I'm trying to record and mix my old bands songs and here goes the first one. Ultimately I would like it to sound like a professionally done cd so please give me as much constructive criticism as you can. AxeFx Ultra on guitars and bass and drums are superior 2.0. We're actually going to track vocals for this on Saturday at a real studio so hopefully you guys can help me get it polished a little better so they don't laugh at me. Anyways thanks to everyone who replies.
Mix FeedBack Please!
- Thread starter Andrew S
- Start date
dr.distortion
Member
That's definitely far from the worst mix ever so don't worry about someone would laugh at you. That's not a professionally mixed cd, but a good sounding demo mix.
First of all, your guitars are too loud, try to make them a few db lower. I like your guitar tone but I want it to be a little bit more open, you can try to add slight shelf boost from around 6kHz(but control an 8-12 kHz area to avoid a nasty fizz). Also I would decrease few db in around 800 Hz, but that's my personal taste.
As for your drums, they sound a little bit boring. They should slam a mix in heavy music, while in your situation drums have just a nice sound but no slam. Try to heavily compress or even overdrive your room tracks and make them louder.
First of all, your guitars are too loud, try to make them a few db lower. I like your guitar tone but I want it to be a little bit more open, you can try to add slight shelf boost from around 6kHz(but control an 8-12 kHz area to avoid a nasty fizz). Also I would decrease few db in around 800 Hz, but that's my personal taste.
As for your drums, they sound a little bit boring. They should slam a mix in heavy music, while in your situation drums have just a nice sound but no slam. Try to heavily compress or even overdrive your room tracks and make them louder.
Ok I worked on this again last night. Pretty much did everything you told me to do. I put a slate vmr on the kick snare and toms to try and get some more smack to them. I'm still not happy with the snare. I think over all the drums are a little loud especially the cymbals. I lowered the guitars in the mix and gave it a little high shelf but it sounds a little harsh to me. The bass also seems a little to loud now. Overall though I think its better. The drums sound really good on my monitors. One thing that is driving me crazy is I can never get it to sound good on earbuds.
dr.distortion
Member
That's much better that previous one! Now your bass is a weak point, it's doesn't sits in your mix correctly, that's why you're not happy with your mix in earbuds.
I like your drums sound, don't know why you don't like your snare. Your drums are not loud, but your cymbals are a too bright. You can lower them a little bit, also you can use a lowpass filter on your room tracks to reduce a brightness.
Do you think the bass is a level thing or more of an eq thing? I do feel it is a little loud. How did you feel about the bass on the previous version where it was a few db lower?
dr.distortion
Member
Actually your bass has both of this problems. In your first mix a bass sits better in mix due to it's better balance with guitars. Now it's louder. As for an eq, your bass tone has too much unuseful sub frequences, that's why your mix is too boomy. Possibly you have small monitors or your room is not prepared for mixing well so it's a hard challenge for you to mix frequences below 100 Hz.
