Help with this mix? Frustration point reached.

[ruckus328]

Hey guys, I think I've reached the point with this mix where I think I definitely need some outside criticism and advice (and please be brutal). I'm definitely at the frustration point. The clip starts from about halfway in the song. This is only at an instrumental stage, vocals haven't been recorded yet. This is the first mix I've ever done - I think it sounds just ok but I want to do better so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

The song (and band for that matter) is very synth heavy which I've just started to mix in. It currently is only present in the breakdown but there also will be synths in the other parts as well. It's proving to be quite an automation/eq nightmare and seems to be muddying things up.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4740474/Witness_The_Truth_Breakdown_Sample_320.mp3

Things to point out:

1) I have a nasty frequency whistle around 2300K in the guitars. I've cut about 5db with a q of 6.5 but I can still hear it (especially at the end). I need to cut deeper (down around -10 or so) but is it unusual to be cutting 10db or more? Also is that too wide of a q? Like I said, I'm still new to this so I don't know what's common and what's not.

2) Still struggling with the leads in the chorus. For the life of me I can't get it to sit in with the rhythms, it still seems like it's on top of them.

3) Things still seem a little muddy and I've already cut alot of 300-500. Cut more? lol

4) Keys/Choir seem thin to me. Should a try some tape saturation or something of the sorts to thicken em up?

Also, I don't have and eq on the master chain (everything eq'd individually)and it's not smashed to hell either (yet lol) (it's at about -12RMS at the moment). There's 2 instances of gclip and a limiter with about -2db of limiting, that's all.

 

[waltz mastering]

Sounds pretty decent for a first mix. Cymbals disappear..not hearing much of them.. and there aren't to many transients (attack) left on the drums... The gclip and bwl is probably stealing some of that away and causing some overall punch to be lost...also, guitars seem a tad buzzy.. Do you have any individual channel or buss compression going on with the drums? I would decrease it if you do... not hearing a lot definition in the bass guitar (maybe bring up 200-300hz). Snare needs to come up. 2 cents.

 

[Wisheraser]

1) If you feel a 10dB cut is necessary to make your guitar tone better, then do it. There really are no strict rules that you have to follow. If there were, everyone's mixes would sound the same, lol. Take a cue from Nike and just do it (thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the fish).

3) Yeah probably. Try cutting a bit higher too, say from 300 up to 650-700.

 

[AerialThesis]

The overall sound is fantastic, I'd like to hear more dynamics tought

 

[ruckus328]

Thanks guys, this is just the kind of stuff I need to hear. After a listen with a fresh set of ears the drums definitely sound thin to me and the snare seems like it's got too much splash/crash to it and not enough crack/whack. Turned off all limiting/clipping on the master chain and it doesn't seem like they're the culprits. Tried backing off the parrallel drum comp and putting a slight high shelf on it to help bring down that high freq crash. Turned up the close mic on the snare. Also messed with the compression on the snare and added a little bit of transient shaping via transx. That helped somewhat. Now the snare seems to crack real nice but is very thin and doesn't seem to be in the mix. I need to mess with it a little more, will post my progress soon.

I also seem to have greatly overlooked the importance of the room mics haha. Put a limiter on them and brought them up in the mix. Really helped make them sound bigger.

One more question - I'm struggling with the plate verb on the snare/toms. I just can't get it right. There's either too much and it sticks out like a sore thumb or not enough and everything seems reall dry. Do you guys usually compress the verb? Is there a general place to start with eq on the verb? Sorry for the noobness, this is still new to me.

Thanks again guys.

 

[arv_foh]

Thanks guys, this is just the kind of stuff I need to hear. After a listen with a fresh set of ears the drums definitely sound thin to me and the snare seems like it's got too much splash/crash to it and not enough crack/whack. Turned off all limiting/clipping on the master chain and it doesn't seem like they're the culprits. Tried backing off the parrallel drum comp and putting a slight high shelf on it to help bring down that high freq crash. Turned up the close mic on the snare. Also messed with the compression on the snare and added a little bit of transient shaping via transx. That helped somewhat. Now the snare seems to crack real nice but is very thin and doesn't seem to be in the mix. I need to mess with it a little more, will post my progress soon.

I also seem to have greatly overlooked the importance of the room mics haha. Put a limiter on them and brought them up in the mix. Really helped make them sound bigger.

One more question - I'm struggling with the plate verb on the snare/toms. I just can't get it right. There's either too much and it sticks out like a sore thumb or not enough and everything seems reall dry. Do you guys usually compress the verb? Is there a general place to start with eq on the verb? Sorry for the noobness, this is still new to me.

Thanks again guys.

Try a different type of reverb until you find one that works. I usually highpass and lowpass verb and use some EQ, but I don't ever compress it.

I think your mix sounds pretty good and that you're being overly critical of yourself. I do the same thing when I'm mixing something.

 

[Wackner]

Nice mix - Drums a bit to low i think.

How did make the stereo effect on 0.33 ? Sounds cool

 

[Jamieoldfield]

i think he used glitch? a free vst

 

[ruckus328]

Thought this thread died lol.

Done alot of work to those drums since I posted this. Sounds alot better now. Will have to put a new clip up soon.

The edit was done with glitch. Awesome plugin. Pretty sure that's what TDWP is using on their albums.