Advice on tones and mix wanted! Thrash type stuff... POD HD 400...

[statzern]

Hey all, I'm trying to nail down the final tones I want to use for this track. I'm trying to set a mood in the beginning - real ambient and stuff, then when the other guitars come in it's supposed to basically punch you in the face. It's coming along, but not there yet. Thoughts?

The drums are real, supplemented with Superior samples on the kick and snare.

I want this to sound more like a "song," you know - like "glued" together. What kinds of mix and tone changes would you suggest to make this happen?

Thanks in advance!!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4904964/Tone Examples.mp3

 

[Habsburgs]

more gain IMO but you never know, amp sims are weird as fuck
im not sure about the snare, i like it cause it sound natural but it is a little weak

 

[statzern]

more gain IMO but you never know, amp sims are weird as fuck

Yeah I know what you mean - though my POD can produce some good tones, it doesn't necessarily work like an amp does... Anyway, I wanted to make sure each note is distinguishable instead of getting into some mushy mess. These kinds of tones are new for me. Gotta keep tweaking the knobs...

Will see if I can fatten the snare up a little - maybe some EQ? There's no processing on it as of now.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Spite]

For the guitars, I would suggest you to have a pair of tracks with moderate gain and more mids, and a pair of tracks with a scooped EQ and more than enough gain. Blend them together to taste. This way, you'll get a thicker sound without loosing too much clarity.

Your snare sounds pretty good, but perhaps you should try fiddling around with EQ and comp to see if you can improve it.
Also, your kick sounds kind of weak to me. Perhaps a little more "click" and a little less "tick".

 

[statzern]

Here's another mix. This time, I tried fattening up the snare. I basically just added some EQ around 200 Hz and then pulled back just a couple dB in the 1k range. I added some 50 Hz to the kick and some high end.

The guitars are way different - I added a ton of gain to them. Hopefully is a bit of an improvement. I tried the suggestion of one scooped guitar and one mid-heavy guitar and I didn't like the results. Sounded kinda phasey. I am not sure why that was happening, but it just didn't sound good for some reason.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice so far!! We've got 6 total songs like this. I was planning on getting the majority of our tones down on this one, and then the other songs will follow.

Link: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4904964/Tone Test.mp3

 

[kylendm]

I'd suggest making the guitars more present, they could use more highs to make them cut more.