- Drums are that 2 stick method I posted in the drum clinic ages ago. If you dont know the method let me know I'll post it again. I use it every damn time anymore without fail. I have a close mic in on the snare, kick, and toms too. I squashed the overheads this time with RCL, in the drum preset I just brought the threshold down til the cymbals grabbed, and I liked it so i left it.

Powder- that "space" is exactly what I want to get in this mix. It scares me even thinking about it becuase I could waste 20 hours on it and still be back at square one. Tricky business. The guitars, I wanted them a tad brighter too, but since I had isolation this time, I had the bass player in the amp room with headphones on, moving the mic around slowly until I told him to stop through the talkback. The spot that I found that I liked was a little bit more on the voice coil I think, more fizzy, but the guitar players were listening too (on crap headphones) and thought it was too fizzy. So we moved it a little and they were like "yeah, right there" Then when they heard it doubled they were shitting, so then I was stuck with it for sure. Any suggestions on the guitars?

I want more space, I need to trim some eq up all over the place, but man thats such tricky tricky backstabbing business. So easy to screw everything up real quick. I'll add some fizz to the guitars and see how that does.
Thanks!
 
One more question, kind of off the subject, but while you are listening you can decide.

I am charging $150 for the 1st 10 hour block, and then $12 an hour for each hour after that, per project. Cash only. Is that a fair price for the quality you are hearing? I'm staying pretty busy, so I guess its allright, just wondering what your opinions are about it. I've had people say its fair, then people say I'm selling myself short.
Thanks.
 
tubedude said:
Any suggestions on the guitars?
Click to expand...

Maybe try having the guitarist record another part or two for the heavy parts and pan them out.......as they're paying, they might want you to work with what you already have.......in that case, you could maybe try messing around with panning the original on one side, and run a duplicate copy of the track through an amp sim or something like that and pan it to the other side.........just ideas......
 
I'll see if they want to add a track or two. They are already hard panned. I was going to see if they would add a track of unaffected clean guitar anyway to give the clean part more definition, since they used thier own effects on the clean, and its kinda murky.
Damn it sounds good on my Sennheiser headphones, but like shit in my car.
Thanks.
 
Does everything have to sound great on car speakers? Is every car system the same?

It's probably the lack of mids you're missing in the car.

On my speakers it sounds good (but my ears are still fried).
 
It does sound good on headphones, but the guitars sound like they're being played through a tiny pig nosed amp on the monitors. Personally, I think the panning on the backups...(and maybe the ride?...hat? some piece of hardware) is distracting; it seems to work better on more ethereal stuff like P.Floyd than on straight ahead rock, but I'm a putz.

Have a good one,
chris
 
I also think a gentle EQ cut on the whole mix centered somewhere around 2K would "biggen" it up, lol.

Still a putz,
the putz
 
The only thing I can offer is that the snare is a little puny. It might just be the level but I'm also listening to it on computer speakers. It sounds excellent otherwise!
RF
 
Chris- I'll try the eq cut. As for sounding like a little pignose, I dunno... its a 4x12 cabinet with a Mesa Dual rectifier on it with an MD-441 in front of it. I think it sounds fat, but a little light on high end grain.
rushfan- might be a tad puny, maybe. Add some low mid?
 
Tubedude- my biggest complaint from what i can tell on my crappy computer speakers is the guitars. During the clean parts they sound pretty distant. The distorted guitars don't seem to have the "in your face " feel that the majority of all of these "nu" metal/alternative bands have on their recordings (sound sort of small as someone else pointed out). I know its not much help since i don't have any suggestions except maybe try tracking some more guitars or post again with some different EQ settings.
Good performance overall, they definantly studied their mudvayne.
 
First thing that I noticed was some clash in the vocal esses and the hi hat. Could we separate them at all? Panning?

When it kicks in I'm hearing the hi hats louder than the rest of the drums. And louder than the guitars.

The guitars sound excessively scooped to me. But that hi hat isn't helping matters. I don't think I'm hearing the 400-500 stuff the guitars need. It sounds like we're walking along the frequency trail, falling off a cliff at 250Hz or so, then climbing back out at 4K. I'm far from being a guitar sound expert. :) But I regret to say they sound pretty thin to me for this tune.

To be honest I'm not digging the panned vocals. Too wide. It may be partly due to the lack of full sounding guitars to support them. But I generally find that, at least in my own mixes, those hard panned vocals usually only work for the more subtle, lower level stuff. Here, they've gone out beyond the guitars, right off the edge of the sound stage.

OK, that's pretty much it for me. On a side note, I must say these guys sound much better to me than some of the guys you've worked with. Especially the singer. I think this sounds very good overall on the monitors, but if those guitar sounds were filled out better, either in tracking or by giving back any low mid meat you might have EQ'd out, you'd have an easier time mixing it to your vision- the radio sound.

My guess is you've just been working on this too long and need a break from it to put it in perspective. I know you have good ears. Hope this helps more than it annoys. Of course it's all just opinion, and guitar sound opinions are about as subjective as can be.

Tom
 
Sounds great :) What did you record into/ preamps etc?
 
CanopuS said:
Sounds great :) What did you record into/ preamps etc?
Click to expand...

tubedude said:
I'm about 60% through this mix I think and would like some new input on the direction to take. I want to get as close to that elusive big radio mix as I can, and I think overall its approaching the ballpark, and I think the tracking is good enough to pull it off.
I LOVE this song, and this band is becoming one of my local favorites. Kinda crazy that these guys are as young as they are. If you like somewhat heavier stuff, check this out.
Anyway, there is a lot of breath noise and room noises in between vocals, guitars etc that still need to be edited out. I'll get around to that tomorrow I guess.
Give me some feedback please.
If interested, the drums are U195 and c451b overheads, Senn 441 snare, e504 and e609's on toms, e602 kick, OH's comressed with RCL
kick I backed up with a snappy sample, too
Bass: RNP direct into RNC, I think a put a little vintage warmer in there to dirty it up a hair
guitars: Md-441 up close, U195 about 5 feet back, both into RNP
Vocals: cleaner vocals U195 into RNC inro RNP, screaming vocals used SM57 same chain
Reverb is from Timeworks 4080L, tweaked myself, I like that better than the Rverb been using lately. Sounds more real. To me anyway.
No eq-ing on anything except some high pass on the guitars and some bass added on from vintage warmer. Everything is pretty much as it was tracked. I think its a tad cuttered freq-wise and needs some ceaning up. Thats the tricky part. Whattaya think?
This sounds totay fanatastic on my monitors, but far away and crappy in the car. Which is it? Irritating.
Vocals may be a tad loud still.
Questions, comments, pointers and ideas welcome, I have about a week to get this song mixed and try to replicate the mix on 4 other songs.
Thanks!
Paul
Click to expand...
 
CanopuS said:
Sounds great :) What did you record into/ preamps etc?
Click to expand...

tubedude said:
I'm about 60% through this mix I think and would like some new input on the direction to take. I want to get as close to that elusive big radio mix as I can, and I think overall its approaching the ballpark, and I think the tracking is good enough to pull it off.
I LOVE this song, and this band is becoming one of my local favorites. Kinda crazy that these guys are as young as they are. If you like somewhat heavier stuff, check this out.
Anyway, there is a lot of breath noise and room noises in between vocals, guitars etc that still need to be edited out. I'll get around to that tomorrow I guess.
Give me some feedback please.
If interested, the drums are U195 and c451b overheads, Senn 441 snare, e504 and e609's on toms, e602 kick, OH's comressed with RCL
kick I backed up with a snappy sample, too
Bass: RNP direct into RNC, I think a put a little vintage warmer in there to dirty it up a hair
guitars: Md-441 up close, U195 about 5 feet back, both into RNP
Vocals: cleaner vocals U195 into RNC inro RNP, screaming vocals used SM57 same chain
Reverb is from Timeworks 4080L, tweaked myself, I like that better than the Rverb been using lately. Sounds more real. To me anyway.
No eq-ing on anything except some high pass on the guitars and some bass added on from vintage warmer. Everything is pretty much as it was tracked. I think its a tad cuttered freq-wise and needs some ceaning up. Thats the tricky part. Whattaya think?
This sounds totay fanatastic on my monitors, but far away and crappy in the car. Which is it? Irritating.
Vocals may be a tad loud still.
Questions, comments, pointers and ideas welcome, I have about a week to get this song mixed and try to replicate the mix on 4 other songs.
Thanks!
Paul
Click to expand...

:)
 
Yeah, but I was wondering what mixer and so on he was using, whether computer recording or any other alternative. :)
 
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