Any advice for this mix/master?

[NicholasDWolfwood]

Hey guys, I'm back again. Still working on this song, still working on this demo. lol.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1186608/20090821 03 The Spiral of Withering.mp3

You can skip to around the 3:10 mark, as it's just a clean guitar intro up until there.

Guitars were 100L/100R:
ESP/LTD EC-50 (ESP LH-150 pickups, stock) -> Line6 Toneport UX1 (Clean) -> TSS (0/10/10) -> Dirthead (Red Channel) -> kefir (Mesa Trad 4x12 V30 SM57 01.wav) -> C4 (Sneap's preset) -> ReaEQ (LP @ 7500, some notching to make room for the bass to cut through)

The clean guitar in the beginning is that same chain, except it's going from the Toneport into a clean amp sim (via Waves GTR3) and Ryan's s-preshigh.

EQs for the L and R in Dirthead were slightly different (more bass and less mids in L).

Bass was split into two signals
Ibanez GSR200 (stock pickups) -> Presonus Firebox -> X-Hum -> GGate -> C4 (Sneap) ->
1: TSS (10/0/7.6) -> AmpegSVX (My custom Alex Webster-modeled SVT4-Pro preset with the bass cut and more mids/highs) -> kefir (E_4x10_57_A107.wav) -> W1 (-5.5dB ceiling, -30db threshold, 71ms)
2: AmpegSVX (AW preset with bass boosted and mids lowered/highs cut) -> kefir (SWR 15 441 edge - 6dB.wav) -> (-5.5db/-30db/71ms)

Drums were SD2 (Morgoe's snare gog, EQ on the kick and toms to make them less boomy, OH has slight additive EQ so it cuts in the highs better)

Vocals are a simple track recorded with an SM57 into the Toneport with ReaEQ, L2 slamming it, then some verb and delay.


The mix is probably the best I'm going to be able to do with my limited AE knowledge and with the source guitar tracks that I'm getting (I don't know whether it has to do with the Toneport, him not going through a DI, the pickups, or what but I just don't get any good tones other than Dirthead and SoloC no matter how much I sit and tweak 7170/8505/Wagner Sharp/etc.)

The master is where I need to improve upon. This is probably going out to some labels to get the band signed, so I want to make sure the master is as good as possible. To my ears it's not clipping, but my ears aren't as trained as some of yours are.

On the master, I have these going:

RComp (199 Attack/Release, 1.5 Ratio, 0db Threshold, Arc/Opto/Warm, -7.5dB Gain)
L2 (-1dB Threshold, 0dB Ceiling, 1000 Release, 16bit Quantize/Type1 Dither/Ultra Shaping)
L1 (-1.5dB Threshold, -2.5dB Ceiling, 1.0 Release)

The mix is peaking at -2.5dB - I'm not sure if that's pretty loud or what but I tried to get as close as I could (in terms of loudness) to some albums that I had loaded into Winamp at the time (Celtic Frost's "Monotheist", SYL's "Alien", All Shall Perish "Awaken the Dreamers"). Again, to my ears I don't hear clipping but your ears might hear better.

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

anyone...not looking for much here, just some simple "its pumping, try lowering the overall gain" or "don't use rcomp, use xxx instead" or "it sounds good, maybe try boosting the mids" or whatever.

 

[slayercannibalsuffohead]

I can hear a bit of FROST in that. Youve done well mix wise, apart from the vocal in the middle half of the song getting washed out, and to me, not enough ambience at the start (first couple of mins). Im no where near an AE critic, but I think its quite tidy, no slamming to be heard here. I think overall its great, mix and master wise, just coulda been a little different in the laying down stage, but thats bugger all, well done.

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

thanks man, really appreciate the feedback. I was thinking about playing with the clean guitar a bit and seeing how that goes in terms of different effects etc. original drafts of the song also had a couple of lead bass parts going in and out but they ended up getting scrapped for one reason or another.

when you say washed out (in regards to the vocals), you mean just getting pushed into the background more?

this mix is probably the most frustrated I've ever been in regards to music. it's actually been almost a month since the guitar tracks were originally recorded, and I'm still playing with the mix haha. but now I think I've found a happy median, especially because it's a demo and it's not like we're working with a $50k studio budget. it took me quite a bit to make sure everything was balanced properly, and a lot of why the mix is this good is by reading this forum and observing the mixes of others.

anyways thanks for the feedback, hope to hear more soon when the rest of this demo is finished.

 

[slayercannibalsuffohead]

Cool dude. Yep, ya right, by washed out I mean kicking in the background. I thought the best mix of ambience and vox came at the end. Keep up the good work mate, more will chime in soon.

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

anyone else? I'm really proud of this mix, just wondering if anyone else had suggestions/comments (either on the mix or the song itself, performance or writing-wise)

 

[DanLights]

Can't find a way to criticize the mix, I think it's pretty good. Now on songwriting I must say I terribly dislike the first clean guitar riff, those half-tone progressions tend to irritate me, but I guess it's just me, I've even heard super commercial bands like Muse do stuff like that and my stomach aches when I hear it.

Sorry if it sounds offensive, that's really not my intention, just giving a VERY personal opinion. is this your band, or some band you're recording?

 

[exzem]

I Agree about the intro lacking ambience, imo add something(piano/synths/ambient samples/processed guitars/whatever) to get more depth like in the ending. I think the drums sound a bit fake, maybe change the velocity around or/and add more reverb to make it sound better. OH:s/hats could definitely need some verb.

 

[TheDude]

I would raise the guitars a bit, and try to get a wall of noise behind the "coffin-voice".

 

[NicholasDWolfwood]

Can't find a way to criticize the mix, I think it's pretty good. Now on songwriting I must say I terribly dislike the first clean guitar riff, those half-tone progressions tend to irritate me, but I guess it's just me, I've even heard super commercial bands like Muse do stuff like that and my stomach aches when I hear it.

Sorry if it sounds offensive, that's really not my intention, just giving a VERY personal opinion. is this your band, or some band you're recording?

it's the guitar player/vocalist and me, I originally only joined on session bass but I'm doing bass, drum programming, production, and some lyrics and riffing as well.

I'm going to talk to him tonight about adding something else to the intro aside from the clean guitar. like I said, the original draft of the song had some bass parts that were buried in effects but they ended up getting scrapped for one reason or another. maybe we'll work out some other piano/synth parts or something.

as far as the drum velocities go, it definitely sounds more human this way as opposed to the first drum track we did for it (with one snare sample, rather than a full gog) but I'm going to go in tonight and probably mess with the velocities and what not.

and try to get a wall of noise behind the "coffin-voice".

in general, or during the intro?