Roberta (pre vocal) [Hard Rock] - Need help with the mix and some EQ.

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STAT1STICK

STAT1STICK

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I've been working on this song for a little while now and I think I have all the instruments where I want them but it just seems like something isn't right and I can't put my finger on it. I think it's in the chorus. I don't know if it's a mix problem or an EQ problem. I want it to sound powerful but I don't want it to sound out of place. Any advice and\or feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 
Long enough intro man??? :)
Overall, I'd say the drums are way too thin and clicky, shrill almost. The reverb on them only enhances the clickiness. I know scooped guitar sounds are part of the style, but that's pretty extreme.
 
Oh god. The drums are piercing in the upper mids. Sounds like you made a giant EQ boost around 4k on the whole drum track. Don't do that. Undo that. And then re-upload it again and we'll give it another listen.
 
The snare sounds like it's set for maximum rattle & the kick drum for click & no thump.
The cymbals sound like aerosol spray.
Can you rip any EQ off them or provide better samples? The drums are OK if you're going to replace them with a real drummer otherwisae you need to up the quality a fair bit. The samples kit I used most recently sounds pretty awful but I live in hope that a drummer will drum at some stage.
The guitars aren't too bad though they seem to have more fizz than meat.
The bass sounded fine in the rebuilt section but once the guitars came in again it was lost a fair bit of the time.
The song & prefromances seem good but you do need to re EQ things fairly drastically.
 
Thanks for the responses, guys. Jeez, I feel horrible about that upload. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I was just too close to the song. I had a chance to go back in and do some remixing. I edited the song so that it's not super long in the beginning. I think it sounds fuller now and I hope the drums sound ok. I want to get most of this down tight before I start recording vocals. Besides, I'm still trying to figure out how I'm gonna perform them. I have a few ideas but my last attempt was kinda boring. I have to find a way to spice up the somber subject matter somehow. Anyway, here's the new mix.

 
Distorted guitars sound pretty good. All the guitars sound pretty good. OK that guitar sound that comes in at 1:58 is a little muffled. But that's probably personal preference thing - other people might like it.

Doubled guitars get a little off at :35.

bass is a little rumbly and indistinct. Just a bit.

The kick has a crazy clicky attack. To the point of being annoying. The snare is a little "attacky" too. Cymbals are a little hissy and too focused on the high end. Toms are clicky too.
 
Thanks for the input TM. Here's an update. I went through and tweaked/fine tuned everything... I think. This is the best mix so far in my opinion. Thanks again for the feedback, guys.
 
Ok. Here's the finished song with vocals recorded. Have a listen and see if it's any better. Thank you.

 
Just my honest opinion man. It's a good song, but the mix is very lackluster. The vocals sound thin, and the drums sound very artificially EQ'd and over-produced.

Listening to the chorus vocals - they sound muddy, with the exception of this razor area in the highs that was boosted to help them cut through the mix from what I can surmise.

The mix lacks dynamics as well. It doesn't have that feeling of getting louder or growing into the choruses. Some automation or envoloping on your master mix bus could solve this.

Lastly, every one of your drums sound small. Your kick drum has no oomph or smack to it. It's all click. The snare drum sounds tiny and like it has absolutely no decay. Like it's a tiny radar-blip fart that happens in a consistent rhythm. The cymbals are way too loud and harsh sounding for the comparative volume of the drums.

Lastly, I can't really make out any bass guitar. It sounds like it's been burried because you didn't really know what to do with it in your mix.

My biggest piece of advice would be this though:

Take off every single plugin, undo every single EQ boost, etc. that it is on your drums and start over. I'm serious. Everything. It sounds like things have been over-processed without any real objective or purpose. If I may ask, how did you record these drums?
 
BurningBridges said:
Just my honest opinion man. It's a good song, but the mix is very lackluster. The vocals sound thin, and the drums sound very artificially EQ'd and over-produced.

Listening to the chorus vocals - they sound muddy, with the exception of this razor area in the highs that was boosted to help them cut through the mix from what I can surmise.

The mix lacks dynamics as well. It doesn't have that feeling of getting louder or growing into the choruses. Some automation or envoloping on your master mix bus could solve this.

Lastly, every one of your drums sound small. Your kick drum has no oomph or smack to it. It's all click. The snare drum sounds tiny and like it has absolutely no decay. Like it's a tiny radar-blip fart that happens in a consistent rhythm. The cymbals are way too loud and harsh sounding for the comparative volume of the drums.

Lastly, I can't really make out any bass guitar. It sounds like it's been burried because you didn't really know what to do with it in your mix.

My biggest piece of advice would be this though:

Take off every single plugin, undo every single EQ boost, etc. that it is on your drums and start over. I'm serious. Everything. It sounds like things have been over-processed without any real objective or purpose. If I may ask, how did you record these drums?
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your honest feedback. I'm using Addictive Drums for the drum sounds. I went through and totally reworked the drums. I pushed the bass up so that it's has a more prominent role in the song. And I tweaked the vocals so that they aren't as overwhelming in some areas. I'm really trying to get this one right. Thank you again for your feedback and advice. Here's the newest mix with the adjustments:

 
OK, MUCH better, The mix has low end now and the kick drum actually has some low end oomh. I can actually hear some nice roomy decay from the snare drum.

My only remaining issue is the vocals. It sounds like they were boosted around 5 - 6k? Here's what I would reccomend:

Give them a 4 - 5db boost (not high shelf) around 12k

Give them a 3 - 4db boost around 2.5k - 3k (somewhere in there is a sweet spot that will bring the vocals out front more)

Give them a 3 - 4db boost around 300 - 400hz (somewhere in there is a sweet spot that will add some size and meat to the vocals)

Bus all your guitars to one track, and make some narrow but deep (5 - 6 db) EQ cuts at the exact frequencies you just boosted on your vocals.

Give this a try, and I think you'll finally be there. This was seriously a massive improvement over what I heard last night man. Good job.
 
Ok, Here's the last one, I promise! I took your advice and here is what I came up with. I'm pleased with the result.

 
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STAT1STICK said:
Ok, Here's the last one, I promise! I took your advice and here is what I came up with. I'm pleased with the result.

Click to expand...

OK, between this most recent mix and the one you just did you did some ugly sounding EQ boost to the kick drum and the snare drum. Undo that weird EQ boost (it's somewhere in the mids, between 2 and 4k, and you'd be fine. The drums sounded WAY better in the previous mix. It also sounds like you increased the compression on the snare drum, too, although I could be wrong.

Addictive drums are good sounding samples, so you don't need to do too much processing. The key to getting drums to sound right for this genre is to get them to breathe and decay with some room noise and some sense of size. This most recent mix has them sounding small and over-processed again, which causes the whole mix to not work.

To be honest, I think your problem is that you are mixing on some not great speakers, or on some headphones. Your mix has all the tell-tales signs of poor monitoring: Over-compression, over-EQing, poor seperation.

Also, make sure you are building your mix around the drums, bass, vocals, and then guitars, in that order. Get your drums sounding as good as possible, then get the bass grooving with the drums, and then get the vocals sounding good over that backbone, and then mix the guitars around it all.
 
Burning, you've been a lot of help. I have one final mix. It sounds good to me on my Klipsch speakers. So, if this is bad then maybe my ears are f*cked! Here's the new mix.

 
OK, this one sounds good, I'm listening to it on my studio monitors and the instrumental aspect sounds the best its sounded so far. My only complaint now (HAH! :-p) is that the vocals sound a little thin and buried. I would suggest either turning them up, or EQ boosting around 300 - 400hz just to give them some body and some size. Other than that, the instrumental sounds the best it's sounded out of all your previous mixes.
 
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