Working on a metal song with a 70's vibe sound.

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Slag

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Hello everyone. First time poster, long time reader. I finally got myself a proper room to record in and got to use it for the first time this weekend. I've been working on the mix for a couple days and want to get some feedback on what everyone here thinks. I really like it so far. We tried some different techniques when recording, attempting to get it evil sounding. I don't believe it is 100% yet, but getting there. The end of the song is still in progress, as I plan to add some ambient electronic tracks to it.




Would appreciate feedback.

Thanks,

Slag
 
Hey Slag, this is not my type of music but it sounds pretty well balanced and the performance is tight. I think your first submission is miles above (better) what I first submitted :D
 
thanks for the feedback. Harsh suggestions are definitely welcome.
 
I think it's good material, but needs some work. There isn't much thump to the kick, though there is plenty (too much, imo) click. You'll also want more compression on the toms and snare to bring out the stick hits. Metal, to me, is a very rhythm-centric genre, so you want to rhythm section to really hit.

I'd clean up the guitars some--not necessarily less distortion, but play with the EQ some to get some more definition. That little guitar part after the intro is nothing but noise. I think they really need to hit better. Maybe try boosting the upper mids or something for a little extra crunch. In fact, most of the song the guitars seem more like background noise than an important part of the song, so you're really going to want to do some work to make them pop.

It's also not very apparent that there's a bass in there, so you might boost that some or just EQ it so that it becomes more than just part of the guitars.

I'd probably boost those ambient vocals at the end, too.

I dig the track, though. Honest! It's just that, at this point, none of the instruments (or vocals) really pops. It's all just a big pool of noise. You gotta make space for things so they can hold their own ground. Clean up (well, remove) the low end from the guitars to make room for the bass, clean up the mid range to make space for vocals, clean up the high end for cymbals, etc.
 
The song was OK but I felt no 70's vibe. The mix is very bad. If you can clean it up I think it would be just fine.
 
70's vibe????
Never heard anyone growling back then.....:confused:
Sounds too muddy, phasey to me. Tune's not bad, but the way it is now, it just sounds too messy.
 
i loved it!!, material wise and how it was written, fantastic! guitar reminded me of that french black metal sound that blut aus nord have very cool and the clean vocals were excellant, if a little low in the miox sometimes,

as for production, thebigcheese nailed it really, cant hear the bass guitar too well which i think would shine in a track like this if done right, and the drums arent as strong as they could be, with a little tweaking, i thought the guitars sat well in the mix personally,

for a first attempt its pretty fucking good, and miles better than 9/10 metal bands floating around at the minute,
 
thanks for the response

Thanks to everyone for the responses.

The guitars are supposed to sound out of tune ish. The drums definitely need work.

I still want the guitars to have the low end and I highpassed them around 100hz,,, apparently not enough. Created the muddying effect. What do you guys use to eq rhythm guitars? Do you low shelf? high pass? Large Q filter? what frequency range?

I am always afraid of over compressing drums, as I like for the natural vibe in the drummers playing to shine through, but I will try it to bring the drums forward more.


Thanks for the suggestions.
 
I didn't notice the guitars being out of tune, just... well, I didn't notice them enough. Metal is all about the guitars, so you can't just have them being some mush in the background, you know?

Your guitars shouldn't need low end if you bring up the bass. It sounds good live, but good luck getting it to work in a mix. Distorted guitars really shine when you boost the upper-mids for crunch, I think. I tend to low cut a LOT out of the guitars and just let the bass fill in the rest. You'd be amazed at how much cleaner your mix gets when you do that. My guitars generally start scooping out (it's a very gradual curve) at around 300 Hz, then everything is cut by about 100 Hz. I find that leaves lots of space for the bass. I then boost somewhere between 2k and 5k to brighten things up a bit and add some crunch.

I also have a lot of EQ on my drum overheads, actually, but that depends on the song. You'll probably still want to do a little scooping out somewhere to get rid of muddiness from the bass, but you'll have to experiment with that.

Another source of muddiness is the kick. You can pretty much cut out everything between 100 Hz and 5k--just figure out where the click sounds best and help that out, but cut everything else out. If you miked all your toms, you'll want to EQ out any extraneous frequencies there, too.

Vocals also tend to have a lot of extraneous frequencies. No one sings below 200 Hz, but I find that I get a little warmth just above that, so I leave that in. You can probably also cut some of the highest frequencies, but beyond that you'll have to experiment and be careful. Guitars and vocals can occupy a lot of the same space, so you want each to have it's own little niche.

The key to a clean mix is keeping bleed in check. Take only what you need from each mic. For instance, my kick and snare mics would probably sound pretty silly on their own, but the overheads fill in the frequencies I cut out from the close mics. Try not to only EQ things while soloed because you'll miss the big picture. Guitars with low end sound nice by themselves, but it's really not necessary when you add in bass. Same goes for a lot of the other noises going on. The more stuff you add, the more EQing you'll have to do to fit it all in. Experiment some with panning, too. I'd use EQ before panning, but panning is another way to add space. Try mixing in mono and you'll really see how the instruments interact with one another.
 
First thing I'm noticing is that the drum hits are definitely more noticeable, which is good, except that the toms seem more up front than the rest and are still lacking some body. I can't say I blame you, as I never have much luck with toms either, but it's something to look at. The snare still needs some work. It sounds like you miked the bottom head, am I right? You have to be careful mixing that in because it gets a little buzzy instead of the nice thwack that everyone is used to. I always compress the snare separate from the other drum tracks, too, to make sure it gets the right amount of crack. In fact, generally I have one compressor on the snare, one on the kick, and then one on an overhead grouping. Drums are annoying to mix...

Guitars could still use some more crunch, in my opinion. Vocals could also stand to be louder.

Having said all that, it's definitely better than before. It strikes me that you're going for kind of a Dimmu Borgir vibe more than a '70s vibe, in which case I suggest listening very closely to their records and trying to figure out what they did to get the sound. It's hard to listen and try to figure out what they did, but you'll get some ideas.
 
thebigcheese said:
First thing I'm noticing is that the drum hits are definitely more noticeable, which is good, except that the toms seem more up front than the rest and are still lacking some body. I can't say I blame you, as I never have much luck with toms either, but it's something to look at. The snare still needs some work. It sounds like you miked the bottom head, am I right? You have to be careful mixing that in because it gets a little buzzy instead of the nice thwack that everyone is used to. I always compress the snare separate from the other drum tracks, too, to make sure it gets the right amount of crack. In fact, generally I have one compressor on the snare, one on the kick, and then one on an overhead grouping. Drums are annoying to mix...

Guitars could still use some more crunch, in my opinion. Vocals could also stand to be louder.

Having said all that, it's definitely better than before. It strikes me that you're going for kind of a Dimmu Borgir vibe more than a '70s vibe, in which case I suggest listening very closely to their records and trying to figure out what they did to get the sound. It's hard to listen and try to figure out what they did, but you'll get some ideas.
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I agree with your sentiment. I'm not a guitarist so I will need to figure where the crunch lies. The toms def do not have enough body, either. I'm not mixing in optimal conditions or speakers, so I'll need to work on that too.
 
forgot to mention, thanks again for the advice/tips. Much appreciated.
 
I would guess, based on the mix, that you are either the vocalist or the bassist. People tend to mix so that whatever part they play is quietest because they aren't confident that it's any good. You just have to get over it.

I've got a book called ReaMix: Breaking the Barriers with REAPER that is mostly focused on mixing with the program Reaper, but it does have some more general information that you might find useful. I don't want to copy pages out of it, but here's some frequency response information for various instruments to give you an idea where to apply EQ (keep in mind these are approximate and I'm not sure I agree with all of them):

Drums:
Kick--fundamentals 50-500 Hz, harmonics 500-8000 Hz (tends to be muddy around 300 Hz)
Toms--fundamentals 70-500 Hz, harmonics up to 7000 Hz (I feel like my fundamentals go higher than that, but maybe not)
Snare--fundamentals 100-300 Hz, harmonics up to 10000 Hz (not sure I agree with that...)
Cymbals--fundamentals 150-1000 Hz, harmonics to 2000 Hz

Voice:
Bass-- 70-300 Hz
Baritone-- 100-400 Hz
Tenor-- 120-440 Hz
Alto-- 140-600 Hz
Soprano-- 180-850 Hz

Bass guitar-- 30-440 Hz
Guitar-- 80-1400 Hz

(note that he doesn't give harmonics for voice or guitars)

So you can see that most things overlap between about 140 to 1400 Hz, which the author calls the "war zone" because everything is fighting for space there. That's why you tend to have to scoop out. I find that 300 Hz is really the most annoying spot because everything hits there and makes the mix really muddy, so I'd suggest cutting at least a bit out of just about every instrument there.
 
Seems like I'm going to need to do a bit more cutting in that range. Alot more actually.. could be why it sounds like a big old mush party in the low end at times. Back to the drawing board again this evening. Thanks.
 
Slag said:
Seems like I'm going to need to do a bit more cutting in that range. Alot more actually.. could be why it sounds like a big old mush party in the low end at times. Back to the drawing board again this evening. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Dude, I'm a board 'noob' too, but please use soundclick or lightningMP3 to post next time - much more user friendly :)
 
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