Kevin Talley Mixing Contest - DEATH "Crystal Mountain" cover DIs

my attempt


Sounds very filtered. Drums are on the compressed/clicky side, kinda Tue Madsenish, and that's ok, but the rythm guitars sound kinda hollow and weird and unclear and too quiet.
Sounds almost like you panned 2 rythm guitars on each side with the exact same pan instead of spreading them slightly like L100 L80 R80 R100.

In general, I'd say the mix could use more low-end and body.

(not saying my mix is any better though... far from it :) )
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@JeffTD : if you listen to your processed room track, is it mainly snare (and maybe a little bit of toms and even kick) in here or also cymbals ? I'm trying to gate out the cymbals but i still suck at gating and after tweaking with the parameters i failed...
Is there a way to keep mostly the shells in that track via processing ?
And if so, how exactly would you do it (gate ? EQ (filtering) then gate ? Gate settings ? Sidechain gating ?) ?

EDIT : this is what you get when you're used to MIDI into Superior 2 with tweakable bleed for each drums mic :)
 
Sounds very filtered. Drums are on the compressed/clicky side, kinda Tue Madsenish, and that's ok, but the rythm guitars sound kinda hollow and weird and unclear and too quiet.
Sounds almost like you panned 2 rythm guitars on each side with the exact same pan instead of spreading them slightly like L100 L80 R80 R100.

In general, I'd say the mix could use more low-end and body.

(not saying my mix is any better though... far from it :) )

Yeah i was having trouble with the bass coz it was recorded badly, i think i over compressed the low end too much in the master chain, i knew it sounded hollow as soon as i listened to another mix :p
 
Yeah i was having trouble with the bass coz it was recorded badly, i think i over compressed the low end too much in the master chain, i knew it sounded hollow as soon as i listened to another mix :p

Alright, that explains it :)

What did you do for guitars by the way ? Used the processed tracks or reamped them ? If the latter, what did you do exactly (signal chain, pan, volume...) ?

Well, same as Jeff I am not that interested in the contest, but I really like to have some reals drums to mix. I think this is the second or third time I mix drums beside SD2 :D

Didn't came out thaaat bad I hope: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/32193848/KevinTalleysDrums.ogg

Sounds really cool, nice job on the snare !
I think the kick could use more lows/body tho'.
 
Alright, that explains it :)

What did you do for guitars by the way ? Used the processed tracks or reamped them ? If the latter, what did you do exactly (signal chain, pan, volume...) ?
.

i used tse x50 into s pres high and a random impulse, i panned them 100% LR and 80% LR, hmm i might try backing off the compression on the drums a little bit and try using the processed guitars instead
 
i used tse x50 into s pres high and a random impulse, i panned them 100% LR and 80% LR, hmm i might try backing off the compression on the drums a little bit and try using the processed guitars instead

Alright ! I feel the processed guitar tracks sound kinda weird/lame and that you might be getting better results with reamping (and TSE X50 + good impulses is a good start to begin with :) ), BUT at the same time i'm curious to hear what you can do with them.
 
ah Yeah, I was slamming the lows way too hard. this is with the processed guitars
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ah Yeah, I was slamming the lows way too hard. this is with the processed guitars


Sounds better already ! Not too fond of those guitars though (they sound too unclear to begin with, i guess due to lots of gain and reverb for quadtracked rythm tracks).
Now that you got your master compression alright, i guess you should go back to reamping the guitars :)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@JeffTD : if you listen to your processed room track, is it mainly snare (and maybe a little bit of toms and even kick) in here or also cymbals ? I'm trying to gate out the cymbals but i still suck at gating and after tweaking with the parameters i failed...
Is there a way to keep mostly the shells in that track via processing ?
And if so, how exactly would you do it (gate ? EQ (filtering) then gate ? Gate settings ? Sidechain gating ?) ?

EDIT : this is what you get when you're used to MIDI into Superior 2 with tweakable bleed for each drums mic :)

I'll post a raw sample of that track later tonight. It's a lot of midrange dirtiness from cymbals and then grunge from the shells. only processing was some eq, high pass at like 300, low pass at 5-6khz IIRC, and then a dip around 3-5khz.
 
Here's the demo (click link for full files; original room, room via 1176, 1176 room w/eq, drum mix sans-room, mix w/room):

[SOUNDCLOUD]http://soundcloud.com/jtdunne/sets/crystal-skull-1176-demo[/SOUNDCLOUD]

I should note I've also cut out all tom & spot mic bleed:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/392637/Pictures/CMSession.png

And here's what the EQ looked like for the mono mic; I was wrong about the settings I listed previously:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/392637/Pictures/RoomEQ.png

thanks jeff. much appreciated.
 
have you noticed there's no kick bleed at all in all tracks?
I guess he recorded the kick with a pad to avoid bleed, or played the parts on a kick drum very softly (with a trigger on it of course)

did notice it right away ses. was weird at first but it'S awesome because you don't have the kicks in the oH's and room.