Saddle & Ride - Mixing tips?

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BeagleFaceHenry

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A few years ago we started a band. We’re up to 40ish original tunes. We’ve slowly been investing in recording gear and I’ve been slowly learning to mix. A few months ago we took a random opportunity to record a few tunes on a theater stage. I’ve been working with the mix and I’m not sure I know how to make it any better. I’m at that point where every improvement I attempt has a negative ripple effect.

Recorded live in one take.
Vocal – 58
Guitar – Strat/Mesa – 906
Bass – Ampeg direct
Drums – Assorted drum mics
Tascam 1641 – Sonar X2
https://soundcloud.com/thunderboltresearch/saddle-ride
EDIT:: I've updated the mix a couple times. I'm posting links to updates as we go.

Thanks for listening,
-j
 
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Hi there,
It's not bad overall but it did immediately strike me as being dull. Not boring dull....muddy dull.
Are you rolling off a lot of high end on the tracks?

The vocal especially is hard to make out. Listen to the S sounds. They're not there.

It doesn't sound like it would take a lot to make this pretty nice though.
 
I was kind of digging the song. Definitely a bit muffled, though... particularly the bass guitar, and the bass guitar is a little loud in the mix. Every instrument and the vocal could probably use some treble.

Just a quick critique on the song itself, which I do like... during the verses and the guitar solo, maybe the bass player could come up with a little bit of a flourish or a little change to the rhythm to throw in now and then? This is just a thing I like personally, I know many people just like the bass to carry the rhythm and that's it. Most songs can use a little Geezer Butler now and then! :)
 
Bass guitar especially, but the drums sound pretty dark too (as far as I can make them out behind that great big bass). I'll listen to the update later.
 
Yeah you gotta cut the bass quite a bit especially on the snare. Nice song concept and all, but needs some work :D
 
Ok, groovy.
Roll back the bass guitar.
Roll back some bass on the snare.
Investigate bass on the drums overall.
Anything else for the next update? I'm a sponge, keep it coming. I'm starting to think my monitoring devices aren't painting a true picture for me.
 
Possibly some high-pass filters. They are becoming my best friends! :D
 
Listened to update #1.

Still sounds very dull. The voice seems to be missing frequencies above 7/8KHz. There is no brightness.
The bass is definitely the dominant instrument. Nothing wrong with that but it's just a bit too powerful.
I think that the drums would sound nice if you turned them up a bit.

My biggest issue is that the mix sounds like I'm listening to it through a wall.
 
Yeah the bass is so loud and boomy I couldn't finish listening to it
 
The bass guitar I would say is somewhere around 20 dB too loud. (based on the original post)
 
I'm listening on a different setup than I was yesterday.


Sounds very nicely balanced on my Rokits at a moderate volume. The voice gets louder at about :10 or :14 and then stays at that volume. Why is it quieter for the first few seconds?

You could actually turn up the guitars a dB if you ask me.
 
Listened to update 2. C'mon, get it right. This tune's pretty good - it deserves a good mix. The bass sucks. The part's okay, but the sound is dumb. Try something like this: turn it down slightly, bring the highpass setting up 10 Hz and put a distortion plug on it that adds some harmonics so that it gets heard at a lower volume. Or something like that.

You wanna make it slightly more subtle but still heard. Simple.
 
dobro, would you mind elaborating?
Pardon my naivete, should I be using a high pass on the bass? I have a low pass so I can keep everything below 500 (just a guess, it's not in front of me). Isn't a high pass at 10 basically nothing? Are frequencies below 10 something to watch out for? Are you suggesting not using a low pass?
When you say a distortion plug in to add harmonics, do you mean just adding some gain or is there a harmonic specific distortion I should look for? I've never used distortion on my bass because I'm afraid it'll get fuzzy and lose punch. Is that not worth worring about?
I'm at work now, but I'll try to post the bass track tonight. Would you mind showing me what you mean?
Thanks for the suggestions!
-j
 
Woah, woah, don't LPF a bass down to 500 Hz. A nice bass sound needs midrange.
 
I know the correct answer is "whatever sounds right" but for the sake of discussion (and to kill some time until I get home to my console) how would you approach the bass guitar?
P-bass - MXR Super Comp set fairly gentle - Ampeg SVT-100 with gain@6 - recorded direct from amp to interface.
 
It sounds really hollow and it's much too loud. There is no midrange.
You have to make it more quiet in relation to the other instruments and not as boomy. It sounds like it's coming from underwater.

I'll let someone with more experience step in.
 
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