Mix for my Band's Album / Full Song / Real Guitars

[Mago]

Cheers guys,

been mixing on our album for quite a while now, so I'm not really objective anymore, opinions/pointers would be nice

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3961577/Mixes/Mago_Harpia-Deiis-Albummix.mp3

edit: UPDATE
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3961577/Mixes/Mago_Harpia-Deiis-AlbummixUPDATE.mp3

edit: UPDATE 2
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3961577/Mixes/Mago_Harpia-Deiis-AlbummixUPDATE2.mp3
I think/hope I fixed the clean vocal volume and ambience issues now

Dualtracked, rhythms reamped through my 6505+, Randall V30 Cab into single 57. A bit angled pretty close to the cone
Theres also a very low blend of the same set of DI's with a custom preamp called "The Anvil"+impulse, but its very subtle (enforces the meat a bit)
Melody guitars is the same preamp through the powersection of the peavey, same cab, different mic position.
Solo guitars are also the Preamp, through gregs beta impulse. we fucked up the mix placement on the solo guitars, so we did it that way

Heres a shitty cellphone pic of the reamping session

Drums are the usual stuff, MF for Overheads, SD2 for toms.
Kick is a mix of Slate and LSD
Snare is SD2, Slate and LSD

Vocals are me and my GF both through a PG81 with popfilter

Bass is Ibanez SR305. AT3 for clean bass tracks, X50 Beta for dirt

It's the only song on the album in Drop tuning, therefore the only metalcorish one, if you want to call it like that.

Our very own sneapster Jaymz will be mastering the album, so theres only limiting and compressor on the masterbus

thanks for listening & hope you like it
cheers Marco

 

[maroon_hate]

Hobts ihr einmal am Donauinselfest gespielt?


Mix sounds good to me, but drums could be better!

 

[Nuno Filipe]

The mix sounds a bit muffled, needs more clarity. Your GF voice is not sitting very well in the mix. The snare could come up a bit.

 

[CSMadden81243]

maybe add some attack, some high end, and definitely either some reverb or delay to the clean vox. snare gets lost at times (not much, but a few times). maybe add either some more high end to the snare or the kick to kinda spread them apart. other than that, awesome mix dude.

 

[Mago]

Hobts ihr einmal am Donauinselfest gespielt?

Na, hamma nie...versuch mir aber sowieso das donauinslfest zu ersparn so gut es geht^^

The mix sounds a bit muffled, needs more clarity. Your GF voice is not sitting very well in the mix. The snare could come up a bit.

Hey Nuno
I guess a slight high end boost on the master would be too easy to get some clarity, huh?
More reverb and delay would help for making the vox sit there better, or is it a problem of EQ too? taming a little to fit in the mix?
Damn Snare....changed the level about 3,000 times before having an export to upload
Thanks Nuno, your advices always help

maybe add some attack, some high end, and definitely either some reverb or delay to the clean vox. snare gets lost at times (not much, but a few times). maybe add either some more high end to the snare or the kick to kinda spread them apart. other than that, awesome mix dude.

Thanks man, I have reverb and delay in there, but I think I lowered them right before exporting (have a 2nd song in the session to test, and that one needed less amb), gotta turn it up again...
I think more high end on the kick would slap a bit too much, so I'll try that with the snare

 

[Terminus]

Female vox might need a bit more ambience, they seem a bit dry to me. Otherwise you kick my ass at vocals dude. Goddamn.

 

[Triscore]

Hey Marco!!

First of all, AWESOME song!!. The first riff of the song and part in min 0:46 (you have upload this part in another test) and in min 2:41 (LOVE THIS PART!!), amazing

Regarding the sound:

Sounds very good in general for me!!. One thing that should be to fix is the clean voice of the girl. Seems like out of the mix and need more ambience, reverb or delay and diferent eq I think, the rest sounds very good and we can only judge tastes

GREAT work!

Cheers

Tris.

 

[Mago]

Female vox might need a bit more ambience, they seem a bit dry to me. Otherwise you kick my ass at vocals dude. Goddamn.

thanks mike

Hey Marco!!

First of all, AWESOME song!!. The first riff of the song and part in min 0:46 (you have upload this part in another test) and in min 2:41 (LOVE THIS PART!!), amazing

Regarding the sound:

Sounds very good in general for me!!. One thing that should be to fix is the clean voice of the girl. Seems like out of the mix and need more ambience, reverb or delay and diferent eq I think, the rest sounds very good and we can only judge tastes

GREAT work!

Cheers

Tris.

Thanks Tris, glad you like the song
haha yeah, that parts are also my favorites
you're right, I posted that one some time ago when I tested the drum samples.
I'm gonna post a new mix tonight were I'm taking a look at the ambience again and see whats wrong with the clean vox...from what I understand they stick out a bit too much rather than drown in the mix..maybe increasing some clearity will help the vocals to sit better

 

[slo77y]

I really like what u did on the low-end... Kick is pretty fat. Anyway, I agree on the clarity.. Imho the whole Mix needs a bit more in the 4-8k Area... especially 1 or 2db on the Guitars could be a huge difference imho.
Otherwise pretty good....

Im sorry for being a noob, but what are SD2 and LSD Drums ? I´m very well aware of Steven Slate Drums as i have purchased them, but those Toms and Kick Sound pretty Sick and not Slate'ish. Any suggestions where i can get those? thanks

 

[AHChris]

I really dig it man! Good job!

 

[CSMadden81243]

Im sorry for being a noob, but what are SD2 and LSD Drums ? I´m very well aware of Steven Slate Drums as i have purchased them, but those Toms and Kick Sound pretty Sick and not Slate'ish. Any suggestions where i can get those? thanks

SD2 = Superior Drummer 2.0 made by Toontrack (same people who make EZDrummer), and LSD drums are drum samples made by Lasse Lammert. if you don't know who he is, you're in the wrong forum

 

[XnaySaturo]

I really like what u did on the low-end... Kick is pretty fat. Anyway, I agree on the clarity.. Imho the whole Mix needs a bit more in the 4-8k Area... especially 1 or 2db on the Guitars could be a huge difference imho.
Otherwise pretty good....

Im sorry for being a noob, but what are SD2 and LSD Drums ? I´m very well aware of Steven Slate Drums as i have purchased them, but those Toms and Kick Sound pretty Sick and not Slate'ish. Any suggestions where i can get those? thanks

That would be Superior Drummer 2, and LSD Drums are the samples from our resident champion engineer Lasse Lammert.

Wow. The song is fuuuucking awesome. Everything about the instruments is great as it is right now. Harsh vox are perfect. Can't contribute much more than what's already been said though.

But yeah, the composition is epic as fuck. My favorite song you've done so far.

 

[Mago]

I really like what u did on the low-end... Kick is pretty fat. Anyway, I agree on the clarity.. Imho the whole Mix needs a bit more in the 4-8k Area... especially 1 or 2db on the Guitars could be a huge difference imho.
Otherwise pretty good....

Im sorry for being a noob, but what are SD2 and LSD Drums ? I´m very well aware of Steven Slate Drums as i have purchased them, but those Toms and Kick Sound pretty Sick and not Slate'ish. Any suggestions where i can get those? thanks

As CSMadden81243 allready said, SD2 is Superior Drummer 2.0
For Toms I'm using the standard SD2 kit (Avatar), and Overheads are from an Expansion for SD2 called "The Metal Foundry"
Sickness from the kick comes mainly from one of the Lasse Lammert Kicks (Rarefaction it is called)
here's the link to the packs http://lsddrums.bigcartel.com/
get them, you won't regret it

I really dig it man! Good job!

Danke vielmals

Wow. The song is fuuuucking awesome. Everything about the instruments is great as it is right now. Harsh vox are perfect. Can't contribute much more than what's already been said though.

But yeah, the composition is epic as fuck. My favorite song you've done so far.

Thanks a lot dude, I'm glad you like it!
Album release party is set for 19.3.2011, so the album will be out at that date for sure at least

 

[Mago]

Took all the advices into account
Should be a brighter mix with more FX on the vox as well as some eq tailoring to fit a bit better (still some room for improovment there I guess)
Hope I didnt go to far with boosting anything though :/
snare could still come up a tad I guess

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3961577/Mixes/Mago_Harpia-Deiis-AlbummixUPDATE.mp3

 

[CSMadden81243]

idk what it is about those cleans, but they still sound weird with the mix, maybe they're too loud? i can't tell. definitely sound less dry now, but idk. still not quite sitting right. everything else is sounding pretty epic though man, nice job. awesome lead tone!

 

[Skinny Viking]

Marco!

Great tune bro ... everything sounds pretty damn good to me. I do agree that Chiri's vox seem to be sitting on top of the mix rather than within it. Perhaps a touch more verb / delay could help? The sound of her vocals is very nice though so I don't think its an EQ thing cause I don't hear it fighting with anything else. Your vox are blended in great. Other than that, the mix sounds killer and I think any type of high end sheen it may need will be put there by James in mastering. The important thing is that aside from Chiri's vocals, all of the elements are well blended and balanced

 

[Erik Monsonis]

Really solid mix, I would add a bit of clarity and reverb to the vocals as pointed out before, but sounds great so far!

 

[Jaymz]

Awesome tune Marco!

Everything sounds spot on to me if you can tweak those female vocals to sit in the mix a little better. Im crap at mixing vocals but I think it might be the midrange you might need to dip a little to get it fitting if you listen to the contrast of both the growls and the lead.

Sometimes the 800hz-1k area helps sit things/poke out vocals a little. Maybe have a play in that area.

Besides that I have no crit at all, can't wait to get stuck in with the mastering!

 

[Backe]

an awesome guitar tone for sure, it could use a bit more attack though, so you could probably bring up the DI+vstpreamp track a bit.
your gf needs to go down, IN LEVEL that is, haha. you've mixed her too loud.
loving the drums and the song in general!

 

[slo77y]

i like the updated version a lot more .... super !

the only thing i noticed, perhaps pulling a db or two out on the female vocals in the 300-600hz area could clean things up a bit more

thanks for your answers to my noobish questions