Breathless - Asking Alexandria Quick Mix

[UnownLegendary]

Hey guys, I'm new on this forum (although I have been reading some stuff on here for a few months). I do alot of experimentation with mixing and such and I just wanted to know what kind of advice you would have for this mix and some feedback on it. I spent about 2 or 3 days on this since I switched to Reaper and had to learn the ins and outs really quick so heres the link:


https://soundcloud.com/daniel-brantley/breathless-mastered

Tell me what you guys think!


P.S. Can this be considered "mastered"? It has some EQ on it, limiting, etc. but honestly i think the limiter crushed it a tiny bit but that's my opinion

 

[HaydenLM1]

playing needs to be tighter (riff wise)..try using a different kick drum and the guitars needs more power and low end..try manually cutting the unwanted noise on the guitars (yes, breakdowns are a pain to edit, but its worith it)
and mastering its an art on its own..its not just to throw a limiter or a comp on it and thats it..theres more to it

 

[UnownLegendary]

lol thnks for the advice this song was hard to get tight with the guitar because i didnt have my latency calibrated yet but i just fixed that but what about the Justin Bieber - Baby mix i did? personally this song was alot tighter although still not the tightest it cud be

regarding the guitar (im using pod farm) how exactly wud i strengthen the low end? or shud i look to my bass guitar to try and fix that?

also the kick im using is the Truth Black and Gold Kick from joey sturgis and i dont have steven slate yet so i dont have access to kick 10/snare 12a and all that good stuff, however i do have an old kick i got somwhere on this forum (FVF Maple Kit or something) that sounds very similiar to the kick 10 sample and worked in alot of older mixes

in regards to snare is there anything i cud do with it? its the Truth B+G snare and i DO have Snare 1 but i cant use the nki's with it cus i have the demo of Kontakt Player and so i have to use the nki's that already come with my samples

more feedback is appreciated lol

 

[HaydenLM1]

for the low end, try work around with the bass guitar to fill up the low end u actually need..
you can find the slate kicks and snare in this forum or in the sturgis forum, just use the search tool

 

[UnownLegendary]

lol thnks dude ur a huge help

u mean the actual samples are here on the site up for download?
thats insane lol

 

[HaydenLM1]

yeah they are here on the forum somewhere have a look

btw, thats not the best forum to post this mix, people hate this genre here haha

 

[Ericlingus]

I find it hard to believe that slates samples are on this forum. Unless there was like one free one he gave out or something. The mix is a bit muddy and the kick is too buried I think. Try cutting some mids from the guitars and boosting the highs and lows. I don't think it's bad though.

 

[HaydenLM1]

its not the whole slate pack obviously, its just one snare, im sure ive seen it on this forum somewhere..might of been the sturgis forum tho.

 

[Ericlingus]

oh in that case I think you may be right. Do you remember which snare it was? Doesn't really matter for me though since I have slate's samples already just curious.

 

[HaydenLM1]

i think it might be the 10a

 

[The J]

Kick 13, Snare 19.

 

[UnownLegendary]

Well I have this old kick sample that I used in some older stuff so should I use this one or try and get a slate kick?

https://soundcloud.com/daniel-brantley/mpe-kick

tell me what u think

 

[HaydenLM1]

the only way to know is to try

 

[UnownLegendary]

my dad has a version of ssd 3.5 platinum on his laptop (he used to do some mixing stuff pretty recently) so he let me have it and stuff since he didnt use it so i have ssd samples now so what other cool options do i have besides the norm kick 10 snare 12a? lol i didnt know that the slate samples came in kontakt instruments, which is a HUGE help lol.

so i have another question: should i use this kick by itself or shud i blend it with another and if so, what shud i mix it with? i had this somewhat decent thing i used to do with my old hydrogen samples where i wud take a sample, import to audacity, make 4 copies, then increase pitch by 1 and 2 semitones on two samples, then decrease by the same amount of other two samples, then mix them all together, and it was a very solid sound. so any advice regarding these samples wud be a big help

i also had a theory but idk if this wud be an ok place to post it if i cud get an answer lol

regarding the guitar riffs, what if i programmed the guitar (like simple notes such as a chug/quick/held out note for every note on the guitar) and then i tracked the actual guitar part, and I used VocALign on it? wud it align the the guitar track to this grid i created? and thus i cud create near perfect double tracks? its just a theory but cud this work in terms of creating really tight guitar parts?

 

[bryan_kilco]

Not bad. What'd you use for guitars? I hear that chuggy breakdown tone a lot and I can never seem to achieve that myself. Basically sounds like half-palm muted open chords.

 

[UnownLegendary]

i did the guitars with a Pod Farm 2 setup (its decently simple ill write it down below so you can try it out, might wanna tweak it a bit) but with breakdowns like this you kinda want to do quick strums about 2-3 inches from the string bridge so it gets that "tight/quick" type vibe to it, you strum openly but you palm mute it really quickly or just start half palm muted and palm muted completely, its all in the wrist lol just try to get the power of your performance into it, use new strings/sharpened pick (seems dumb, but makes the most unbelievable difference in fluency in your guitar playing, not to mention you want it somewhat thin, but still decently thick enough to bounce back in time for the next chugging note)

heres my Pod Farm 2 setup:
Tone A:
Noise Gate: Weeper: 4 band EQ: Screamer: Treadplate Dual: 4x12 Brit Celest T-75's: Compressor:
30-50 db threshold 75% 3.0 db - 100Hz 20% Drive 60% drive 421 Dynamic -40db threshold
5-20% decay -12.8 db - 300Hz 75% Gain 20% bass 0% room 3db Gain
-12.8 db - 1.5 Khz 30% Tone 35% middle
1.0 db - 6.3 Khz 75% treble
40% presence
70% volume


Tone B:
Noise Gate: Screamer: Treadplate Dual: 4x12 Treadplate: Compressor:
Same 15% Drive 40% drive 57 On Axis Same
90% Gain 40% bass 0% room
30% Tone 65% middle
75% treble
85% presence
70% volume

lol took me a bit to type that but there you go try it out and tell me what you think

 

[UnownLegendary]

sry if it got squished a bit lol

 

[UnownLegendary]

heres my Pod Farm 2 setup:
Tone A:
Noise Gate: // Weeper: // 4 band EQ: // Screamer: // Treadplate Dual: //4x12 Brit Celest T-75's: // Compressor:
30-50 db threshold // 75% // 3.0 db - 100Hz // 20% Drive // 60% drive // 421 Dynamic // -40db threshold
5-20% decay // // -12.8 db - 300Hz // 75% Gain // 20% bass // 0% room // 3db Gain
// -12.8 db - 1.5 Khz // 30% Tone // 35% middle
// 1.0 db - 6.3 Khz // // 75% treble
// 40% presence
// 70% volume


Tone B:
Noise Gate: // Screamer: // Treadplate Dual: // 4x12 Treadplate: // Compressor:
Same // 15% Drive // 40% drive // 57 On Axis // Same
// 90% Gain // 40% bass // 0% room
// 30% Tone // 65% middle
// 75% treble
// 85% presence
//70% volume