Hey all,
I've been a longtime lurker over here and have benefited greatly from the good advice and resources at this forum. Until recently I haven't really been confident enough in my recorded output to share it here, but I am hoping to change that
Working on a new project has given me the opportunity to learn a lot more about mixing and production, and so I actually pretty eager to join the discussion now.
I'm sharing the first of my mixes here in the hopes that I can establish a better "baseline set of best practices." I feel like I've done my best to abide by the common caveats of production, but at the same time I have no way of knowing if I'm doing something glaringly wrong in my workflow. If so, hopefully its something the community could hear and pick out and point me in a better direction. I'd really appreciate it!
I have to do six songs of this vein all with the same equipment. This is really more of a reference track, so it'll be good to get some feedback I can use now before the rest goes to tape. Sorry if this is long winded! I figure its good to be detailed.
My setup:
Hardware:
Pro Tools 9.0.7
002 rackmount interface
Focusrite Green Pre channel strip
PodXT Pro guitar amp/cab simulator
EDEN bass DI/preamp
Korg Triton TR
Plugs/VIs:
Various PT included plugs
Superior Drummer 2
East West Symphonic Gold
Amplitube 3
Rob Papen Delay
FXpansion VST2RTAS (for some VSTs like ambience, BlockFish/FloorFish and NyQuist eq)
Mics:
e609 silvers for guitar cabs
sm57s
Audix DP7 drum mic kit
Audix fusion 5 drum mic kit
Monitors are Yamaha HS80ms
What's on this track:
Drums: Drummer is an old-school guy who actually plays predominantly black metal. This music is a bit of departure for him. His kit as an awesome DW custom job and he's super specific about tuning and maintenance. We combined the two Audix kits together to get everything miced up. Needless to say the DP7 kit sounded infinitely better, so I tried to keep those mics on the critical components. Unfortunately I still suck at miking the kicks apparently and had to run a replacement off his triggers through superior drummer to get the best sound.
Guitar: Two tracks, panned hard left and right. One is the Treadplate preset (Mesa Dual Rect simulation) from the PodXT and the other is fed line out from my Marshall AVT-275 into the console. Both are run through recabinet to get the cab simulation on them. Noise/money constraints kind of dictate what's could be used, but I just got amplitube and have been experimenting with this as well.
Bass: Bass is DI run through the EDEN pre. The guitar was an ESP F404 played rather sloppily by me as a reference track . This will be replaced by the actual performer when we have the chance.
Keys:
There's a mix between sounds from EW symphonic gold and the sounds from my Korg Triton TR on here.
My newbie concerns:
1. I have a hard time mixing the bass and kick, which seems to be a common concern in this style. I hpf'ed the bass at around 65hz to remove some mud and then put a hi-q dip at 125 where the kick could go. I put a boost at 125 on the kick to fill in the hole. When I take it out of my console, it still doesn't seem to sound right. The bass is way down in the woofer and falls out when played on higher strings. I'm not sure how to approach that problem especially.
2. The mix seems darker than it should overall, which may be because my monitors tend to be a little bright. I have read online that the HS80m's typically are brighter than is proper for a studio monitor, especially in less than ideal rooms. I've heard stories of people putting paper over the tweeters to reduce this a bit.
3. I've been through the production process end to end in a professional studio with my old project, and I know what to expect in the mastering process. I try not to mix with this in mind and this track has no compression as supplied, but how do you anticipate what it will become as it goes through mastering? My levels all feel lower than should be, and it makes it especially hard to make a good judgement when I take the mix out on other systems. How do you approach this problem in judging your mixes pre-master?
Thanks so much for any input!
I've been a longtime lurker over here and have benefited greatly from the good advice and resources at this forum. Until recently I haven't really been confident enough in my recorded output to share it here, but I am hoping to change that
Working on a new project has given me the opportunity to learn a lot more about mixing and production, and so I actually pretty eager to join the discussion now.I'm sharing the first of my mixes here in the hopes that I can establish a better "baseline set of best practices." I feel like I've done my best to abide by the common caveats of production, but at the same time I have no way of knowing if I'm doing something glaringly wrong in my workflow. If so, hopefully its something the community could hear and pick out and point me in a better direction. I'd really appreciate it!
I have to do six songs of this vein all with the same equipment. This is really more of a reference track, so it'll be good to get some feedback I can use now before the rest goes to tape. Sorry if this is long winded! I figure its good to be detailed.
My setup:
Hardware:
Pro Tools 9.0.7
002 rackmount interface
Focusrite Green Pre channel strip
PodXT Pro guitar amp/cab simulator
EDEN bass DI/preamp
Korg Triton TR
Plugs/VIs:
Various PT included plugs
Superior Drummer 2
East West Symphonic Gold
Amplitube 3
Rob Papen Delay
FXpansion VST2RTAS (for some VSTs like ambience, BlockFish/FloorFish and NyQuist eq)
Mics:
e609 silvers for guitar cabs
sm57s
Audix DP7 drum mic kit
Audix fusion 5 drum mic kit
Monitors are Yamaha HS80ms
What's on this track:
Drums: Drummer is an old-school guy who actually plays predominantly black metal. This music is a bit of departure for him. His kit as an awesome DW custom job and he's super specific about tuning and maintenance. We combined the two Audix kits together to get everything miced up. Needless to say the DP7 kit sounded infinitely better, so I tried to keep those mics on the critical components. Unfortunately I still suck at miking the kicks apparently and had to run a replacement off his triggers through superior drummer to get the best sound.
Guitar: Two tracks, panned hard left and right. One is the Treadplate preset (Mesa Dual Rect simulation) from the PodXT and the other is fed line out from my Marshall AVT-275 into the console. Both are run through recabinet to get the cab simulation on them. Noise/money constraints kind of dictate what's could be used, but I just got amplitube and have been experimenting with this as well.
Bass: Bass is DI run through the EDEN pre. The guitar was an ESP F404 played rather sloppily by me as a reference track
. This will be replaced by the actual performer when we have the chance.Keys:
There's a mix between sounds from EW symphonic gold and the sounds from my Korg Triton TR on here.
My newbie concerns:
1. I have a hard time mixing the bass and kick, which seems to be a common concern in this style. I hpf'ed the bass at around 65hz to remove some mud and then put a hi-q dip at 125 where the kick could go. I put a boost at 125 on the kick to fill in the hole. When I take it out of my console, it still doesn't seem to sound right. The bass is way down in the woofer and falls out when played on higher strings. I'm not sure how to approach that problem especially.
2. The mix seems darker than it should overall, which may be because my monitors tend to be a little bright. I have read online that the HS80m's typically are brighter than is proper for a studio monitor, especially in less than ideal rooms. I've heard stories of people putting paper over the tweeters to reduce this a bit.
3. I've been through the production process end to end in a professional studio with my old project, and I know what to expect in the mastering process. I try not to mix with this in mind and this track has no compression as supplied, but how do you anticipate what it will become as it goes through mastering? My levels all feel lower than should be, and it makes it especially hard to make a good judgement when I take the mix out on other systems. How do you approach this problem in judging your mixes pre-master?
Thanks so much for any input!
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