Heavy Brutality!!

[DEFIED]

Hey guys, I need your help on checking this mix of mine. I posted this song a while back and got some help from your guys and applied all of your advice. But we recently reamped the guitars and pretty much remixed the whole song. So far, everyone is happy with the mix, but I wanted some more pointers from the pros to try and make it even better! Every little thing helps guys, thank you for all of your guidence!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11047252/Ashland Final Mixing 8-17-11.mp3

 

[Pipotron3000]

Hi !
I find the overall sound good.

I find the kick too clicky.
If you remove some high end click, you can push it more upfront

Snare is a little backward.
Guitars are a little too loud for me.

Solo guitar got too much low end, so it mud out the mix.Try some low cut on it

Nice song

 

[DEFIED]

Awesome man, thanks for your help! Yea the solo was sounding too massive for me too and not cutting through enough. What exactly do you mean by the snare being backward though?

 

[Pipotron3000]

I think snare sound good, but just a little too quiet

 

[DEFIED]

Oh ok, Im a tard hehe.

 

[Turtlemod]

I love the snare, wish it was a little bit louder. Something sounds weird about the vocals to me, almost as if they too "clean". Otherwise, i like it

 

[DEFIED]

Thanks man! Maybe add a little grit to the vocals then?

 

[Robert Landrum]

I think the vox needs either some verb or delay or both to fatten them up some and make them less "clean" sounding. They lack body and power and I think the verb or delay would help with that. Guitars are not my cup of tea but it works. Snare needs to come up some. Cut some high end off the kick and bring it up as well.

 

[Pipotron3000]

I see i'm not the only one thinking snare is a little too quiet.
And kick is too bright/clicky

My ears are not so bad finally...


The problem with too clicky kicks (and i hear a lot on demos uploaded on this forum) are the big transients.
Too much transients mean you reduce the kick level to tame them...so you only hear the click and don't get the punch of the kick

In electro music (and with double/triple miked kick), you mix the kick punch ,without click, first and after you introduce the click, just to complete it.

You can try this (if you only got a single miked kick) : use an high self EQ, reduce the high end to get only the punch of the kick without any click.
Set the level of the kick without click.
And re-introduce the click a little, just to "help" the kick being clearer in the mix.

It should work

 

[DEFIED]

That's a lot of great info right there guys thank you so much! I talked to the band too and there were some other things they wanted to do also. So here is an updated version

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11047252/Ashland Final Mixing 8-19-11.mp3

 

[Pipotron3000]

Better kick
And better cymbals too.
Snare is still a little behind for me.
Try to reduce a little the stereo panning of guitars, and set their level after that, just to hear if it is better

Solo is better, need may be some spark in the high mids (3.5-5kHz) to stand out better.

Voices are too dry (some delay/reverb ?) and may be adding a bus/leveler compressor to them will help fit better in the mix (something like Density MKII/FerricTDS(freeware), LA2A...).
I find them "bright", too.Probably because the rest of the mix is now darker...may be some tweaking later in the 3.5-5kHz on some tracks ?
And i think they are too loud in the mix, and it is probably because they are too raw to fit nice.

Better mix for sure
I would even say, apart too raw/loud vocals, it could go to mastering like this

 

[Charles J]

The first mix you posted sounds almost EXACTLY the same as what our completely RAW records sound like when tracking is JUST wrapping up and I haven't done JACK to the tracks except throw a sample on the kick!

so i guess in other words i'd say it doesn't sound BAD, but it defo could use a BIGGER, over produced kind of sound because the music is actually fucking cool!

 

[PhilTheBeard]

The first mix you posted sounds almost EXACTLY the same as what our completely RAW records sound like when tracking is JUST wrapping up and I haven't done JACK to the tracks except throw a sample on the kick!

so i guess in other words i'd say it doesn't BAD, but it defo could use a BIGGER, over produced kind of sound because the music is actually fucking cool!

+1 to all of this

 

[Sam Bottner]

guitars could use a little more gain too

 

[DEFIED]

Yea the vocals are still hard for me to get right. I'll try a little more verb and it does have a little Ferric on them too. Guitars have only been EQ'd a tad and that's about it. I have a comp. on the master bus and a tape eq too and that's it. I don't have the skills yet to master stuff. But just trying to get a louder volume right now without damaging it too much. What would you suggest to get that bigger over produced sound? Messing more with the individual instruments or playing with the master bus?

 

[Charles J]

Yea the vocals are still hard for me to get right. I'll try a little more verb and it does have a little Ferric on them too. Guitars have only been EQ'd a tad and that's about it. I have a comp. on the master bus and a tape eq too and that's it. I don't have the skills yet to master stuff. But just trying to get a louder volume right now without damaging it too much. What would you suggest to get that bigger over produced sound? Messing more with the individual instruments or playing with the master bus?

For a bigger, over-produced, brutal kind of sound it's going to be a combo of the individual instruments and to a lesser extent, your 2BUSS.

I find mixing through a comp, limiter, saturation etc. on the 2BUSS really helps bring the mix together QUICKLY and less overall processing on the individual elements themselves is usually a benefit of this...

 

[Turtlemod]

too much grit on the vocals in the updated mix. And they're too loud.