My best mix yet...

[Sinister Mephisto]

Sounds a lot like Killswitch, sounds EXACTLY like Diecast. I don't think the keyboards ruin the song, they certainly could have found a better sound but whatever. Nice mix dude.

 

[Soundlurker]

Great mix and I really like the snare (reminds me of last KsE's snare)
What bothers me a little is the highs of the kick, also it sounds a bit robotic, IMO.

The synths make me think I'm playing some nintendo/sega emulator with the sound on while listening to the song

Again, the guitars,vox, snare and mix overall sound great.

 

[musickey]

Mix sounds great dude

 

[zakky]

very pro sounding! good job.....

 

[Glenn Fricker]

Very nice indeed.

 

[kaomao]

I like this mix a lot because those guitars dont' sound fizzy nor sound honky/muddy/whatever, they're perfect!
Amp signal chain?
Effects used on growl vocals? how did you set them? they sound great

 

[Uber Mega]

Sounds good minus the keys which sounded thin/didn't fit in the mix (the piano sounded good during the bridge though). The vocals were top notch!

Track, on the whole, has a nice professional, full sound. Great

 

[broken81]

I need some details man! This shit is ridiculously good and its driving me nuts to know just a little of what you did. Did you do a lot of like cutting freq to instruments (like between the kick and bass or even on guitars) to make things fit better? Did those Yamaha ns10 play a big part in this mix? What do your use on your master buss? Or do you just use that finalizer and keep the master buss open? Sorry for all the questions but I'm so curious to know more. I honestly can't stop listening to this song and just think how good of a job you did.

People should be knocking down your door to have you mix there stuff pretty sooN!

 

[evolutions_end]

whoa.... snare and vocals smack you in the face

i think the synth is kinda cool, they could have done like a few eq sweeps or something in the breakdown or used a different sound.

but that aint your fault man. sounds mint, killer vocal production!

 

[Aaron Smith]

Thanks for all the responses, guys. I'm flattered that you all seem to like it so much, because I've always felt like everyone here is really picky (which is good).

I actually don't mind the keys too much. It could possibly be because I've spent so much time immersed in their music and I've just gotten used to it, but I think overall they come up with creative parts that, more often than not, benefit the music. The only think I think I dislike about keys in general, is that unless the keyboard player is willing to not actually do anything half of the time (which no keyboard player, or any instrumentalist for that matter really wants to do), you're kind of forced to write extra parts into those places that don't need it...

This project was recorded at 24/96, so it was a massive pain in the arse to mix on my little Digi 002/Pro Tools LE, Mac G4 dual 1 gig processor. I had to keep printing things to track... It was a "mix-only" project for me, so there are some things about the engineering that I don't entirely know. I reamped the guitars (more on this further down the page), and the kick, snare, and toms are all samples, so the only engineered tracks you can hear are the vocals, overheads, and bass guitar. I know that the signal path for the overheads was:

Neumann KM184 (x2) - Chandler TG-2 - Lavry Blue 4496 AD/DA - Pro Tools HD4.

The bass guitar: a Trace Elliot amp of some kind - Soundelux U99 - Chandler TG-2 - Lavry Blue 4496 AD/DA - Pro Tools HD4.

I don't know what was used for the vocal tracking, as there were no notes written beneath the tracks.
The kick is the same sample I've used on basically all of the projects I've ever done, as I don't have a better alternative at the moment that I've actually recorded, but I went back and reprocessed it from scratch (processed Waves EQ, recorded with a D6). The snare is the one I mentioned over on the Caliban thread, also reprocessed from scratch (processed with Waves EQ and compression, recorded with an i5). The snare/tom verb is Digidesign D-Verb...here's the screen shot, as well as the EQ I inserted after the D-Verb:

Keep in mind that if you load up those exact same EQ settings after your reverb, it won't be some kind of magical reverb sound...I made those adjustments based on the snare drum that the reverb was reacting to. I just loaded that screen shot so you can all see exactly how much EQing was involved! I actually think I could have turned up the reverb volume in the mix, and then I probably would have turned the decay down to 1.5 or 2 seconds. And the toms, as I mentioned a few weeks ago when I posted an earlier mix of a different song from this project, are the Chimaira toms, with a little bit of further EQing. I would have used my drummer's toms (which sound incredibly similar in a mix), but he uses only two, and the Chimaira toms were the best three-tom samples I have at the moment. Plus the band really wanted me to try them out The actual tom tracks sounded pretty lame-o...
As for vocal production, there is a tiny amount of low mids removed, and they are being compressed pretty heavily with the Waves RVox, then being sent to the Waves R-Verb, which is FAR better sounding than D-Verb when it comes to vocals. I also set up a stereo delay, basically for a quarter-note delay most of the time, with the left and right side about 40ms apart, and then automated that to come in and out on parts that I saw fit. I treated the screams and singing basically the same way, just automated the volumes a lot.

The guitars... I was sent some pretty crappy sounding tracks of a VHT, but they recorded DI tracks as I requested, so the reamp signal chain went:

Maxon OD-808 - Peavey 5150 - 2x12 v30 cab - single Shure SM57 - Digi002 pre (the only way I could record back into the 96k session)

I actually have a secret to tell about the reamped guitars...they were recorded with the 5150 post gain at like, .4, I kid you not. I normally turn the amp down super low like that, so I can crank up the pre and get down in front of the cab with my headphones on and really hear what the mic is hearing, then once I like the mic placement, I'll turn it back up and adjust the pre. Well, when the guitar player was over here and we were doing just that, we liked the sound from the super quiet setting so much, that we just kept it. Would it have sounded even better if I juiced the amp back up? ...maybe, but I'm still really happy with the tone I got! It really didn't need as much EQing as the tones I've recorded in the past, but I did end up using a few EQs to finish it off. ...still hard to believe that a 5150 can still sound THAT good when it's turned down almost as low as it can go before it will make no sound at all...

Did those Yamaha ns10 play a big part in this mix? What do your use on your master buss? Or do you just use that finalizer and keep the master buss open?

I think the Yamaha NS10s are awesome, actually. When I'm trying to judge the sound of something on the KRK RP-8s, if I switch to the NS-10s, they seem to make the judgment way easier...either the problem becomes more obvious, or I realize that I'm overthinking something because I can't hear it all that well on the KRKs. The KRKs definitely have their value for me, but if I listen to the Yamahas for a while, and then switch to the KRKs, it makes the KRKs sound more like a consumer level stereo. I don't know, the Yamahas just make me feel more confident in the decisions I make, because they don't exaggerate the sound at all!
For the master bus I actually didn't use anything, but when I bounced down to 24/48 for mastering, I let the snares clip...then in the mastering session I used a C4 (started with the opto mastering preset and then tweaked from there), a couple of the linear phase EQs, and then the finalizer. I A/Bed it a bunch with a song from the Chimaira self-titled, not so much for level comparison, but for the spectral balance comparison...it helped a lot. I ended up going back to the mix sessions to tweak the kick EQ a bit, but otherwise it translated really well in the mastering session.

Anyway...I'm a little overwhelmed trying to answer all the questions in great detail all at once, but if there's anything specific I missed that any of you want to know about, just ask and I will answer. If I reply one at a time, it will be easier!

Thanks again for all the comments

 

[kezspez]

It's good to see that you can indeed get away with good tones on next to nothing volume . At the moment i have borrowed my other guitarists 5150 II and a friends Randall cab, 4X12 with V30's.
I'm still living with my mum so no earthmoving, ear bursting volume for me just yet (Yet) and i was recording at around 0.4 aswell haha.

Sounded shit though, probably cus it was in my bedroom which is utter ass and my interface/input blows goats.

I'd love to know more about your EQ for guitar vs bass and especially interested to know about your bass vs kick eq

show me the way!!

 

[felipe-x]

those clean singin are the shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit


and that synth is so... uhmm Sonic sindicate


could be a screen shoot for the eq of the guitrs please and vocals?

 

[nuclearass]

Thank you Aaron very much for the detailed info! This will definately be helpful and it's really amazing that you used such low volume on the 5150. I'll have to try that too.

 

[kezspez]

finally got a listen on this. the drums sound intense! big strong drums all good
i'm loth to repeat whats been said.
but i dig the drum sound the most and the bass is pretty fit.
the vocals are good, definately a good voice, if copycatting just a little

massive kudos to Aaron \m/

 

[broken81]

I was Just kinda curious how you treat your drums. What reverb did you use for toms? Do you do all your compression and eq on each individual drum channel and have a drum bus still were you send everything for more comp and eq? Do you do parallel compression from the kit and squash everything and bring that buss up in the mix till it sounds good? Just really wondering how you go about treating and routing your drums.



Oh yea and thanks for going into as much detail as you already have. Sorry for so many questions but honestly dude this mix is just that good. Shoot just send me the protools file and call it good!

 

[Manicompression]

Yeah, this sounds awesome dude, completely pro, and I dont mind the keys either, I think they actually add some character to the lame ass breakdown section.

 

[Aaron Smith]

I was Just kinda curious how you treat your drums. What reverb did you use for toms?

The toms are being sent to the exact same reverb as the snare, nothing fancy going on there.

Do you do all your compression and eq on each individual drum channel and have a drum bus still were you send everything for more comp and eq?

All compression and EQ is on each individual drum channel...the snare is actually the only thing with any compression on it. To be entirely honest, I have never even once tried making a drum buss where I can smash the kit or anything. I should probably at least experiment with it, but so far I haven't actually felt the need.

I'd love to know more about your EQ for guitar vs bass and especially interested to know about your bass vs kick eq

I don't really do anything special to make the guitar and bass fit together, except the common slow roll off on the guitars from around 90hz, so the bass can occupy those lower octaves that it's supposed to. As for the bass vs kick...
The trickiest thing for me (and for most people) has always been the low end in a mix, and this time I was especially determined to get it right. I wanted the bass guitar needs to fill things in just right, because I think a song really comes alive when there's the right amount of 40-60hz in there that you can feel. At the same time, the kick needs to have it's own low end definition that doesn't get lost. How did I achieve this?

The basic kick drum sound:

The very first thing I did actually, was take the two kick drum samples I was going to use, and fade them out as quickly as I felt I could, without them sounding unnatural. Probably with an ideal kick sound there isn't a whole lot of resonance to worry about, but on the samples I used, the low end lasted longer than necessary. From there, I wanted to make sure that the low frequencies were as even as possible, so I printed some multiband compression onto it. I bypassed the upper three ranges, and then set it to REALLY clamp down from about 120hz down, but I also boosted the gain on that range so that the perceived level was the same. I don't really know if this is was necessary, but I liked the sound of it. From there, I used apTrigga to put the samples into the song. I used a few EQs: basically scooping whatever mids didn't sound good, slowly rolling off the low end around 60hz, boosting a couple dB with a shelf from 6k up, and slowly rolling off the high end around 12k (I don't like that really extreme clickiness). That's the basic kick sound!

The basic bass guitar sound:

Heavy compression to level out the signal. A few EQs: mostly scooping lower mids, but also boosting around 600hz a little bit to make the bass stand out on smaller speakers, and a wide boost around 3k a bit for a little more bite. And, I actually boosted a lot with a shelf from around 60hz down, to get some of that depth in there. Then I threw a limiter on there to smash it a little more...but I didn't overdo it!

Getting them to fit together:

In the past I've played around a lot with thin little boosts on the kick and correlating thin little cuts on the bass guitar, but I never really felt like it worked out that well. I DID however make a thin little cut in the bass guitar around 60hz, but not deep enough to really feel like the bass was losing anything, because you do actually want some 60 hz in your bass guitar. Other than that, this time I decided that I would try to rely more on the kick drum's overall volume level to get it to have some low end definition, so I set it where I liked it, and then adjusted the clickiness to fit the mix appropriately at that volume level. In the mastering session, as I already mentioned, I used a C4, a couple of the linear phase EQs, and then the finalizer. I think the opto mastering preset is a good place to start, but I did make some adjustments to the frequency parameters and the compression levels a bit. The low end I ended up turning down slightly, but compressing a little harder as well. It turned out in the mastering session, that the kick had a little bit too much low end punch to it, so I made a 2-3db cut on one of the linear phase EQs from around 50hz to 80hz, without affecting that 40hz range I wanted the bass to have. I probably could have just turned the kick down a bit in the mix sessions, but it turned out really well just doing what I did to the stereo mix, because that also brought the bass guitar down the same amount, so their relative positions stayed the same. I did also roll off the low end in the mastering session, from around 40hz down, but not too much to take away the sub lows in the bass guitar.

Anyway...I think that about covers the kick vs bass thing. Obviously, feel free to play around with some of the same ideas I did. I really am no professional, but with this project, I came up with results I liked by just kind of playing around and using my ears! That's what's so cool about recording...you can do whatever you want, and if the end result sounds good, then no one can question your methods! What really makes someone a professional, is when they can achieve those results easily, efficiently, and consistently.

 

[cobhc]

Man, I officially hate you now, this sounds so fucking good. It's a real pro sounding mix.

 

[Radd]

Yeah, it does sound great. Congrats.

"I came up with results I liked by just kind of playing around and using my ears! That's what's so cool about recording...you can do whatever you want, and if the end result sounds good, then no one can question your methods!"

That sentence for me is the key to it all and gives me hope because when everyone here starts talking numbers (which is all the time)
I get kind of lost and struggle to understand.

 

[cobhc]

Yeah, it does sound great. Congrats.

"I came up with results I liked by just kind of playing around and using my ears! That's what's so cool about recording...you can do whatever you want, and if the end result sounds good, then no one can question your methods!"

That sentence for me is the key to it all and gives me hope because when everyone here starts talking numbers (which is all the time)
I get kind of lost and struggle to understand.

It's because we're all just trying to confuse you Radd