An idea to compare our techniques

[jhrv]

BUMP!

 

[RiF]

Everybody seems to be on a easter visit to their parents...

 

[RiF]

...but I re-recorded the guitar solo (still 2 or 3 missed notes, but far better than the last one) and did a new mix from scratch. The overall frequency spectrum is better now, everything is leveled more evenly (especially the overheads).
The screenshot, the Reaper project file and the MP3-mixdown can be found here at http://drop.io/RiFMixProject. All files are prefixed with "2009-04-13".
I have no clue how to export raw tracks from Reaper, so they all begin at the song start position. Therefore the upped guitar solo files ("2009-04-13 Guitar Solo 2.zip") begin 1 bar before chorus 1 (as always 1 SM57 and 1 e606 track).

 

[ahjteam]

I liked the first solo better stylewise...

Your mix sounds ok otherwise, but where are the toms?

 

[RiF]

but where are the toms?

They are there, but do not stand out very much (as intended, but yes they may deserve a db or 2).

To comment my mix: I reached for a natural but dirty and solid, and fairly unprocessed overall sound. I tried to achieve that by the following elements:
BASS:
- The bass signal is sent to a 2nd track with a Simulanalog TubeScreamer to mix some serious dirt under the original bass (keeps the low end).
DRUMS:
- Snare: Although I am still missing the lower mic of the snare for the crips sound, I did not like too much distortion on the snare track. So I tried to emphasize the crisper snare sound from the overheads.
- Overheads: My 2nd mix had too much compression here which lead to annoying cymbals. I tamed them to sound more natural.
- Drum buss: I like to have saturation and compression on the drum buss to glue things together. My quest for a free plugin for this purpose first lead me to Audio Damage's Rough Rider, but using it narrowed the stereo image and killed the highs, so I stumbled upon digitalfishphones' endorphin which adds some nice ooompf and excitement to the drums. Ferox is still used for tape-style saturation.
- Reverb: I've used a TC 5000 impulse response to add some room to the drums, so they do not sound too dry and unnatural.
GUITARS:
- The lead guitar gets some hi-pass, lo-pass and a little compression, chorus and reverb (TC 5000 impulse, too) to smooth it out.

For a reference sound I used Alabama Thunderpussy's 'The Cleansing' which has the sound I was reaching for.

BTW: I thought I took the TC 5000 impulses from www.noisevault.com, but I did not find them there. I will post the link as soon as I find them. They are free though (hopefully).

 

[RiF]

I just checked back my last mix on my way to work in my trusty car stereo this morning and I have to admit that it leaves something to be desired...;-(. Although I like the guitar sound, the drums need more overall presence (I am heading for something between my 2nd, my 3rd and ahjteam's mix) and the bass does not have it's own place in the frequency spectrum yet.
And yes, the first solo is far better musically (although played sloppier)...

I am used to my favorite plugins and DAW (UAD, IK, Massey, Stillwell, ProTools/Sonar) that I cannot use anymore for this project, so I am spending 3/4 of my (very limited) time finding and learning new tools which is challenging and annoying at the same time... (no excuse for a bad sounding mix, just my thoughts).

 

[ahjteam]

Isn't Reaper bundled with the Stillwell plugins?

 

[John_C]

it's bundled with Jesusonic equivalents, same algorithms though apparently. I found they seem to work ok.
JS sucks at high cpu usage though, glitches galore for me

 

[RiF]

it's bundled with Jesusonic equivalents, same algorithms though apparently. I found they seem to work ok.
JS sucks at high cpu usage though, glitches galore for me

Ahhh... these might be the plugins that are prefixed with "JS" or something... OK, Reaper's plugin selector is a mess if you are browsing (pretty good, if you know what you are searching for, though), so I might have missed them.
It's really a PITA to find good sounding free plugins, when there are 1000s of them all around. If you pay yourself a penny for each minute finding, downloading, trying and ditching them, your time might be worth a full-blown Sonnox-bundle ;-)

 

[John_C]

They're the ones prefixed by JS:SStillwell

 

[ahjteam]

any news on the vocals?

edit: and mixes by others?

 

[RiF]

No news from the vocal-front.
But I re-recorded the guitars (kranked Marshall -> PDI-03 power soak) for mixing with cab impulses. As I previously said, my guitar cab micing sucks and I get better results this way. I will post the guitar tracks later this weekend.

BTW: Are LeSedna, ahjteam and me alone on this thread?

 

[RiF]

Ahhh... and NEVER use Electri-Q (aka poshifotieoilkdakjsdhwhatever) with Reaper. Trashed my whole mix, because projects with this EQ do not load in Reaper anymore. I had to bypass any plugins during load but my poshioasdgajdsagjh eq settings are gone, because I cannot open the plugin anymore without crashing Reaper (same effect on my WinXP and Vista rigs).

 

[LeSedna]

I'm back from my week. Soon I'll get my laptop prepared with the freebies and I'll be able to come again and read what has been done here.

 

[RiF]

Hello LeSedna, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed your stay in the alps. Have you been skiing? We're awaiting your mix desperately.

 

[Fragle]

Ahhh... and NEVER use Electri-Q (aka poshifotieoilkdakjsdhwhatever) with Reaper. Trashed my whole mix, because projects with this EQ do not load in Reaper anymore. I had to bypass any plugins during load but my poshioasdgajdsagjh eq settings are gone, because I cannot open the plugin anymore without crashing Reaper (same effect on my WinXP and Vista rigs).

+1

while i haven't experienced any crashes with reaper so far, when using cubase/winXp electri-q has been very unreliable to me.
it happened a few times that the system crashed when opening it, and it has also happened that while the system didn't crash completely, everything i did IN THE WHOLE MIX using electri-q was gone after getting an error message and thus reopening the project.
kinda sucks to work for hours on making everything have its own place using eq, just to have it all undone at some point by a program glitch.

anyone know a good and preferably free/cheap alternative to it?
i'm mainly using nyquist eq as of right now, but only 5 bands and no db/hz scale kinda bothers me...so does the whole GUI to be honest.

as for the topic, i haven't been able to download all of the files (yet - veeeery slow internet connection at my place, as well as getting some firefox related trouble opening UM forums in general ), but once i finally DL'd all the files i'll definitely give it a shot....very interesting project & great thread overall

btw, how about a .zip with all the most recent files packed into one?

 

[RiF]

but once i finally DL'd all the files i'll definitely give it a shot....very interesting project & great thread overall

btw, how about a .zip with all the most recent files packed into one?

Hi Fragle, welcome feel yourself invited!
The recording is still in the progress (we have no vocals yet), so the DL-Links maybe scattered across the thread, but LeSedna edits the first post to summarize the most important stuff. Now that he's back from his vacation, he will probably update this very soon (hint hint).

I am still searching for a usable, stable and good sounding free EQ to no avail.

 

[ahjteam]

I am still searching for a usable, stable and good sounding free EQ to no avail.

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/3740.html

 

[RiF]

Stable: Yes, Good sounding: Yes, Usable: leaves something to be desired. No Hi/Lo-Pass filters, just a limited amount of fixed bands... It's just a teaser to buy the real thing.

 

[RiF]

Is this thread still alive? I am still really into this idea, but if nobody participates it's kinda boring...