new stuff, help a bro' out!

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jacobs

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hey, just finished the first mix of a new song.

we're gonna be retracking vocals when the singer has a voice, but right now i just have these tracks on so i could get started on mixing.



its called "lonely hearts", band is allherkings (allherkings.com).

how this was done:

drums on location, 57 on snare, d112 and a crappy superlux mix on kick, octava 319 and at 4050 for o/h, some random condensors and broken mics as room mics.

ran all the drums through a compression algorithim (sp?) in steniberg me compressor, then mixed that track to taste with the raw tracks (adds a lot of life to my mixes).

guitars are a thinline tele and '78 sg standard through a jcm 800 2205 w/ mesa and marshall cabs. used a tubescreamer with the tele, just delay/mod stuff for the sg, distortion is all the amp. 57 on axis, 4050 off axis mixed to taste.

bass is di'ed and mic'd through a mesa d180 and mesa 6x10 cab w/ the d112.

vocals are the at 4050.

mackie 1604 board, nuendo, guillemot isis maxi studio card.

i'm not totally happy with the bass sound in particular, any ideas?

jacob
 
ok here goes

i hate giving advice when i feel like my mixes are often not up to par but ill tell you what im picking up on.
The drum sound is very live/airy sounding, not alot of punch from what i can tell (im on my comp speakers though right now) so i could be way off. If this is what you were going for, then you achieved it.
The guitars are a little buried sounding, i can hear what they are doing but they aren't really up in the mix where they prob should be for this style of music.
Definantly re-record the vocals if you can. The vocalist doesnt sound that bad in terms of a singer but his voice just sounds far gone- or shot to heck and back on these takes. Very hoarse/raspy.
Music sort of reminds me of early glassjaw, im sure someone will be along to give you some advice that will actually help. Later
 
thanks for the advice, i'll mess with the guitars. as far as the vocals, his voice was shot to hell, we're gonna be retracking vocals friday i think, i'll post the new version once we do.

thanks! anyone else? please?

jacob
 
Live Sound

You've got a very "live" sound going on there. I'm liking the coffee-can snare drum, but I think the cymbals are just swishing over the top of everything. I agree with Wireneck, there needs to be more guitar there...

But I liked the track, very cool - good job!

Dave.
 
thanks! i'll try bringing the guitars up for sure when we retrack vocals friday.

jacob
 
More Guitar,Bass drum sounds like dogshit,COOL song,Almost totally incoherent vox,which I think...I think it works.Reminds me of early FNM and On The Might Of Princes.Bass sounds like it clipped on the recording a coupla times ...and the kick, too.Maybe Over compressed?I dig the tune and the feel,...but not the name.
 
Whew!!

Wow, almost everything is clipping... The dumrs are pretty much pristine, and I dig the crazy hollow snare, but pull em bac a bit so the rest can be up enough without clipping. The cleaner rhythm guitar coudl be fatter between 400 and 1200Hz. You could compress the whole thing, mayber a 1db or so hard limiter; this genre doesn't demand a whole lot of dynamic range so you can squish it down good to fix some of this... Wow man, at 2:25 the thing sounds like the mains are at +6dB, just clipping like crazy...

If it were me, I'd remix from scratch, start with the drums. Get em clean, but not scratching 0db, keep em under -6 for the time being. Then add the bass. EQ it so it's fat, but with enough edge to cut through the wall-o-mud guitars you're gonna lay on em. (keep this all relative to the +6dB drums) Then add one of the rhythm guitars, panned dead center for the moment. get the level and tone right. Then pan it hard left, add the other guitar dead center. Get the level right (if you can see a post-fader level, you can almost do this visually), then place the guitars in the soundfield. Nudge the levels a tad either way to compensate for field placement perceptual changes. THEN add the vox.

Then, take the whole stereo master, and run it through a normalizer to about 95%, then run the aforementioned limiter on it to get it hotter without clipping.

Just some general ideas.

Great playing, tons of energy!!

Cheers!
Phil "Llarion: The Jazzinator" Traynor
www.llarion.com
Check out my debut Smooth Jazz CD on Llarion's Lair Records, "a dichotomy of silence"
 
W.I.S.C. said:
More Guitar,Bass drum sounds like dogshit,COOL song,Almost totally incoherent vox,which I think...I think it works.Reminds me of early FNM and On The Might Of Princes.Bass sounds like it clipped on the recording a coupla times ...and the kick, too.Maybe Over compressed?I dig the tune and the feel,...but not the name.
Click to expand...

umm....thanks i guess. i'm gonna remix now that we retracked vocals, and i'll work out the clipping issues i guess. i'm not sure how a bass drum can sound like "dogshit", i always thought shit was pretty quiet, and that bass drum is pretty damn loud. i always ahve always thought of at least most of the posters on this board as being a bit more "civilized" in their commentary. on the might of princes i can definately agree with, fnm, i don't see the comparison. the vox also didn't seem all that incoherent to anyone else, so i dunno, maybe listen again? thanks!

jacob
 
remixed using the new clipping ideas you suggested, sounds much better i think. thanks a lot! the bass is still not how i want it, any suggestions? it gets washy in the mix, but when you listen to the tracks solo'd they're very punchy. i don't get it?



jacob
 
Lot's of energy. I liked that. Decent song. Liked the punch and general "umph" from the bass when it kicks in.

It does seem like at least the drums are clipping. They're a bit dominant. The highhat is particularly loud.

I'd work on giving the vocals a chance to come through. The instruments are dominating them.

Pitchy vox around 1:03-1:05 (but you said you're retracking so probably not a big issue - just keep an ear out for those things when you do). Some clicking going on from 2:03-2:05.
 
Pretty good, and the mix aint bad, but could use some tweaks. That snare gets a little rambuncious and out of hand at times and the hihats are kinda washy sounding. The vocals could use some high mids to bring them out some more. You try 15 to 35 hz separation in the dominant frequency of the bass and kick. that might give you more of the clean your looking for. They tend to wrestle for dominance at close to the same. That guitar thats playing in the section where the rest falls off needs to come up a bit.
 
triple m, did you listen to the first or second mix?

thanks toki, i'll try that.

jacob
 
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