Lend Me Your Ears...and advice. Metal Track

[theNeologist]

So the best way I can describe my situation is being at the back of a packed metal concert. I can hear what's going on, and it sounds ok...but i can't push my way to the front where it sounds awesome and I can feel the energy. I go to this side....try that side....over here over there....but can never get to that sweet spot.

I feel that the drums are what is bringing down the mix. My thoughts are snare is too snappy, kick is too floppy, toms are too shnoppy. They are Steven Slate drums and sound good when solo...I think. But when I put it altogether its jsut not working. I've tried so many things that I feel I've hit the end of my knowledge base.

It would be greatly appreciated for some seasoned veterans to listen to this and see....what stands out to you as ....nahh...thats hurting the mix. I by no means expect a ...do thsi do that....but some outside opinion of what is bringing the mix down will give me some confidence for what I need to tackle. But don't hesitate to offer your suggestions for how to fix....I'm all ears:Smokedev:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3422116/MP3... Lost Souls Of A Forgotten Science Test 1.mp3

 

[Tesseden]

overheads are way too quiet, kick needs to be louder too, i hate the snare, guitars sound good though. but yeah i think once you bring up those overheads it should sound a lot better

 

[theNeologist]

overheads are way too quiet, kick needs to be louder too, i hate the snare, guitars sound good though. but yeah i think once you bring up those overheads it should sound a lot better

Awesome...it's a big help getting fresh ears on this. I hear u on the snare... I can't even begin to explain everything I've tried on that snare... And everything seems to have the same result...shitty. Currently I believe I'm using steven slate snare 22 and 10 blended and with sidechained compress and eq...You wouldn't happen to have any suggestions on it would u? Regardless thanks for the post and I'll focus on those kick and overheads!!

 

[KBMoser]

yeah the snare has good ambience but not enough pop. find a way to add pop to it.

and your drums sound wash out because the guitar have to much midrange, or not enough treble and highs. so look into that and that will bring the guitars down and make your mix sound more natual, allowing you to cut ambience on the snare and turn down your loud kick. not bad though man just need some fine tuning and experience.

edit: i need to learn to proof read BEFORE i post lol

 

[theNeologist]

Hahah.

This is great guys. I really appreciate your posts and I'm getting my motivation back jsut reading your tips!

KBMoser....I always found that balancing the midrange on the guitars was the hardest part. Since the mid range is the heart of the guitar I always wanted it there...but not so much to drown the rest of the instruments. But i'm glad you pointed that out so i can see where I'm standing with the midrange. So I'll experiment with dropping that/increasing highs and see if i can get it to sit better.

As for the snare...the blasted snare....by pop I'm imagining the sound of the stick hitting the head....somethibng like the 3-5kHz range? Maybe i'll dabble with that...or cut some mids out of the snare to make it pop more.

Again...much appreciated guys!

 

[Tesseden]

be sure to post the updated mix after u make changes

 

[FadeToMuffins864]

First of neologist, let me just say that this song kicks ass. Secondly, I just want to throw a shout out there for snare 17. That is by far my favorite slate snare sample.

one thing you might want to do is try turning up the room sound, or adjusting the reverb so that it is stereo and not mono. Right now the snare sounds like it is literally a spike only in the middle of the mix and has no assymetry. It doesn't sound like it is diffusing into a stereo space, basically.

The biggest problem with the drums is that they don't sound like a captured recording of one drum set. Each drum sounds robotic and like it exists in its own space apart from every other drum. You need to work on making all the drums exist together in one space, so it sounds like a recording of a drum set.

 

[theNeologist]

FadeToMuffin....I'm very pleased you enjoyed the track..even through my clearly unpolished mixing...so thanks!

And your description for how the drums seemed to be fighting to escape a mono feel makes perfect sense to me and something I've felt as well, despite the fact that "I thought" I had my drums panned. But I decided to test this after reading your post and found I have a problem. I soloed the hi hat, jsut to test, and hard panned 100% left...but found my sound was not panning, but instead staying centralized. I tried panning the main panner in Kontakt, the direct and room mics and even the track that the hi hat was mapped to in pro tools....but nothing...the drum was staying centralized. I tested this with each instrument to ensure it was affecting all pieces and it was.

The main panner for the instrument in kontakt as well as the direct and room mics seemed to only affect the volume with a subtle shift in location...and the fader seemed to reflect where I was placing the pan...but the sound was still coming right down the middle....and the panner on the pro tools track was doing nothing at all. What surprised me the msot is that it doesn't appear to be a common issue as there was only one post I found on this from the steven slate forums and it had no resolve. I must really be missing something....but i am sure this is causing me the "drums in a box" problem.

Soo...I gotta tackle this and figure out wtf is going on.

Here is an updated but very much in progress version. I muted the pianos and strings to get a better sense of the body of the music. I did major adjustments to the drusm and feel they are better than original mix...but still need to spread into stereo space. I also did a tentative pro tools EQ cut to the mids of the guitars...but will be reviewing my eleven rack preset tonight to scoop some mids around where the snare is strongest.

I'll also give that snare 17 a try, becuase even though I feel I've added some pop to the snare....theres still something missing....although it could jsut be the clutter again caused by the stereo issue.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3422116/MP3... Lost Souls Of A Forgotten Science Test 9.mp3