a quick snipette of a mix

[bryan_kilco]

I thought I had this sounding ok, then came on here and once again was blown away at some of your guys' work. I mainly made this just for fun and to practice mixing and trying to get an even mix. I downloaded a demo of MAnalyzer since I couldn't find a good analyzer in Reapers stock plugs. I noticed my low end had a huge bump and the mids were scooped somewhat. I tried using multiband comp and EQ'ing the areas that were built up. This is what I came up with....


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6443251/Rager Sample 1.wav

Drums made in FLStudio, I didn't do much humanizing really...some but not too crazy. There's only 1 guitar here, centered....I ran out of time last night and didnt have time to record a second, maybe Ill do that today. Guitar is TSE808 - LE456 - LeCab with I forget which impulse - EQ with HP/LP. Bass is pitched down guitar. I also did this to try to play with more bass tones...which I seem to be doing wrong. I tried LP'ing the low track at around 200Hz and high passing the high bass track at the same point, added TSE808 and I think 8505 to get the "grit"....but it sounds nothing like what you guys achieve. After tweaking for a while, my analyzer shows the mix is decently even now....but I'm still lacking the punch and clarity and lowend that some of you guys get.

Any pointers would be freakin' awesome!!

 

[Scott Horner]

The guitar down the middle is definitely hindering the track's ability to kick ass. Double tracking and hard panning will immediately help immensely. It also sounds like there is a fair bit of mids that could be tamed in the guitar tone. Sounds like a different impulse would probably help. If you have that bump in the low end, try soloing your instruments and see if you can spot it at the mixing stage rather than trying to fix it during mastering. The mix should be balanced before mastering. If may be coming from the pitched guitar. Regarding that, you're probably wasting your time playing with bass tones on a pitched guitar track. It just won't sound the same at all. Also, at the mastering stage, try to throw an EQ very first in the chain with a simple hi-pass at around 30-40Hz. Play around with it so that you can filter out all of the rumble without losing the balls. This will prevent all of that low end energy hitting the master limiter and eating up headroom.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Scott, thanks man!

what I did was....put EQ, comp, GClip, comp, and limiter on master....then RMS reader and analyzer. I solo'd out bass and kick and guitars all separately to see where the problems were. I was having a hard time getting the low end peaks to settle down, so I bumped the mids up a tad in the guitars and on the master. I have time today so I think I'll try to record a second guitar for this.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Another quick question - do you guys normally throw an impulse on either of your bass tracks? I have just been using the DI's and processing them differently. Of course I didn't use a real bass, but I figured I could get somewhere closer to the clanky high-mid range that I hear in a lot of mixes....but my "bass" just came out muddy and muffled. If I add to much of the grit track, it just sounds too nasty and I can't seem to get them to blend perfectly.

 

[bryan_kilco]

just did a quick second guitar track. Finding that my mixes totally go to shit when I check them in mono..... =/ Any tips on dealing with this? It's not a huge concern of mine but something I should probably look into.

 

[pikachu69]

its good to be concerned about mono compatibility but in metal where hard L/R panning is common place it is almost impossible to achieve perfect mono compatibility so don't be TOO concerned about this. Mono compatibility in the low end is more important and Brainworkx do some great plugins to help with this. Recording in M/S can help HEAPS too.
99.9% of people listening to metal listen on a stereo system, or broadcast on FM (stereo) radio.

I was having a hard time getting the low end peaks to settle down, so I bumped the mids up a tad in the guitars and on the master.

In my experience things like an un even spectrum can be a good indication that the balance of your mix is not right, rather than the individual eq of each instrument. If you have HP/LP on all nesessary tracks and eq'ed out any major problem areas in the mix and you still have these issues, check your balance.
I have not listened to this track yet but I think your mix balance may still be in need of some work. Mostly in the drums, balancing out the close mics to the OH and room. More of the latter and less of the former. Once you get this overall balance right your spectrum will look very 'flat' in an analyser. This same thing will also help getting a louder, punchier master as you will have less transient detail left over for a limiter to eat for breakfast.