My guitars always bury my snare drum.

[16S]

Only listened on crappy lappy speakers but IMO the snare cuts through fine. I am more aware of the space in the overall mix which makes it a bit thin. I felt that the guitars need more body and you could afford that to snare's expenses (slightly...). In this case the hard panning may be doesnt help...

 

[colonel kurtz]

The thing you did is big mono. All stuff panned hard left/right and center - that's not good, it doesn't help and there is a lot of space in the mix left.
The snare is just to dark in my opinion - and why won't you cut the guitars just 1,5-2dB?? They can really be a bit quiter.

FWIW, some of the best-known mix engineers in the world keep everything either hard left, hard right, or center...i'm not saying it's the only way to do things, but it's certainly possible to get a good mix that way

i'd also agree that the snare seems to cut through fine, and that the guitars totally dominate everything else

 

[-Noodles-]

I agree with the above sentiments..
Guitars are the problem here - I wouldn't have said the snare!

I think the guitar tone just isn't "right"..

As for panning,.. The first mix i posted up on here got slated for being mono - and it was right,.. the guitars weren't pushed hard enough L/R.
Vox efx were sent further afield,.. drums were panned wider.

Really opened the mix up (surprisingly!).

 

[ffaudio]

Any suggestions on taming the guitars, since apparently most of you think it's the guitars that are a problem?

 

[-Noodles-]

What's on the guitars EQ and efx wise already?


edit;
On a re-listen via my MBP and headphones..
Where's the bass???

I think that could the the problem actually. It's not "there".. and you've got a marshall-esque tone (not bass heavy) but not replaced the low end with the bass..


[btw, i don't think it's bad,.. just trying to help]

 

[ffaudio]

I made a new mix here with the below info: http://www.ffaudio.com/music/damnitahl/disastrophie-m2.mp3

Ok, currently there are two guitars, they are panned 80/80.

On each of the tracks I have in this order:

C4 (andy's settings doing about 3-4 db reduction)
UAD-1 Cambridge
-Rolled off @ 60
-2db boost @ 100
-3db cut @ 1k
-Rolled off @ 13k sharp

After that, then are both sent to a Waves super tap delay that is delaying them the shortest and the delays are panned hard L/R.



Also, to the person that said I need a better guitar tone, I'm only mixing this, I didn't track it.

 

[Saculus]

Guitar bus: side chain compression key by the snare for about 1.5 - 3 DB gain reduction, Try cutting 250 med/small Q about 3-5 db as well

 

[Zombietakeover]

i would take the supertap delay off the guitar also.......start simple

 

[VH100R]

i would take the supertap delay off the guitar also.......start simple

+1

 

[abyssofdreams]

Guitar bus: side chain compression key by the snare for about 1.5 - 3 DB gain reduction, Try cutting 250 med/small Q about 3-5 db as well

I was about to say that, though it's uncommon to sidechain the guitars to the centered instruments I've got some pretty interesting results lately doing exactly that.

Besides that, don't boost the guitars @ 100hz, instead go lower around 70hz with a higher Q so you don't take all that lowmid-mud with ya where the body of the snare should sit.

 

[Aaron Smith]

I'm curious what those guitars would sound like without any multiband compression on there. There should be a slight low end push when there's chugging and palm muting going on, but at this stage the guitars sound too flat (dynamically speaking).

 

[ffaudio]

I'm curious what those guitars would sound like without any multiband compression on there. There should be a slight low end push when there's chugging and palm muting going on, but at this stage the guitars sound too flat (dynamically speaking).

I'll take them off and try lowering it and see how those sound, too. There really isn't a lot of low end in the tracks I was given of them.

I should just sit in on a mix session with you and watch you work your magic.

 

[el-biczel]

Yeah, but guitars are quiter now, and snare is in your face. Now you can just use different eq settings, but the main sound is pretty good.

 

[Djabthrash]

I don't like the snare. Sounds like a normal snare with some beer keg hit room verb.

 

[ffaudio]

I don't like the snare. Sounds like a normal snare with some beer keg hit room verb.

That's the sample I'm using, haha.

 

[Aaron Smith]

I should just sit in on a mix session with you and watch you work your magic.

You're welcome to come by sometime... I'll be mixing in October.

 

[SoundSpiral]

Less gain on guitars = more prominent snare

 

[ahjteam]

I have to say that eventho 80% of my record collection consists of heavy metal, but I really like to work with more of rock-orientated stuff and mix it so that it sounds more natural. For example when you hit a huge wall of guitar for the chorus, it doesn't really matter if I don't hear the snap of the kick fully then, because it gives the idea of dynamics, "hey man, this wall of sound is really fucking huge, it even drowns out the drums". If you hear mix it like heavy metal so that you hear everything all the time so that you compensate the hits lost in the mix by raising them up, the song loses the feel of dynamics and it usually just makes the mix sound boring. "If there is no quiet, there can be no loud". But constructive critism on disastrophie-m2:

- the parts arent played that well and thats what makes the whole song sound a bit bad, especially guitars and drums sound a bit sloppy and because of the triggers the drums sound a bit boring. try to automate the volume on the drums just a bit, swing the volume of some random hits like 0.5-2.0dB or try multiple samples with different velocities on them
- the guitars sound like they are out of tune with the bass or vice versa. if its just the bass, try to fix it with melodyne/autotune, but if its the guitars, then ask if the guitarists could retrack the guitars, because they would otherwise blame you in the end
- The snap of the kick is unnaturally too much in front, try to take it off a bit (eg. something like 2khz highshelf -3dB)
- The sample on snare sounds a bit horrid and unnatural, too much lower mic to my taste. If you have a trigger and a mic track on the snare, try to add the trigger to the track to get the snap and ditch the lower mic track
- The mix sounds super dry. Try adding a bit delay and hall reverb to the vocals and some room reverb to the drums. Also just a slight delay on the guitars would prolly make them fit a bit better (especially solos), but if it sounds like sheeeet, just take it off.
- You need more bass guitar and cymbals in the face.

I tracked, mixed and mastered this four song demo in 3 days about an year ago and used those tricks in it and I think it turned out pretty nice except for the vocals (the vocalist just plain sucked and I refused to use pitch correction. Lesson learned: they got a new singer after that demo): http://www.myspace.com/noisynewt

 

[derfbonker]

Go DL the new Metallica album. If you use that as a reference your snare won't get buried by anything.

 

[Djabthrash]

Go DL the new Metallica album. If you use that as a reference your snare won't get buried by anything.

haha