In which order do you approach your metal mixes and why?

[RiF]

I wonder how do you guys approach mixing metal songs and why?
There are several "tactics" around, some of them are:
- "All faders up": Move all faders up and mix everything in place from there until it is balanced.
- "Drums -> Bass -> Vocals -> Rest": Start with the drums only, then add the bass and make it sit, then vocals and make it sit and then mix the remaining track around this without touching too much of the drums/bass/vocals afterwards.
- "Important track first": Start with the track that seems to be the most important one for you. This is clear if you have a singer/acoustic guitar song, but what about metal? Drums? Guitar? Vocals? Dunno...

What do you do to make everything sit right together?
I am asking because I currently have kind of a problem making grunted vocals sit in the mix, because they collide with almost everything else (especially guitars).

 

[LeSedna]

I personnally use the ahjteam method he posted a long time ago.

- bass first
- kick / other drums
- then vocals or guitars
- rest

I try to make it sound good just by panning and moving the faders.

 

[shred101]

I've always done it drums>bass>guitars>vocals>everything else.

 

[RiF]

I've always done it drums>bass>guitars>vocals>everything else.

So do you mix (eq, compression, ...) the vocals AROUND the guitars without touching the guitars once they're in place?

 

[YoRich]

I personnally use the ahjteam method he posted a long time ago.

- bass first
- kick / other drums
- then vocals or guitars
- rest

Same Here

 

[gabriel g.]

I´m doing it like in a live situation. Starting by making the drums sound "good", followed by the guitars and bass. The last thing are vocals

 

[shred101]

well it just that I build the foundation of a track first... assuming I know what you mean... but I I generally cut some on the guitars to bring the vocals out more which is why I like to have them in place first. I'll always adjust stuff afterwards maybe bring guitars down or kicks up whatever.

 

[Morgan C]

Drums, Bass, Vocals, Guitars, Synths.. roughly. Then everything gets adjusted a lot.

You never want to get an instrument sound that sounds good, and then base EVERYTHING around it, not touching it. Cos it'll sound shit. Get everything sounding roughly good, in whatever order pleases you, then tweak.

 

[RiF]

Can you shed some light on your deep growl vocal / guitar balance? They seem to clash and share the same frequencies... Pro-mixes with growls sound to me as if the vocals have been reduced in their original frequency range A LOT, not only the usual HPF but it sounds as if a lot of highs are taken off as well...

 

[crillemannen]

Same Here

Why would you base your mix on the bass guitar? The drums set the sound on the record so thats why I start with it.
but its cool that people have other ways to approach the mix.
I start with Drums --> kick --> snare -- oh --> toms

So basically :

Drums
Bass
Guitars
Keys (if there is any)
Vox

 

[LeSedna]

Well, anyway, you will most of the time end up setting drums and bass at first, together.

With the bass, what is cool in ahjteam's method is that it makes it a reference at a level you determine. It's easier with the bass because it's more constant than the volume of a kit (which is percussive). And most of the time, it's heavily compressed if not slammed by a limiter. That's what I like in this method, you have an objective (opposed to subjective) location in your mixing process, at least once.

 

[Fragle]

after importing all the tracks, i'll start with grouping everything the way i prefer it.
then i'll push the faders up and try to get a feeling for the song....once i have that mental picture i'll start working on the drums, getting the kick and snare to sound good, balance the overheads etc. then bass, making sure it's sitting tight with the kick. then guitars (although i try to do as little processing as possible on guitars, usually just hp/lp, also multiband comp and/or some slight(!) eq changes IF necessary....if i notice that the tone just doesn't work in a mix i'll reamp. overeq'ing guitars is bad, you're just messing with the phase and it's really obvious imho. of course sometimes you don't have an option...), vocals, leads. i'll usually start getting the drum ambience right before moving over to the vocals.
i'm mostly doing this with the whole track playing, just focusing on a specific instrument. i'll solo for critical changes, but always check back with the full thing playing. automation comes last.

i used to start with just one instrument (mostly drums) and trying to get that one rocking, but i often found myself in a dead end as the killer drum sound i just got going doesn't work with the other instruments.

this is for mixing only obviously. if i also recorded the track i already have my groups sorted out and know where i want to go with the track, so things are easier.

oh, and once i have defined the basic sound and energy of the track, i often slap gclip and a limiter on it to see how it reacts, and mix through it from that point on. i'm not going for any loudness there, just trying to find out how stuff is sitting with a limiter on top. i'll also experiment with 2bus compression somewhere from 50% through the mix.

 

[RiF]

With the bass, what is cool in ahjteam's method is that it makes it a reference at a level you determine.

Sounds like a very good idea to me. And I remember the thread where ahjteam talked about it... Must have been around the time where we (initiated by you) wanted to start an online mixing tutorial project that unfortunately died...

after importing all the tracks, i'll start with grouping everything the way i prefer it.
then i'll push the faders up and try to get a feeling for the song....once i have that mental picture i'll start working on the drums, getting the kick and snare to sound good, balance the overheads etc. then bass, making sure it's sitting tight with the kick. then guitars (although i try to do as little processing as possible on guitars, usually just hp/lp, also multiband comp and/or some slight(!) eq changes IF necessary....if i notice that the tone just doesn't work in a mix i'll reamp. overeq'ing guitars is bad, you're just messing with the phase and it's really obvious imho. of course sometimes you don't have an option...), vocals, leads. i'll usually start getting the drum ambience right before moving over to the vocals.
i'm mostly doing this with the whole track playing, just focusing on a specific instrument. i'll solo for critical changes, but always check back with the full thing playing. automation comes last.

Sounds very reasonable to me!

oh, and once i have defined the basic sound and energy of the track, i often slap gclip and a limiter on it to see how it reacts, and mix through it from that point on. i'm not going for any loudness there, just trying to find out how stuff is sitting with a limiter on top.

Sounds not so reasonable to me (the part "...and mix through it from that point on...").

 

[LeSedna]

Sounds like a very good idea to me. And I remember the thread where ahjteam talked about it... Must have been around the time where we (initiated by you) wanted to start an online mixing tutorial project that unfortunately died...

Oh yeah, unfortunately it tooks so much time to set that in the end almost nobody participated.

I still think that would have been awesome, and plan on setting everything on my own, with a first song, a simple set of plugins (an EQ everybody would like, a comp, a reverb, a limiter, etc, all freebies) so that it would be easy to download and start straight away.

 

[MetalJonesy]

Drums>Guitars>Bass>Vox

 

[462studio]

I tend to approach the mix as a performance in itself. Somewhat of an art. That being the case, which thing I attack first is really dependent on the song, the recording, etc.

 

[Seth Munson]

i actually mix while i track.

i have an idea on how i want the song/ep/album to sound before we even start and i already know how im going to get that sound before we even start.
so its more like by the time everything is tracked we are close to completion. other than some eq'ing here and there and making sure all the levels sit right.

i might also add before we even start in the pre pro stages is where we figure out what the mix will sound like and get it sounding good there. then we record everything to that as a "template" i guess you could say.

but im sure my methods will start to change now that im going to be recording real amps.

 

[462studio]

i actually mix while i track.

I do this to a degree as well, but I don't always track the material that I mix, so that doesn't apply all of the time.

 

[guitarguru777]

Kick Drum > Bass > Vocals > Rest of drums > guitars

 

[JeffTD]

I'm gonna try mixing vocals first sometime soon - I know a lot of FOH dudes do this to make sure they don't end out of space for the vocals, but I think it might be cool ITB as well.