In Flames - Jesters Dance cover

[gorath23]

I've only been recording for a couple of months, so any constructive criticism is really welcome! I decided to try recording completely silent (no amps involved) - The guitar tracks are Voxengo Boogex for the cleans and Wagner Sharp, quad-tracked with Mesa 4x12/ Marshall 1960 impulses for the rhythm sections and Poid's Engl V30 impulse for the lead bit. Couple of things I acknowledge are that the last harmony part is slightly wrong (I think bad tab, the guitar was perfectly in tune) and the bass may be unbalanced. It sounds fine on my monitors and headphones but I tried it on my home stereo and the bass track is quite prominent. Any tips would be helpful, especially the mastering element; I've been focusing on researching the mixing side of things mainly for the last couple of months but my mastering process was pretty basic.

EDIT: NEW MIX http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=785377&songID=6411512

 

[gorath23]

FIXED

 

[jesus69lol]

First off the drums are nor so good, did you edit them at all it sounds like the stock ezd sound. The cover itself sounds pretty spot on but yea the bass is no good either. Also something about your clean guitar sounds kinda washy and far away. The distorted guitar sounds great tho, for what thats worth.

 

[gorath23]

I used settings that Andy talked about in an interview, at least for the Toms, Overheads and Snare (EQ and Comp). The Drums are Mainly the Sonor kit from DFH, I used the Haake snare though.I really dislike all the snares that come with DFH, they sound really tinny straight off. Specifically what was it about the drums and bass that you didn't like? I guess for the clean guitars I could shift the wet and dry balance for the reverb. Any tips on really bringing out the Kick, without making it sound clicky?

 

[Torniojaws]

Any tips on really bringing out the Kick, without making it sound clicky?

Dig a hole for it in all the other instrument tracks. And bring the drums up a lot more than they currently are. They're completely drowned out by the guitars.

 

[gorath23]

Thanks for the help guys, I guess I'm looking for any more info on how to get my drums to stand out a bit more. Obviously Frequency slotting is one way, but I feel the Kick is pretty weedy, as is the snare. I had some luck with running my Kick through a Tube Preamp VST to fatten it up and then applied some EQ settings that Oz talked about on his Mixing tutorial. Anything else? Particularly interested in the idea of blending two different kicks with different EQ's- something else that Oz mentioned. What about for Snare?

 

[gorath23]

OK I remixed it, tightened up the bass and (hopefully) brought out the kick a bit more as well as balancing the drum/guitar volume ratio a bit. I can't do too much with the clean guitar, it sounded bad going in so.... I did pull the reverb back on it, and pushed the dry signal up. However I think I've already surpassed this drum sound with my next recording (used some samples for kick, snare and toms to beef it up a bit). I have deliberately avoided bringing out too much 'click' on the kick drum, as I really hate that sound, but I admit it could probably do with a little more high end tweaking, I wanted it to sound more natural.