This mix is killing me (I need your help!)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve Henningsgard
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Steve Henningsgard

Steve Henningsgard

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I feel like a complete n00b. I feel like no matter what I do to this mix, which was tracked at a very nice studio, I can't get it to sound not like boring shit. The drums somehow sound like they were recorded in a basement or something, and the whole mix just reeks of boringness. I'm about to lose it, frankly. Please help!

Side-note, this is my first mix in Reaper (I'm generally a Pro Tools guy), but I can't imagine why that'd make such a huge difference. Perhaps I'll load it into 'Tools and see if anything is better.

http://soundcloud.com/stevehenningsgard/help-me
 
First thing I noticed, is the drum tracks are probably 10-20ms behind the rest of the track. Might wanna nudge them a bit forward.

The guitars are also mixed very high (IMO)...

This genre of music isn't my bag, so I can't really say much more, but... thanks for sharing!
 
The drums in general sound a little thin. I suggest compressing them, especially the snare drum. Additionally I'd add some gated reverb to the snare drum as well. If you want, you can use some parallel compression on a seperate drum bus track as well. That should help the drums sit better in the mix. That should fix the problem them sounding not in the same "space" as the rest of the mix. The rhythm guitars sound good, but they are fighting with the vox in the 1.5k range (to my ears) at least.
 
Sounds like Boy Hits Car. And I agree the guitar is too loud, and kinda muddy. And drums sound thin, and like you said boring. I think compression on the drums would help, especially buss compression in parallel. Doesn't really sound bad though.
 
AMcB said:
Sounds like Boy Hits Car.
Click to expand...

Huh. I actually love those guys, and I've never even met anyone else who's heard of them. "I'm a Cloud" is fucking awesome.

Anyway, not much to add that Poetic Intensity didn't already say - something's off with the timing of the drums vis a vis the rest of the mix, and the guitars seem a little loud. They're also, and I'm a big mids guy normally, a little mid-heavy and sound a bit rounded off somehow.

There's something kind of "ping-y" about the drum verb that's not sitting right with me either...
 
Ya know... Listening to this again, to be honest, not much has changed. It seems like the guitars take up much, much more space than they need to get the point across. They're fatties, and they're taking up most of the space needed to let the vocals, drums, and synth breathe. I'd consider scooping them. (Take with a huge grain of salt because I'm listening on horrible computer speakers right now)....

But yeah... Guitars need volume, but not necessarily loads of bandwidth. Gotta leave room for other instruments. Through these speakers, the guitars seem at least twice as loud as the rest of the instruments.
 
Kind of a jumble. The kick sounds skinny. The concept is good. I hear the drum off rhythm too. Tighter would be better with this genre. Especially at the beginning. try adding more guitar layers but pulling them all back and using some to accent transitions. The vox need more.....ooomph.....a whisper track sang at the same time? Listen to the vox on the current rock mix off.

I dig the song, but not the throwing up sound in the lead vox, at least not with this singer. Unless the rest of her performance was as intense. Try giving the chorus another layer of vox to delineate it from the verses. Dont give up!
 
Hey,

I think this can be salvaged. It is a cool song, just needs a little more work.

First I'd like to know if you had used a beat detective on the drums at all. They sound a little out of time at the very beginning.

Drums:

I don't think the snare sounds "hard rock" enough. I'd do some eq work on that, maybe get it to sound punchier with some high mids. I also like to add a little verb to a bussed snare track.

I don't know how the snare was miced, but if you had a mic over and under the snare you could try reversing the phase (or polarity) on one of the mics. That is a trick I try sometimes to make the snare clearer.

The cymbals also need some more eq work. I like to make my oh's a little crisper, with some selective high end boosting and some other selective cutting.

Vocals:
The vocals are well tracked, I think. Try duplicating the vocal track a couple times and messing with different eqs and other effects to get it to stand out a little.

Guitars:
Sometimes I use a trick where I take the eq that I used on the snare, apply it to the guitar tracks and cut where I have the snare eq boosted. This has an effect of making the snare definition a little more audible. It doesn't have to be much. After that I just eq the guitars to taste, around the cuts I've made.

Good luck man,

-jD
 
Take a break have a few beers and come back to it tomorrow. Maybe you'll think of some ideas to try on it :D
 
Did the people who tracked it compress during tracking? The bass frankly sounds like ass to me. There seems to be no dynamics on it and it just kinda makes this low jumble once other instruments are playing.

I think the guitars sound best on the track, tone wise. The drums sound like some light rock drums juxtaposed into a heavier sound.

I would take the drums into pro tools and quantize them a bit .. maybe you're against it but the drumming is off as the others have mentioned. It's just throwing the whole sound off kilter for me. They don't sound tight and the style theyre playing would want to be as tight as possible. Most of the time every track would be quantized in this genre.. I dont think samples should be out of the question either.

The singing tone doesn't help. It doesn't go well with the genre and when he screams it sounds very unnatural.

Steve, I'm afraid you might be polishing a turd.
 
Sounds like a she, not a he LOL

I don't think it's quite that bad. I think something could be done with it. Some serious editing is in order, no doubt. Just take a break first and come back to it with a clear head.
 
FoulPhil said:
Sounds like a she, not a he LOL

I don't think it's quite that bad. I think something could be done with it. Some serious editing is in order, no doubt. Just take a break first and come back to it with a clear head.
Click to expand...

For the record, I'm not saying it's FUBAR. I just think steve might have to go a roundabout ways to make it sound up to par with his other mixes. Plus, I still think it's a guy with a girly voice.. :)
 
That will be funny if it's a guy. I would laugh at that guy :D

Although Budgie was really bad ass...
 
Haha, it's definitely a female vocalist! And I'm definitely polishing a turd, yeah... perhaps some drum editing might help. Or just chopping my head off. Haha
 
You know, another thing that bugs me here...

Ignoring the mix and the drum timing, part of the problem here is this song has three intros. You've got the synth thing, then the song stops and you've got the solo bass thing with the whispers, then the guitars come back in, and then the song stops dead again, then you start with a solo guitar intro, before everything comes in again, and THEN the song finally starts.

How much freedom do you have here? I'd contemplate cutting everything prior to that solo bass around :20, and then doing a cut from where the band stops and the solo guitar comes in to around :50 or so when the drums come back in earnest so you've got a seamless build. You've got a 4 minute song where the vocals don't come in until more than a minute in, and a couple edits would both solve part of your drum timing issues and give you a way more concise arrangement.

the mix does sound better on this second attempt, though.
 
Not my genre but to my ears it gets really good at 3.42. Unfortunately thats 20 seconds from the end and I think you've lost us by then!

I'd agree with the guitars too loud comment and I can't really make out the bass a lot of the time.
 
I like your song.
There is something with the drum track which is hard to explain.
Drums don't fit like they are not in the same room with rest of the band.
Try to experiment with the snare sound only. I think this one is boring.
Crashes are really fine.
They still seams to be off timing in couple of places.
Vocal could be louder. Bass too.

best regards
sikter
 
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