Opinion on Metal track....

  • Thread starter Thread starter amra
  • Start date Start date
amra

amra

Well-known member
I recorded a local metal band last night, and I thought the song was pretty cool, so I am posting a preliminary mix even though we won't do the vocals until next week. I thought it was a nice, original sounding track with some potential. Nice and heavy.

Looking for any feedback on the mix or the song...

Never on Sunday - "Worthy of the Well"

Thanks in advance!
 
i like it too!

but this thing is really, really, really squashed. it's clipping into distortion. i know metal's mastered really hot these days, but....?

really, i like the song a lot. i suspect that's b/c it's an instrumental at this point and doesn't yet have the requisite cookie monster vocals. truth be told, i'd like "modern" metal a WHOLE lot more if the bulk of it were instrumental. anyway.....

the drums sound great--i assume the kicks (and probably snare) were triggered? they sound a little too even to be "real" drums. or maybe they're just augmented real drums. anyway, they sound good. the drummer's a little behind the beat (and off with the kicks) in places, but this is a complicated part played pretty damn well. the toms could probably stand to cut through a little better.

the only issue i have is that the bass guitar is lost. i don't know if it's just that it's not loud enough or if it's being masked by the kick or the low end of the guitars........or even if this is typical of the genre. but no matter how you slice it, i need more bass guitar.

guitars are nice and heavy and crunchy. how'd you do em?

cool tune and nice drum and guitar sounds...........just ease up on the mixbus compressor.


cheers,
wade
 
Good ears.
Everything you pointed out is pretty much dead on.
The drums were recorded accoustically and then the snare and kick were replaced using KTDrum trigger. I usually just replace the kick (if the track calls for that modern metal triggered kick sound), but in this case I had to replace the snare because I had too much cymbal bleed into the snare mic. Not too sure how I missed it when we were tracking...

I think I hear what you were talking about with the drummer being off (about 3/4 through the track) and i think it is in the trigger. It must be missing some hits or something. It sounded dead on when we were tracking. I will go back and take a look at that.

About not hearnig the bass guitar - we haven't tracked the bass yet.
I figured the guitars were heavy enough that I could try and play that off...hahah. Busted!

Compression: as an experiment, I put a limiter on the master channel outs in cubase, because there were a few transient peaks that were giving me hell. I figured if I set the limiter threshold at like -2 it wouldn't be noticeable. So much for that idea....

Thanks for giving a listen...
 
It sound very good !

i agree with everything all have said up to this point -
as said before a couple things

-- needs bass
-- drums are behind - they seem to be dragging in several places

other than that kick arse !
 
The overhead panning sounds odd to me for some reason. It definately sounds like the snare and kick are struggling in some points... Maybe the triggering isn't on time or something?
 
Thanks for the replies.
I tweaked a few things and remixed it.

I did away with the triggered snare, and instead used the original recorded snare.

I compared the triggered kick hits with the original recorded kick and it is triggereing on all of them.

Tweaked the panning a bit.

Did away with the limited on the master channel outs

Mix 2
 
Dang, it sounds pretty good, but that drummer is gonna cause you a hell of a headache. I listened before I read the other critiques (I like to NOT have a preconcieved idea about the song) - and that was the first thing that jumped out at me. I actually think it's worse than what everyone else has said.......


Nice work on your end though! :D
 
The guitars sound nice.

The drums sound a bit like they were picked up by 1 mic in a practice room.

A bit distant and live sounding.

How did you mic the drums?
 
I think your new mix sounds pretty good. The drumming does seem sloppy though. Is there some latency in the triggering?
 
DaSpider said:
I think your new mix sounds pretty good. The drumming does seem sloppy though. Is there some latency in the triggering?
Click to expand...

Yea, I think there might still be something going on with kick. Maybe it was just his playing. I don't know. They were coming in tonight to do the vocals, and I think I am going to retrack the drums. The song is good enough to take a little extra effort, even it is the drummers playing that was lacking.

However, I don't think acoustically triggered drums are going to work for this song...

To joswil - the drums were recorded with an SM57 on each tom, an SM57 on the snare and a Shure beta 52 on the kick. I used Joemeek JM27s in an XY pattern as overheads, and Studio Project B1's on the crash and on the china.

Gonna retrack the drums tonight. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks for the replies.
 
MIX #2 = Taking down the compressor really lightened up the mix...... You did a good job on the recording so far. I'll try and check this out as you add/replace parts and repost, it's really good so far....

:D :) :D :)
 
Yeah, pretty much what others said, and the drums are mixed pretty loud too, and the triggered sounds, both kick and snare are pretty bassy, which is ok if no bass, but if you're gonna add a bass it's gonna be a bitch to mix.. especially since drums too are panned pretty much in the center. Guitarworks sound awesome.
 
Ok, final version with vocals....

The band didn't want to retrack the drums, even at no cost to them. They thought they sounded fine. Whatever. I would have retracked them.

The singer wanted the vocals to have some distortion, so I pushed the preamp quite a bit along with some channel strip compression to get what he considered that "old school" death metal sound.

Anyway, here it is.


Thanks for checking it out!
A.
 
Honestly, I think you're crapping this out with each revision and mixing yourself in a hole trying to appease the critics on here. I don't care whatever else was said earlier, your best sounding track tone-wise was the very first track, IMO.



The vox on the newest mix you submitted is just acrid. I just can't listen to it and I'm all about this style of music. It's too hot and it's obviously clipping or something.


Otherise, this is a great-kick a** sounding tune.

What equipment did you use and how did you record the guitars. That's a giant sound!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top