Could Use Fresh Ears

Im listening on my KRK cans.

Guitar and Bass tone are really cool, kind of raw but perfect for the style, really nice overlap between them but still distinct.

Vocal tones / delays also work for the style, the delay-verb is probably a bit heavy but with goofy grind/death vocals I think it adds some interest to them. The other way you could go would be to saturate the shit out of them and lose some of the verb, which might also be cool. Really with this kind of vocal delivery it hardly matters to me as a listener as long as the attitude is there and its not mixed super up-front.

I dont love the drums though. Mostly I wish the snare and kick had more overall power. The drums overall sound decently recorded but like not a whole lot has been done past that. I dont think this style really calls for slate samples and huge rooms or anything super shlocky but maybe trying to make a sample out of the actual snare track and eq'ing and compressing it aggressively and laying it in could be cool. Or maybe ditch most of the natural snare sound and shoot for more of that old school Morbid Angel / Corpse thing and use a real pingy piccolo snare sample for the bulk of the tone. The low end of the track seems pretty in order, but the kick could be contributing a little more, its dangerous stuff but maybe try some small boosts down there and see how they translate. The click portion of the kick is ok but could be more pronounced also. The cymbals sound like they could use some seek and destroy resonance fishing and a healthy amount of automation, maybe send a little to the snare verb / or the utility track verb to smooth them out a touch, currently they would hurt to listen to for an extended period.

Overall pretty cool, I wouldnt bat an eye if I heard it on a Relapse podcast.
 
Manicompression said:
Im listening on my KRK cans.

Guitar and Bass tone are really cool, kind of raw but perfect for the style, really nice overlap between them but still distinct.

Vocal tones / delays also work for the style, the delay-verb is probably a bit heavy but with goofy grind/death vocals I think it adds some interest to them. The other way you could go would be to saturate the shit out of them and lose some of the verb, which might also be cool. Really with this kind of vocal delivery it hardly matters to me as a listener as long as the attitude is there and its not mixed super up-front.

I dont love the drums though. Mostly I wish the snare and kick had more overall power. The drums overall sound decently recorded but like not a whole lot has been done past that. I dont think this style really calls for slate samples and huge rooms or anything super shlocky but maybe trying to make a sample out of the actual snare track and eq'ing and compressing it aggressively and laying it in could be cool. Or maybe ditch most of the natural snare sound and shoot for more of that old school Morbid Angel / Corpse thing and use a real pingy piccolo snare sample for the bulk of the tone. The low end of the track seems pretty in order, but the kick could be contributing a little more, its dangerous stuff but maybe try some small boosts down there and see how they translate. The click portion of the kick is ok but could be more pronounced also. The cymbals sound like they could use some seek and destroy resonance fishing and a healthy amount of automation, maybe send a little to the snare verb / or the utility track verb to smooth them out a touch, currently they would hurt to listen to for an extended period.

Overall pretty cool, I wouldnt bat an eye if I heard it on a Relapse podcast.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback! Drums are definitely giving me the most trouble. I'm trying everything I can to get more power out of the snare, but I'm not sure what else to do (other than replacing, which we don't want to do). I think we tuned it too low during tracking. We generally like deep snares, but can't seem to get any real crack out of this one after the fact.
 
Cool dude. No problem, glad to try and help a longtime forum member with fresh unbiased ears. Have you tried parallel compression on the kick and snare? That might help them pop a bit more. Other thoughts if your dead set on a natural sound would be using something like drum leveler to get more consistency out of the close mics. Or to use something like wavesfactory track spacer to open up the frequencies the snare is being masked by on offending instruments. I actually own that plug and really find it useful, plus its not super expensive.
 
Manicompression said:
Cool dude. No problem, glad to try and help a longtime forum member with fresh unbiased ears. Have you tried parallel compression on the kick and snare? That might help them pop a bit more. Other thoughts if your dead set on a natural sound would be using something like drum leveler to get more consistency out of the close mics. Or to use something like wavesfactory track spacer to open up the frequencies the snare is being masked by on offending instruments. I actually own that plug and really find it useful, plus its not super expensive.
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm using Drum Leveler on both Kick and Snare already. Snare also has a small amount of parallel compression, and also an additional compressor. Both are set to let the attack through in hopes of bring out some crack. They certainly help, but it still doesn't have the power we want. I don't normally have this kind of trouble, so it's pretty frustrating to hear what is wrong, but run out of ideas on how to fix it

If I can't figure something out today, I might tune the snare higher and record my own samples for replacement
 
Yeah, bass and kick sound better on this one. I feel the cymbals have some really abrassive harshness to them that distracts me from the rest of the mix, and there's a weird noise coming from the snare, like overcompressed/distorted bottom snare that seems to be gated with the top snare, it's really noticeable in the fast parts. I would automate the snare up in the blast beats near the beginning, cause I can't hear it at all in that part.

Apart from that though, it sounds awesome! Love the vocal verb, as said above it's exagerated but I think it works perfectly here, and guitars/bass are crushing.
 
DanLights said:
Yeah, bass and kick sound better on this one. I feel the cymbals have some really abrassive harshness to them that distracts me from the rest of the mix, and there's a weird noise coming from the snare, like overcompressed/distorted bottom snare that seems to be gated with the top snare, it's really noticeable in the fast parts. I would automate the snare up in the blast beats near the beginning, cause I can't hear it at all in that part.

Apart from that though, it sounds awesome! Love the vocal verb, as said above it's exagerated but I think it works perfectly here, and guitars/bass are crushing.
Click to expand...
Thanks Dan! Was this in reference to the mix posted in my last post?

Yeah the snare has given me a lot of trouble. I'm not sure what the issue is with it. I used an SM57 on top and a AKG 451EB on the bottom. It was my favorite bottom snare mic of any I tried on the snare alone. It seemed less harsh, with more air, but maybe in the mix that creates a less punchy snare. There's not much I can do about the blast beat - unfortunately he was hitting the snare so softly the hi-hat bleed is actually louder in the snare mic than the snare haha. In order to get more punch I actually used an exciter on the snare, maybe it's causing noticeable distortion in certain places?
 
Do you have slate VMR? The FG 401 gets you a good amount of snappiness on the snare. for the kick try a distortion plugin; but only a part of the high frequencies.
 
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