Over processing or under processing?

[Jeremy Barnes]

I've been working on a mix and I know a lot of people in my genre (metal) process the crap out of their mix. Eq, compress, eq again on the individual guitar tracks and then do that all over again on a group bus. I even seen one guy that sent his group bus to another group bus and basically double processed everything. My thing is that when I do that I end up with a really lifeless and stale sounding mix. So my question is this. When I mix a song I'm mixing it towards the final goal and the mix will have a lot of energy. Should I in fact be mixing towards just getting the cleanest and smoothest possible mix and then bring the energy and life back into it in the mastering stage?

 

[DM60]

I think once you kill the life, you can't bring it back. IMO, I would under process and then tweak to final process whether it be on a buss or master track.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Those guys are going for sheer loudness at the end stage. The best way to do that is to control the dynamics at the track and group level so you don't end up having to do all of your smashing on the master mix. If you want to compete with those fuckers in the loudness wars, then you should probably do something similar.

 

[Jake_JW]

It depends on which type of metal production you are going for - there is more than one aesthetic that is considered 'metal - and what tracks you have to start with. If you're going for an older metal vibe (think Megadeth - Countdown to Destruction for example), it's probably not a good first resort to smash everything through a bunch of processing, simpler is probably better providing you have good tracking at the recording stage.
If you want a balls out, super loud and smashed modern metal sound then smashing processing and re-processing things is probably the answer.

I'm not an expert on metal production (though I have done it a few times for people) but generally you need to know which kind of metal sound you are going for from the beginning of the project. You have to take account of it in what/how you track (think double tracking guitars and layered vocals especially), wether you will be triggering the drums for your chosen aesthetic, and then follow through to the mixing stage.
It's especially true in my experience with more production-intensive styles of music like metal.

 

[MrWrenchey]

Metal's a huge genre we record here in my town. What kind of metal are you talking? Like Jake said, we talking modern hardcore/metalcore kind of stuff, thrashy stuff, death metal...?

Or are we talking old school metal and whatever subgenres are associated with that? If you could upload an .mp3 of your mix and link a YouTube video or an .mp3 of a song/band you're trying to get your mix to sound similar to, that'd be helpful in addressing your concerns.

 

[ashcat_lt]

It really doesn't matter what genre you're in, and it's actually not even so much about mindlessly striving for LOUD like I said earlier. In general, it's a good idea to control the dynamics at several stages along the way. You don't necessarily have to crush it at every stage. The point is that a series of compressors each doing just a little will usually sound a lot more natural and transparent than one compressor or limiter smashing everything down at the very end.

IDK so much about putting a compressor at the individual track level on a heavily distorted guitar. They're pretty much on or off without any real dynamics to begin with. A guitar bus compressor, though, can help control the combined level of the guitars so that there aren't huge jumps in volume as one comes in and out, or they go from playing the same thing to playing off of each other. Then a master bus compressor will help seat those guitars in with everything else.

 

[Simman]

Sometimes less is more...but...more is always more

 

[Bob Ross]

I've been working on a mix and I know a lot of people in my genre (metal) process the crap out of their mix. Eq, compress, eq again on the individual guitar tracks and then do that all over again on a group bus. I even seen one guy that sent his group bus to another group bus and basically double processed everything. My thing is that when I do that I end up with a really lifeless and stale sounding mix.

Gee, ya think?

So my question is this. When I mix a song I'm mixing it towards the final goal and the mix will have a lot of energy. Should I in fact be mixing towards just getting the cleanest and smoothest possible mix and then bring the energy and life back into it in the mastering stage?

If the mix doesn't have "energy and life" there's nothing that can be done in mastering that will add that. And if your performance doesn't have "energy and life" there's nothing that can be done in mixing that will add that.

But maybe we're not talking about the same thing when we use words like "energy and life" ...so just in case it's a semantic issue: What exactly are you (personally) not doing when you "mix towards just getting the cleanest and smoothest possible mix" that you would otherwise do when you "mix it towards the final goal and the mix will have a lot of energy"

...besides processing the crap out of stuff?

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Try this: Don't use any dynamics processing in your mix. None, zero, zip, nada. Now try to generate "energy and life" in the mix using just balances. Create the drama via faders, panpots, and filters. Can you do it?

If not, does the tune actually have any "energy and life" of its own?