My First Adam A7 Mix. Input, please.

[Soundlurker]

Hi there,

Following Moonlapse's example I'm posting a mix that has been giving me a lot of trouble. I've had a pretty hard time making it sound good on my previous monitors, so it would be interesting to see how much the Adams have helped me.

Here's a 30-second clip since I don't want to bore you to death and because I know you'll "love" the vocals
Download

Edit: New Version

I'll also be doing a review once I gather a bit more impressions from the A7s

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, cheers

 

[Ermz]

Hey man,

Congrats on the purchase. I hope the monitors are working out for you. I suppose the real test is in mix translation, eh?

It's very late here so I'm listening on cans again.

I'll start with criticisms first, since they'll be most beneficial to you. I think the guitars bug me the most on this one. They have a distant, static vibe to them, like you used impulses. In particular they remind me of some of GHs and that sound I could never get away from when I used them. The low-end on the kick seems somehow too lumpy, and the bass guitar itself isn't very audible!

Aside from that, from what I can hear, you've got a mix that's on the whole very clear. So it seems like you've done the hard part, now it's just a matter of getting the fine details sorted. I would focus on the low-end first and try to tighten that up, make it punchier, get the bass perhaps a bit more prominent. I don't know if there's much you can do about the guitars, as it's the core sound that bugs me.

Best of luck, and I look forward to that A7 review.

 

[Soundlurker]

Hey, thanks for the quick and helpful reply.

These guitars have been the biggest pain in the ass for me recently and there's a whole bunch of reasons for that. To begin with, the guitar used is an Ibanez with very light gauge strings that are set up so low I don't know how the guy can even play on it. Next, the Powerball and the 4x12" made from particle board aren't really helping, as you might imagine. Easiest thing for me would be to reamp the 4 tracks and it will sound OK but no, he doesn't even want to hear about me using anything other than the Powerball. I did reamp 2 of the tracks, anyway, but had to make them blend in with the PB. Long story short, there's a ton of EQ on the guitars. Actually, everything has more processing than I would have liked but it's just one of those projects that don't go smoothly.

The low end and bass level are what I'm more worried about. My biggest dissappointment when I heard the Adams for the first time was the amount of low end. It's there and it's very tight and defined but it seems to be insufficient. I think they have a bit more now, either because their break-in period is over or because I got used to them but I still can't say I really know what's going on down there.
BTW, I thought this mix might have too much bass since I turned it up after the band told me they couldn't hear it. And often people say that if a part of the spectrum is missing you'll add too much but it seems it's the other way around in my case - I tend to leave too little of what I am not hearing well, probably for fear of getting overboard and not noticing.

Cheers

 

[Ermz]

I'm quite amazed to hear that the guitars use a real cab. The Powerball has an amazing ability to translate very badly to recordings. I think part of the issue is that the guitars in this case are very scooped sounding. Perhaps remove the processing and start from scratch? Sometimes it helps to restart and shape the guitars around the already established mix. Think minimally. I have the exact same problem of over-processing guitars, because I'm never happy with them.

There is definitely a lot of bass in one lumpy area of the kick. Rather than thinking of 'less or more', the approach IMO needs to be more surgical. It seems that you have a lot of sub-bass, but perhaps not enough of the higher bass ranges. Try to work out how to even out the low-end. Perhaps tame the kick at that main resonant frequency, which is quite dominant, and then bring the bass up to sit around it. Perhaps remove some subs from the bass and see if it wants to sit a bit more in the higher bass ranges. I always struggle with bass myself, and since I pawned off my monitors I can't really give you accurate advice here... I still struggle on both the M50s and the ASP8s! I can only give you some vague approximations, comparing to some other commercial releases. But the general impression I'm getting is that you have all this low-end energy going on, eating up headroom, but the bass overall still doesn't sound 'fat'. The fatness comes from even and clear bass. Right now there's a lot of it lumped up in one region and not enough in another. This is likely a consequence of your trouble gauging low-end properly on the A7s!

 

[Soundlurker]

Ah, sorry I mislead you by not mentioning the 2 tracks I did reamp are not recorded trough a cab.

I was thinking of starting from scratch and I had done it a few times with the previous monitors but now that the band is actually happy with the mix I'm not sure I dare go through it again.

I came to pretty much the same conclusion about the low end a couple of days ago when I was analysing the problem and I did make some changes in an attemped to fix this. I'll try to even out the lows some more but with the bass particularly it will be hard since the low end varies so much from note to note. I tried some pretty narrow multiband dynamics but I'll have to work on it more. Also, I tried going with more of the higher bass but I just didn't like how it sounded..a bit muddy and boomy and I think it's not because of the room and/or stands but it very well might be.

Again, thanks for confirming some of my observations and bringing up some good points.

 

[Soundlurker]

Wow, I think a few quick changes like a narrow cut at 50hz and a small boost at 70hz on the kick made quite a difference.

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