Mammoth - The distant me (now with vocals!)

Jarkko Mattheiszen

Jarkko Mattheiszen

The FU guy.
Jul 31, 2006
6,519
12
38
Lappeenranta, Finland
www.tainted-studio.com
I tracked vocals for this one yesterday with a friend of mine who wanted to give shot at screaming vocals. Here's the first rough mix:

http://www.tainted-studio.com/misc/Mammoth - The distant me wip8 vox.mp3

There's going to be two guitar solos, but they aren't tracked yet, so there's a couple of "blank spaces" still left :)

As always, feedback appreciated! :loco:

EDIT:
Right, the song is now finished, complete with solos from our own Marcus and Felix! Here's the link: http://www.tainted-studio.com/misc/Mammoth - The distant me.mp3
 
- the master bus compressor is pumping pretty hard (drums?), maybe ease it down a little?
- the part with keys (chorus?) just doesn't fit the rest of the song, its gay while the rest of the song isn't.
- there is some mud at lowmids area, but I can't tell what instrument it is coming from
- drum arrangement is a bit boring, especially the kicks.
- the vox sound killer, but you could bring out a bit more and boost the the treble for a bit more spitty, edgy and domestic violence kinda sound (I tried a +2dB hishelf boost @ 6khz and +1dB boost at 13khz and -1dB lowshelf at 210hz, and actually gave the whole mix kinda nice extra touch)
 
ahjteam said:
- the master bus compressor is pumping pretty hard (drums?), maybe ease it down a little?
- the part with keys (chorus?) just doesn't fit the rest of the song, its gay while the rest of the song isn't.
- there is some mud at lowmids area, but I can't tell what instrument it is coming from
- drum arrangement is a bit boring, especially the kicks.
- the vox sound killer, but you could bring out a bit more and boost the the treble for a bit more spitty, edgy and domestic violence kinda sound (I tried a +2dB hishelf boost @ 6khz and +1dB boost at 13khz and -1dB lowshelf at 210hz, and actually gave the whole mix kinda nice extra touch)
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the input!

Yeah, I agree with the masterbus compressor pumping a bit too hard. I'm usually rather conservative with that, but this time I wanted to go for a bit of a pumping feel and I think I overdid it :)

Personally I kinda like the chorus, and hey, you gotta have a gay chorus if you're going for a multi-million selling radio hit, right? :lol:

About the drums arrangement, yeah, definitely not my strongest area. I often find myself really struggling with coming up with interesting drum tracks, but lately I've been trying to force myself to paying attention to what the drummers are doing in my favourite albums. I'm sure it will help, but it takes time.

The vocal EQ suggestions sound quite right, I'll try them out. I tracked the vocals with an AKG C4000 into a TL Audio VTC console, overdriving the tube preamp just a little bit. The mic choice might have been a mistake. It sounded good when tracked, but when I took the tracks home to be mixed, I found it really hard to get a nice, aggressive sound out of them.

Thanks again for the suggestions!
 
try to get rid of the constant 8th notes on the kicks, for example like this:


Code: 
before:
BD|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SN|--------x-------|--------x-------|--------x-------|--------x-------|
HH|x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|

after:
BD|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|xxx-x-x-x-x-xxx-|xxx-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
SN|--------x-------|--------x-------|--------x-------|--------x-------|
HH|x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|x---x---x---x---|

                                      ^           ^    ^

adding just those three hits gives the kicks a lot more life :)

edit: is it just me or does the last minute of the song just scream for a nice long guitar solo?
 
Hey Jarkko, pretty cool dude - guitars are pretty grainy and metallic sounding though, not really my thing, and the bass I would swear is a pitch-shifted guitar (maybe it is :D), has that underwater sound; a boost at around 2k would help I think, and maybe a cut around 200-300 Hz cuz it's muddying up the whole mix a bit. On that note, there's a bit of mud/wool that's especially prevalent when the vocal layers come in; what mic did you use? I'm guessing a 57 or 58, they tend to have a pretty massive low-mid buildup I find, so some cutting down there would really help clear things up IMO. Good singer though, keep this dude around, I really like his voice! Groovin' song too, I really like the synths (both the notes and patches).

And yeah, I hear a bit of master bus pumping, but it's not that bad. I like the snare personally, though it could come up a bit, or maybe just a bit more snap; has a good amount of pop to me though! And yeah, overall I guess I would say the whole mix feels just a tad dull; maybe bringing the cymbals up a bit would add some more hi-end detail that I feel is lacking, and the kick is getting a bit lost, though all the taming of the vox and bass I suggested would probably help that, rather than it needing to be changed. Sorry this is so stream-of-consciousness, but I'm writing as I listen :D

And, if you need a guest solo... :wave:
 
Metaltastic said:
Hey Jarkko, pretty cool dude - guitars are pretty grainy and metallic sounding though, not really my thing, and the bass I would swear is a pitch-shifted guitar (maybe it is :D), has that underwater sound; a boost at around 2k would help I think, and maybe a cut around 200-300 Hz cuz it's muddying up the whole mix a bit. On that note, there's a bit of mud/wool that's especially prevalent when the vocal layers come in; what mic did you use? I'm guessing a 57 or 58, they tend to have a pretty massive low-mid buildup I find, so some cutting down there would really help clear things up IMO. Good singer though, keep this dude around, I really like his voice! Groovin' song too, I really like the synths (both the notes and patches).

And yeah, I hear a bit of master bus pumping, but it's not that bad. I like the snare personally, though it could come up a bit, or maybe just a bit more snap; has a good amount of pop to me though! And yeah, overall I guess I would say the whole mix feels just a tad dull; maybe bringing the cymbals up a bit would add some more hi-end detail that I feel is lacking, and the kick is getting a bit lost, though all the taming of the vox and bass I suggested would probably help that, rather than it needing to be changed. Sorry this is so stream-of-consciousness, but I'm writing as I listen :D

And, if you need a guest solo... :wave:
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the feedback, all valid points!

The bass is actually my LTD B-155 5-stringer, but the bad tone comes mostly from my horrible playing :D I'll definitely try out the EQ suggestions. The vocal mic used was an AKG C4000 into a TL Audio VTC24 console, which might have been a bad choice. I tracked the vocals with a pair of Genelec 8050's for monitoring, which are way more ruthless in the top-end than my Yammies (I'm not saying I don't like the HS80M's, but hey, there is a 2500€ difference in price per pair ;)), so the mic seemed to fit the vocalist's voice with them, but when I took the tracks home, I noticed the tone was way darker than I had expected. There's already some pretty heavy EQ in there, but I'll try and dig up some more top-end and cut the mud. The vocalist lives across the street, so I'll definitely use him in the future, too :)

To me the mix sounds a bit harsh and lacking in the low-end, but I'll do some A/B madness and try to cut the mud and dig out some healthy low and top end in exchange :)

And thanks a lot for the offer, though Felix is already shredding away on this one! :) I'll post the results when he's done with them and do the final tweaking on the mix then.
 
You in cat form:

photo.jpg


:D
 
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