Early mix I'm working on for a band...

[nwright]

Not my band, but this is a mix I started tonight for a band and I'd like to get some early feedback.

The drums are all 100% V-Drums. There are like 10 individual cymbal tracks, and extra 2 or 3 tracks their drummer calls "noise tracks". Basically bleed tracks for realism. Just trying to get the cymbals level is crazy. I'm used to stereo OH's, not 10 tracks of individual cymbals!

Bass drum is V drum sample with about 25% of Andy's kick sample.

Snare is 50/50 V Drum sample and Andy's snare.

Toms are untouched V Drum samples. I think they sound like ass, personally, but I'm waiting to see if the drummer cares if I change them up.

Guits are 5150II and Marshall AVT150 through a Marshall 1960 and Peavey 5150 cab. Sounds almost like an LoG Mark IV tone, to me anyway. I set up the mikes for the guits and only had HD280's to check tone, but I like the way they turned out. Miked with a single 57 with the mic on axis at the edge of the dustcap...Which the dustcaps on T75's is pretty large, so it's further out than a V30.

Anyway, thoughts?

http://geetarguy.tripod.com/Loaded_Pistol.wma

 

[BushmasterM4]

Sounds very nice. Its hard for me to judge listening on my home pc (Klipsch Speakers). I usually mix through my studio monitors and then play on my home stereo system. If it sound good there then its fine. Anyway I'll move it to my mp3 player and give it a try.

 

[smy1]

I like it a lot, except for the snare sound. Sounds too similar on successive hits. Also the snare is a bit to "boiiing" instead of "taktak", if you know what I mean ...

Level wise: Cymbals are kinda low in the mix. Guitars are overpowering everything. Vocals need more level and "vocal production" (fx, pannings, etc.) but since it is early in the mix, you have time to do that.

Tone wise: I love the guitars, kicks and toms.

Overall: thumbs up!

 

[JeffTD]

For gods sake, post it in something other than a wma!

 

[demeyed]

I like the sound of that. At times the vocals were a little lost in the mix but overall I really like the tone of it.

 

[nwright]

Haha, mp3's seem to lose something that wma's don't!

sorry.

 

[ochants76]

Sounds pretty good but the drums remind me of bad 80s pop music.

 

[C_F_H_13]

I like the guitar tone alot actually...but yeah...drums aren't doing it for me sonically.

 

[Unavailable]

Great job man! Gotta agree with the rest of the guys about the drums though. Too programmed sounding.

 

[gibbed]

The snare, in particular, needs less bottom mike "wire" sound and more smack. I agree with you on the toms.

 

[billcraftmetal15]

i like tthe guitars, can't hear much bass, but at college with shit speakers, so may be fine, i agree that the toms are awful lol. if i were you id change them up regardless of what the drummer says!

just an idea if you're having problems with 10 cymbal tracks, why don't you get them all level how you like, and panned according to how you want them, then route them all to a stereo group track which you can then treat as thought its a stereo overhead?! maybe even throw some toms/snare for bleed if you want that...just an idea...

 

[nwright]

Thanks for the tips.

Bshuker, that's actually what I did. I set the cymbals how I liked them, or at least how I liked them then. I then routed them all to a stereo group and applied a little bit of reverb to simulate bleed. I think what makes it hard is every time listen back, I end up wanting to change a cymbal here or there. With regular stereo OH's, I'm not tempted to keep tweaking, as the ability to do so isn't there.

As for the drums, the problem I'm having is even if I do use replacement samples, the original samples the drummer used for his V Drums are not real dynamic in terms of velocity. They are all pretty much full strength. The toms seem to have more velocity ranges, this can be seen in the audio waveforms. The snare is pretty much full strength hits every time, so he must have set his drum brain up with less dynamics on the snare. I'm using drumagog right now on the snare and I have it set for dynamic tracking and I'm using 7 different snare hits, but it still sound pretty mechanical.

As a reference, here's the band's Myspace, with songs from their previous CD. They used the V drums on it as well, and had this mixed by some dude who used to work with Megadeth or something...

www.myspace.com/beyondagony

 

[ScottCash]

Man, I think this song is pretty cool. Love the vocalist! Can't comment much on the mix as I am listening on Laptop speakers but it sounds pretty darn good to me! Vocals did get buried a little around the 2:00 mark. I always think it is funny how people go to great lengths to explain instrument setups but there is never anything about the setup for the vocals! They sound all-pro! How did you get that sound? I hate recording vocals.

 

[nwright]

I'm not sure how they recorded the vocals. Some relatively low cost condenser, I do know that.

I used Waves RVox, a little EQ (3 dB boost at 1kHz with a Q of 2 and A 1.5 dB boost @ 10kHz with a q of 5) and a little bit o' verb.

I used that "Chrissy" plug in for a short little section of spoken type stuff for a tape saturation effect.

Didn't do a whole lot to them at this point, I may do a bit more.

 

[kaomao]

Goddamn that's great!
nothing to complain, I think it's perfect, it's not the usual crapcore that you can hear everyday on myspace and such.

 

[nwright]

^Thanks.

Updated mix, in MP3 FORMAT!!!!!

http://geetarguy.tripod.com/Loaded_Pistol.wav.mp3

 

[Unavailable]

Much better.