Grade my Audio Project

[refreshingapathy]

This was somewhat thrown together at the last minute, but here for your ripping apart is my Audio Production IV project, a technical djent-metal song called "Ladies and Djentlemen." (not my composition, I just engineered it).

Few notes:
-drums are all natural. Given more time I would sample / blend and elastic audio to align quite a bit of it - at least the kick and toms.
-guitars are 3 takes through a 2-channel Dual Recto with 4x12 slant cab... ask our favorite pooch fanatic about it, it's his. Used his TS as well as a noise gate and GEQ pedal before. I'll post a pic of the way we mic'd it if you want, its "interesting."

Like I said before, this is my poor attempt at rushing a mix... I'm curious what you would change about it!


Link to song:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/12148/Ladies and Djentlemen Bounce 3.mp3

 

[-Loco-]

drums need to come up a bit, i'd raise your kick by a few decibels in the 2500Hz region with some e.q...low pass on the guitars to get rid of that fizz on the top..I like the bass..the snare sounds a bit too thin..too much treble..try and raise around 500hz region a bit more to give it some more beat..cool song! good for something done quickly..

 

[Joematthews]

The big thing I would change is the guitar tone and kick sound.

The guitar sounds good, it just doesn't sound djenty enough, and thats what this song needs, some metalic djenty goodness to it, as well as a bit more gain. Lead and melodic parts sound good.

I would boost the snare at around 120-200 hz... loco, try this as well, 500hz happens to be the boxy region, where 120-200hz is punch (or mud when overdone).

I would replace the kick with a clickier sample, it sounds like a more burried born of osiris kick at the moment. There are loads of samples on this forum.

Joe

 

[Metaltastic]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO djent tone, this rules Nicely done Rick, I really dig the bass especially, seems to fill things out nicely; does Erik have a bass that you guys used? Guitar tone is pretty bitchin' I feel (no surprise there ), could've used a bit more bite/gain, but it's negligible (and I DEFINITELY don't think it needs to be low-passed). I guess the main thing that stands out to me is the drums being too soft, and the kick having "Kevin Shirley syndrome" of sounding heavily boosted in the nasally 2k range (rather than in the clicky 4-6k range), which has always been a pet peeve. Nice cymbal definition though, and overall nicely done, and better than most of the other crap immortalized in Studio A!

 

[Metaltastic]

Oh yeah, and the snare could definitely come up, and the whole mix is mighty soft (but a twist of the volume knob easily remedies that, of course - it's so much effort though! )

 

[refreshingapathy]

Thanks Marcus, I knew you'd find this eventually

Anyways, you're right, my biggest section of work is the kick, followed by the snare. There's some odd phasey thing going on with the snare that I haven't quite figured out yet, reversing phases gives a nice pop sound but sounds weird, reversing the other way gives a very deep and throaty snare (which I liked, but the rest of the group didn't ).

Thanks to the others for the suggestions on the kick and snare sounds.

 

[Joematthews]

So this is technical djent metal, with the title "ladies and djentlmen" that doesnt actually contain very djenty tone? Seriously this type of music needs that kinda thing going on, or it sounds odd.

As for the snare, just some low boost, and it'll be good. I agree with marcus on the kick, the boost is in too low a frequency range, needs to be 4khz or up.

Also there's something wierd going on at the bottom end (never a good sign ), it pumps too much, or seems uneven, I don't know which, but multiband compression on the bass/drums or master buss will help.

Joe

 

[refreshingapathy]

I do have a light multiband running on the master buss, it probably needs to be tweaked a bit.

Suggestions for making the tone more djenty? Hopefully with EQ as I only have 2 takes clean for reamping (forgot to make a new playlist for the 3rd take).

 

[Joematthews]

I don't think you can really post process djent into a mix, but if you have raw DI's, you can run it out through a reamp box and into a wahh pedal all the way open... should be waayyy tooo djenty, so blend it with an un-djenty tone to get the balance right. If not forget the djent thing and focus on improving the rest of the mix, because the guitar tone is still a good one, just not entierely fitting to this song.

Joe

 

[refreshingapathy]

Ok cool. I will attempt a reamp with a wah pedal, that's not a bad idea. I just left the guitarist to select his own tone between the recto, TS, and GEQ, and recorded it. For the interested parties, the setup looks like this:

The "flying V" of 57s, along with a AKG C1000 for some mid-range beef

And one boundary mic:

Settings on the recto were:
Gain 12:00
Treble 2:30
Mid 3:00
Bass 11:30
Presence 2:00
Master at about 3:00 (hella loud)

Sorry for the crappy cell-phone quality pictures.