Public Mix Contest #12!!!!!!!!!!!!

[xstatic]

For all judges.....

I know volume of a mix is not supposed to be a factor, but i also understand how it can change the way a mix feels etc... or be easy to accidentally miss.

I know my mix is a little quieter, it's that way for a reason. I did not use ANY brickwall limiters or even high ratio compression in my mix (with the exception of a few individual channel comps where I used extra reduction fro tonal purposes). I kind of wanted to prove a point that a decent level mix could be presented to a mastering engineer without having to blindly drop in brickwall limiters and normalizing etc...

thanks for your time

 

[ecktronic]

For all judges.....

I know volume of a mix is not supposed to be a factor, but i also understand how it can change the way a mix feels etc... or be easy to accidentally miss.

I know my mix is a little quieter, it's that way for a reason. I did not use ANY brickwall limiters or even high ratio compression in my mix (with the exception of a few individual channel comps where I used extra reduction fro tonal purposes). I kind of wanted to prove a point that a decent level mix could be presented to a mastering engineer without having to blindly drop in brickwall limiters and normalizing etc...

thanks for your time

Anyone with a decent ear will know by natural instinct to turn up or down a certain mix so it sounds at the right level that he/she can evalutate it best. Anyway thats what I do, my hand is always on the volum knob when listening to a number of mixes for evaluation etc purposes.
I wouldnt worry xstatic.
Eck

 

[bennychico11]

For all judges.....

I know volume of a mix is not supposed to be a factor, but i also understand how it can change the way a mix feels etc... or be easy to accidentally miss.

I know my mix is a little quieter, it's that way for a reason. I did not use ANY brickwall limiters or even high ratio compression in my mix (with the exception of a few individual channel comps where I used extra reduction fro tonal purposes). I kind of wanted to prove a point that a decent level mix could be presented to a mastering engineer without having to blindly drop in brickwall limiters and normalizing etc...

thanks for your time

i'm dyin' to comment on that right now....but i'll wait until i after I judge

 

[xstatic]

Personally, I am not worried at all. My placement in this contest doesn't really mean anything in the long run. Some people have spent hours opn this. I spent an hour total on my first two mixes, and then spent another 20 minutes on it doing this experiment. I also haven't referenced my mix anywhere outside the studio yet, and every time that I worked on this song it was after a session so my ears may not have been in the right place at the time. Still, it was fun. It's nice to sit down and mix sometimes for fun or when its not a song that I have already heard 50 times in the prior week. Its just that the mixes I posted before this one were actually louder, and I didn't want that to be a thing of confusion. Also, like I said, it was to prove a point because I keep hearing mixes out there that were mixed at like -20 db and then L2'ed up to like -10 db and people keep saying that's how things go. It's not at all. So, I figured what better song than a metal song to do a -14 db mix without any brickwalls to show some people that it can be done.

By the way, am I the only person that was bothered by the clicky gates on the toms?

 

[JazzMang]

By the way, am I the only person that was bothered by the clicky gates on the toms?

No, it bothered me as well. It is especially bad in the very beginning of the song with just the drum hits.

 

[Llarion]

No, it bothered me as well. It is especially bad in the very beginning of the song with just the drum hits.

I groaned a lot about the drum acquisition in general, mostly that it had no "ass"; I thought that in this genre the drums would be huge. But, since ultimately I don't know jack about the genre, I left it be. But, I did spend not a little time trying to get the ass back in them...

Also, the drummer is a MONSTER so I was disappointed in the disconnect between his great playing and the iffy acquisition.

 

[Sonixx]

Thank you to Ben, Sonixx and Mshil.
i appriciate the effort.

-Finster

no problem Chris...

I haven't received any more Email updates or entries...

keith-

 

[geet73]

I groaned a lot about the drum acquisition in general, mostly that it had no "ass"; I thought that in this genre the drums would be huge. But, since ultimately I don't know jack about the genre, I left it be. But, I did spend not a little time trying to get the ass back in them...

Also, the drummer is a MONSTER so I was disappointed in the disconnect between his great playing and the iffy acquisition.

A lot of metal is going for a HUGE guitar sound. Because of this, the drums need to be quite a bit thinner to make room for the guitars.

 

[Dogman]

no problem Chris...

I haven't received any more Email updates or entries...

keith-

Thanks for hosting the links, Sonixx.....
Ed

 

[xstatic]

Actually, most of the metal that I have heard specializes in HUGE drum sounds. The guitars are usally big in a different way. Instead of being out front, they are usually very wide and thick, but pushed a bit to the back so they just blend into one big wall.

The drums on this were recorded OK to me. I did have to dump a few of the tracks though because I felt like they did not contribute to a better drum sound, but made it sound more processed than it needed to be and looser, but that is just my opinion. I really disliked the gated toms. These tracks are a great reason why gates should be saved for mixdown, and not tracking. However, in the end, the clicks really only affected the intro in such a way that it could be heard. The kick drum had a great mid range to me, but was very lacking down low. My bet is that the original kick drum has a lot fop the really low stuff missing as well though. This opinion comes from having worked with 300-500 hardcore and metal bands over the years ranging from Hatebreed to Dimmu to Cannibal Corpse to Slaughter. Almost all of those bands where there is a lot of double kick have very thin sounding kick drums acoustically. That helps to keep the mush down in the mix when you start putting detuned guitars and maybe even 7 strings down there. In the end, the individual tones to me did not sound so hot on the drums, but they blended together much more than i had expected. My gut syas though that the drummer is not very hot with drum tuning because the snare and toms just didn't have any punch or sparkle. Kind of dull.

Mixing the bass was a chore. 6 tracks that all sounded messed up to me. Luckily there were some really nice guitar and vocal tracks in this song. They really helped save this song. I felt like the drumer was decent, but the sounds needed a lot of help. The guitar player (s) and singer really bring the life back to this and made it fun to work on. I felt like it was pretty easy to get a fairly large guitar sound between the tone combinations, and the fact that the tracks were played and recorded well. Same with the vocals. I didn't even care about autotune on them because I liked the power more than i cared about the pitch.

All in all, this one was pretty fun. The biggest thing I would change is to spend less time putting extra unnecessary mics out on the drums and spend more time tuning them instead. Also, make sure the high pass on the bass isn't set at 400

But keep doing the same thing on guitars and vocals

 

[Llarion]

Very interesting... I was going for a more, well, "traditional" balance. Not being a metalhead in ANY way (the hardest rock in my CD collection is Red Hot Chili Peppers), I was REALLY out of my element. But I wished for a lot more body and low end in the kick, more clarity in the cymbals, more snap in the snare, better tuning on the toms, and I wished for less distortion and a LOT more definition on the bass guitars (I SO wanted to replay the bass track myself to get a clean acquisition, but that violated both the letter AND spirit of the thing). I like the punch of funk with my rock. (Hence the Peppers affinity).

So, while I like the sound I got out of this, I'm not completely "satisfied" with it. It was the best I could do with what was available.

On the upside, the guitars were really done exceedingly well. It was easy to make a wall of sound yet still have distinctly different and discernible sounds from the different guitars. I ended up dumping a couple of the keyboard parts by v4, as they were kind of superfluous to me; they only served to muddy the sound, interesting as they were. The vocal arrangement was cool. Pitchy as all get out in some spots, but not irreparable. Whoever did the guttrual scream parts has my respect; I can't imagine my vocal cords standing up for that for even a moment.

Anyway. It was a HUGE challenge for me. I hope that my "fresh ears", or rather, my "metal-ignorant" ears lent a new perspective on the material. I think it came out very balanced, given the massive palette of sounds available.

 

[xfinsterx]

By the way, am I the only person that was bothered by the clicky gates on the toms?

It wasnt gated. I edited the tom tracks before you got them.
If youre hearing a pop, id suggest a cros fade to kill the pops where you notice them.

I didnt do the tom editing in ernest , sorry.

-Finster

 

[Llarion]

It wasnt gated. I edited the tom tracks before you got them.
If youre hearing a pop, id suggest a cros fade to kill the pops where you notice them.

I didnt do the tom editing in ernest , sorry.

-Finster

Any chance you could make the completely unedited bass and drum trax available? Just for my own edification...

 

[xstatic]

I guess I just assumed that they were gated (and gated way to tightly since there are no false triggers) because on the first post of this thread you said..."the tracks you are getting havent been edited in any way". Guess I was wrong I didn't spend that much time on this mix so I didn't get into individual track edits. I did however take the glitch of the floor tom at the very beginning where it stood out the most to me.

 

[reshp1]

For all judges.....

I know volume of a mix is not supposed to be a factor, but i also understand how it can change the way a mix feels etc... or be easy to accidentally miss.

I know my mix is a little quieter, it's that way for a reason. I did not use ANY brickwall limiters or even high ratio compression in my mix (with the exception of a few individual channel comps where I used extra reduction fro tonal purposes). I kind of wanted to prove a point that a decent level mix could be presented to a mastering engineer without having to blindly drop in brickwall limiters and normalizing etc...

thanks for your time

Here's how I'm planning on doing it... I'll be blindly assigning a letter name to each mix, keeping the key away from myself until the end. Each mix will be loaded into my DAW and I will do my best to subjectively balance all the mixes for volume. I'm going to be pretty busy this week and weekend so I won't be judging more than a few (say 6) mixes at a time. I will then take the top mixes (say top 30%) and re-evaluate them in one sitting, in random order, "cleansing the palate" so to speak with a commercially available track of completely different style after each mix. With time allowing, I'll go over the top 3 mixes again, to make sure that the people receiving prizes are really receiving the right prize for their mix. So if you aren't in the top 30%, your mix isn't given a particularly detailed listen, but if the top mixes will be given more scrutiny. Honestly, I'm sure some people are going to disagree with, and perhaps be mad about, my scores, but when the starting tracks are good it's going to be largely a matter of preference in judging mixes. Anyway, I look forward to judging the mixes, should be an ear stretching learning experience. I'll get started once we all agree on a entry list (thanks to ben and mshilarious for compiling the list so far).

 

[ecktronic]

Personally, I am not worried at all. My placement in this contest doesn't really mean anything in the long run. Some people have spent hours opn this. I spent an hour total on my first two mixes, and then spent another 20 minutes on it doing this experiment. I also haven't referenced my mix anywhere outside the studio yet, and every time that I worked on this song it was after a session so my ears may not have been in the right place at the time. Still, it was fun. It's nice to sit down and mix sometimes for fun or when its not a song that I have already heard 50 times in the prior week. Its just that the mixes I posted before this one were actually louder, and I didn't want that to be a thing of confusion. Also, like I said, it was to prove a point because I keep hearing mixes out there that were mixed at like -20 db and then L2'ed up to like -10 db and people keep saying that's how things go. It's not at all. So, I figured what better song than a metal song to do a -14 db mix without any brickwalls to show some people that it can be done.

By the way, am I the only person that was bothered by the clicky gates on the toms?

I spent about 2 hours on the toms, gating each tom hit seperately and adjusting the gate ever so slightly so as not to loose any attack or keep any unwanted noises in.
Eck

 

[ecktronic]

A lot of metal is going for a HUGE guitar sound. Because of this, the drums need to be quite a bit thinner to make room for the guitars.

I agree with that in a sense, but the drums should still sound like they are big. It is very possible to get big drums and big guitars. The guitars and vocals fight for big rather than guitar and drums. The thing to do is EQ th guitars and bass so they merge as one in the lo end but still have their own space to sound out as seperate instruments. This gives the illusion of meaty phat big guitars which means the vocals can still be upfront if Eqd and compressed and reverbed corectly. ( not talking about this mix, as drums arent the best. Just talking in general)
Eck

 

[ecktronic]

This opinion comes from having worked with 300-500 hardcore and metal bands over the years ranging from Hatebreed to Dimmu to Cannibal Corpse to Slaughter. Almost all of those bands where there is a lot of double kick have very thin sounding kick drums acoustically. That helps to keep the mush down in the mix when you start putting detuned guitars and maybe even 7 strings down there.

Ive noticed that alot of metal (i dont really listen to it) has really horrible kick drums. Very thin and clicky rather than phat and slappy the way I like my kicks. They sometmes sound like a wooden beater hitting a bt of solid wood almost! no real resonance or body, just clickccccccccccccccccccclclclick.
Eck

 

[xstatic]

A lot fo those heavier bands have solid and consistent double kick throught out most of the songs. If you were to take a band like that and try and make the kick and make it really "phat", that would come at a direct price to the guitars. The guitars and bass would have to be thinned out a lot to keep the overall mix from becoming one giant mushy ball of mud. They do their kick drums like that for a reason. With a lot of the bands i have worked with it almost reminds me of a machine gun. There are certainly plenty of heavy bands in which the bass and the guitars do get blended in such a way that they become a part of the guitars and vice versa. That however requires the song to be arranged like that from the start. In order for that to work, the bass player has to play like the guitar players. That is one reason why I listen carefully to the vibe of every song I mix. Even though I knew this was basically a metal song of sorts, I did not automatically apply all of the somewhat standard "metal mix rules". The way the kick was recorded really pushed me towards the metal click kick sound. The way the bass tracks were done really pulled me away from the whole make the bass a part of the guitars thing. With the vocals (which I really liked) I kept getting this Lane Staley, Jerry Cantrell vibe. I found it hard to move away from that vocal style because thats what I kept hearing and thats what sounded right to me. As a result, most of the verses were mixed as if there were two lead vocalists, and not just layered tracks.

I guess it might just be easier for me to make the switch between different genres since I run a pro audio company and have worked with probably 1000 different bands. I have done everything form the Ahn Trio (modern classical), to Ministry, to Damien Rice, to Emmy Lou Harris, to Ministry, to Sum 41, to Beth Orton. In the studio I also work with all sorts of clients from hardcore to classical. That kind of diverse client base has forced me and taught me to be just as diverse with how I track and mix.

 

[bennychico11]

I'm still planning on doing critiques on the mixes as well if that's alright with everyone. It's taking me a little while, but I think it will help people approach the way they mix from a different angle. Of course, everything is constructive so please don't get offended.

If you'd rather not have your mix critiqued by me and think "who the hell are you to judge my stuff!"...then by all means tell me and I'll leave you off of the list.