critique a Logic newbie's goofy thrash mix!

orbsonb

penguins jersey guy
Apr 28, 2010
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pittsburgh
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Hey everyone! I'm new to the world of serious music production. Most of my past work has been silly or jokey Garageband stuff, but since I'm trying to do a "real album" for once, I've upgraded to Logic 9. I'm still new to Logic and I have minimal experience with the different effects it has to offer.

Here's an example of what I've been working on:

it's the shortest and most "wacky" song on the record, but it's the only one I'm close enough to finishing for it to be worth sharing.

Some specific areas I'm curious about:

1. How do you suggest I get a full, present bass sound? I tried the trick involving busing a little bit of the bass to a track with stereo chorus, which helps a bit, but it seems like no matter what I do with the bass EQ and compression, I have to settle for either a rumbly, undefined bass that gets lost in the rhythm guitar or an overly punchy, snappy sound that lacks low end presence. In fact, my whole mix feels a little light on the bass side of the spectrum, and I can't tell if the problem is more due to my bass or rhythm guitar sound. How can I give the mix balls without making it muddy?

2. I'm using EZdrummer (metal machine). Should I split my MIDI into several tracks so I can make individual EQ/compression/reverb adjustments on different parts of the kit, or are there any good "sweet spots" I could reach doing that stuff on the drum track as a whole or adjusting the parameters in EZdrummer itself? I'm not a pro, so it's not the end of the world if I don't have the most crystal-clear, flawless drum sound, but I'd like to at least get some presence out of the snare and "oomph" out of the kick without either getting overbearing.

3. The bass drop I threw in at the beginning of the slow part sounds a little "blah" to me, it doesn't seem to sit in the mix quite right. Should I use a different sample? I found this one while browsing this forum ages ago. I can tell it's too loud, but how loud should it be?

Feel free to advise me on anything else you notice, too. I already know there are a few minor timing issues, but I know how to fix those with quantization (or just re-recording them until it's tighter). Again, I'm really new to serious production so any advice will be appreciated!

by the way, the guitar and bass tones were done in pod farm, if for some reason you couldn't tell :p
 
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Update: tweaked a couple things - cut more treble/added a tad of 1-2k midrange/boosted the lows around 80 DB to make the rhythm guitars a little ballsier, tightened up the bass a bit too. Also cut out the vocals because they're not really relevant to what i'm having trouble with. also lowered that bass drop in the mix a little. btw this is really quiet because i did no mastering whatsoever:



let me know what you think i should do to improve!

EDIT: fixed the broken link.
 
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