Bass less Hardcore Demo Mix

[Grå Värld]

Putting this up for tips/ideas to improve the mix knowing I am a beginner with thick skin so all ideas welcome. The lack of bass was done deliberately because the band are only a three piece (drums/vocals/guitar) and like Pig Destroyer/Magrudergrind.

Guitars: Boss Hm-2 into Peavey 6505 (green channel) w/Mesa Cab using Sm-57 and Audix I5 (double tracked)

Third Guitar: Boss Odb-3 into Ampeg bass head and cab using Sm-57 (centre pan)

Drums: Slate SSD4

Vocals: Ghetto recording by vocalist with some unknown mic

 

[colynomial]

hey- i'm not much of a hardcore guy, but the guitars are pretty squishy and harsh sounding- those boss metal zone pedals kind of a create "bee hive" type sound to my ears... you can try notching out a few of the problem areas by sweeping around the high mids with a really tight EQ (boosted) until you find a spot that is reasonating and hurting your ears, then just notch it down (say -5db or more) until you don't hear it

you can also low pass them down to say 9-12Khz without sacrificing any presence

also, i know you're going for the bassless mix but the center panned guitar really takes up a lot of real estate where the kick and snare should be in the stereo field when it's that distorted...

it's probably too late to redo the guitar tone (unless you can reamp) but i more of a true overdrive sound from the amp would help (ie. just crank the level and don't overdo the gain+pedal - sometimes this doesn't sound "heavy" enough solo'd, but double tracked it sounds great)

the vocals actually sound reasonably good for the style- so good work

 

[Grå Värld]

Thanks for the tips Colynomial - pedal was not Boss Metal Zone but Boss Heavy Metal pedal (swedish death metal entombed sound) - will try sweeping high mids.
Might try notching out area for the kick and snare from the centre panned guitar.

 

[xTomx]

HM-2 should sound exactly like that.


Drums sound much too polished for this genre, try adding lots of saturation and tape distortion a la Ballou.

 

[Grå Värld]

Hey XTOMx - can you give me some more specifics about the saturation on the drums. Do you mean VTM on snare, kick, overheads etc or on the drum bus only
What do you use to make your drums more Ballou?

 

[xTomx]

Drum bus would be a good place to start, and ToneBoosters Reel Bus is a great (cheap) plug-in to get tape saturation done.

 

[MisSigsFan]

Guitar tone reminds me of these guys: http://bearwitness.bandcamp.com/album/iconoclast

I agree, drums sound way too polished, expecially the snare.

 

[xTomx]

Dat fuzz