Mixing & Mastering Metal

[Louis Henn]

Hi guys,

I've been doing sound engineering for about 10 years now (only seriously for the last 3). I run my own private sound studio entitled "Burning Tone Studios" in South-Africa. To be honest I never went to go study sound engineering therefor don't know all the terms and frequency hot spots etc. I do come out of a very musical family therefor I know the ears is an engineers best tools, but I feel sometimes the ears can be deceiving as well. Especially when you get ear fatigue. Anyway, I strolled upon this forum and thought, what the hell, lets give it a shot and see where it goes. So here I am.

With this being a forum for Andy Sneap, one of my favorite mixers, I thought I would ask a couple of questions regarding mixing and mastering metal bands or just bands in general.

When it comes to that classic metal-core/melodic death metal sound, as heard on As I lay Dying, Killswitch Engage etc. What are the core frequencies that the guitars should take up? Do you need to Q out certain frequencies between 2k and 4k? Basically what are the frequency ranges that I should be messing around with when it comes to guitar EQing.

The same question applies to bass. Where do I start cutting off the sub-bass frequencies? eg. below 45hz? What are the core frequencies the bass should take up?

Is it better to mix loud to get the feel and the punch of the mix? or soft or mixture of both?

Basically I'm looking for a general rule of thumb when it comes to mixing metal. A list of each instrument and their core frequencies. I've been really happy with some of my mixes in the past, but I feel they take too long. Some up to a year. I feel I experiment the whole time and never get anywhere with some mixes. How are pro's able to mix an album in 2 weeks ready for world wide release? There must be some secrets???

Let me know what you guys think. If at all any worth, I could share some things I've discovered as well. Lets see where this thread goes.

Thanks for reading!
If you want to hear some of my work, on facebook, search for the following bands.

Infanteria
Reverse the Sands
White Collar Kiss
The Broken Result
Betray the Emissary (My first big recording ever so don't expect much)
You Cried Wolf
The Plague and a couple of others.

& my space

My Shade (my first band)
www.myspace.com/myshade

Give it a listen and tell me what you think. Would be cool to hear feedback from some other engineers!

Cheers

Louis Henn
Burning Tone Studios
South-Africa

 

[gabriel g.]

By the time you doing recordings, you should know that everything is in the source.
If you want heavy ass guitars, you need to track them that way. There is no magic tool or frequency that make your guitars sound like Sneaps

Sorry to destroy your hopes here

ps: use some analyser tool to check out were sneaps guitars sit, so you get a picture of what cuts and pushes coud work.
But try to get the sound at the source

A good start is:
Peavy 5150/6505 with a tubescreamer into a Mesa OS, Orange PPC or Marshall vintage cab and a guitar player with a good guitar and hard hitting hands.

cheers

 

[Louis Henn]

Thanks for the info.

Unfortunately I do not have the capital to have that kinda gear at hand. Neither do most of the bands down here. Hehe. I've resorted to working with Line 6 UX8/ DFH and Yamaha HS80's. Been giving me pretty decent results for the price.

I agree everything is in the source, very true. You did not destroy my hopes at all. But I do not feel that it stops there. Good source = good sound sounds almost to easy. I think a fair amount of work goes into a mix even after a good tracked source.

I do use frequency analyzers to try capture those hot spots but its difficult cuz most of the stuff I listen to never have guitars playing by themselves for longer than a second. haha. But it does help though.