Best I've Got, but not good enough?

[rmallick6806]

Been doing this home-recording thing for a bit over a year now, and this is probably the best result I've gotten...unfortunately. Looking for expert advice as to how to really move on from this rut I'm stuck in.

Problems: Guitars are stale, can't seem to make them pop out out at me and sound 'real'. Bass is muddy, and drums are 'ok'.

Any suggestions? Anything is welcome. Super frustrated right now as to how to improve my mix, spend hours on end trying different combinations of things, with no avail.

http://soundcloud.com/thefutureband/fightmix31

Skip to like a minute in. The intro is just a dummy-filler intro as of now.

 

[kronk_1985]

I'd start by multi-routing the output of ur VST Drum program. That will allow you to compress each element of the drum track individually and make the things that you want to pop (i.e. the kick and the snare), pop.

I'd lower the guitars too, but that's just a personal preference. I'm sure there are some really handy threads around here that you can read and learn from. But my mixes became so much easier to tweak after i did the multi-out thing from Superior Drummer/SSD etc. Don't neglect your "Room" mic either.

 

[rmallick6806]

I've down the multi-out thing and I've compressed the bass drum and snare according to just general hard rock mixing rules. Did some standard Eq'ing as well.

What do you mean by not neglecting the ''Room Mic''.

I'm using SD 2.0 btw.
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My biggest issue is the guitars and how dead they sound. They just don't sound real and "pop out". Would fixing the drums help the guitars out?

 

[oroinvictus]

Drums are okay, but it sounds like DKFH, and there's not much you can do with 'em to get 'em to sound crazy good. Are the guitars dual or quad tracked? I hear an ever-so-slight phase that makes me think quad tracked. It sounds like they need less presence, a little less gain and more mids, maybe around the 400-500hz area.

 

[rmallick6806]

Cory,

Yeah it is DKFH running thru Superior. What other software can I buy/run to get a better sound. I want to get Slate's drums but idk if it works by midi maps and grooves like Superior.

For the guitars, its quad-tracked with 2 of the guitars having some delay on there to create effect of 4 different guitars. Initially, I only dual-tracked, but I couldn't get the guitars to sound real, so loaded up two more tracks with delays and blended Guitarhack's impulses with God's Cab 1.3. It 'seemed' better.

I will definitely try out your suggestions as well; thats the kind of thing I need. Thanks.

 

[oroinvictus]

I've found pretty much all of toontrack's SD2 expansions to be useful in their own way. You can hardly go wrong with the metal foundry or avatar kits. Slate doesn't have any preset grooves like SD2 has, most people will either trigger it or hand-program it (I do the latter). The guitars sound good, the delay just causes a tiny bit of phase. Whatever sounds good to you.

 

[rmallick6806]

I've found pretty much all of toontrack's SD2 expansions to be useful in their own way. You can hardly go wrong with the metal foundry or avatar kits. Slate doesn't have any preset grooves like SD2 has, most people will either trigger it or hand-program it (I do the latter). The guitars sound good, the delay just causes a tiny bit of phase. Whatever sounds good to you.

I might just go to Guitar Center right now and pick up Slate's drum prog. But I wanted to make sure its possible to hand program it. Can I drag and drop Superior's preset grooves into Slates?

 

[oroinvictus]

You could drop some midi in there and it should line up pretty well, yeah. You can also set up whatever keys you want each instrument to be on and so forth. When I bought Slate EX 3.5, it came with Kontakt 3. I also use Kontakt 4 to trigger sturgis' cymbal samples.