My mix of A Cover Song

veronicafalls

Member
Mar 26, 2009
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Puyallup, Washington
I feel like I'm starting to get a little better at this whole guitar recording thing. Please give me any suggestions for the mix.


I used FL studio and the poulin 456 with the poulin le cab sim I also did a high pass of 100Hz on the guitars.

For the bass I used Ampeg SVX without the cab and used pulin le cab with some ampeg impulses and did not do a low pass on the bass (I used to when I used Pod Farm, idk why though lol :p ). I also used SSD with kick 10 and snare 10 (not 12!!!).

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2649123/The Truth About Heaven (Cover Intro).mp3

Thank You
 
sounds like you didnt quad track. Do that and the guitars will sound a ALOT bigger. Also do a lowpass at like 12k (or around there, not sure what the standard for low pass is). Also turn the bass up, i dont hear it at all. Sounds really good though
 
okay I'll try a quad track. and a low pass. I'll have to either do it tomorrow or in a couple of days though. I havent gotten any sleep since about sunday afternoon. Cause I had to study for an exam I took earlier. Math is a b**** sometimes.
 
I don't know if it necessarily needs quad-tracked. Seems like the rhythm guitars are just really low along with the bass. Having the 'lead' or 'backing' guitar panned somewhat to the right makes the whole thing feel lopsided and is driving me nuts. Either pan it center or double it and pan them say 50 50 or 75 75.
 
yeah I had some issues with the panning for some reason but didn't realize until right before I exported the file. I know that my conscience tells me to turn the lead guitar and then the backing guitar becomes quiet then I turn up the backing guitar but I make it to loud, then I get frustrated and leave it as is until my ears aren't so tired anymore, and then I work on it some more.
 
Definitely sounding a lot better than the very first clips you ever posted up, you're improving.
Definitely throw a low pass on the guitars to get rid of that upper end nastiness. 10-12Khz to taste.
You don't NEED to quad track. You can if you want, but hardly necessary.
Low pass the bass guitar, there is a lot of higher end content you don't need with a bass guitar. Where exactly, up to you, but I generally tend to chop off my bass guitar at around 5Khz.
Take out a bit of the upper mids out of the guitars too I reckon.
Can't comment a whole lot on the drums unfortunately, not really an area I understand, so hopefully someone can chime in with that later:)
 
It seems that the melody guitar in the center is taking up too much space and overpowering everything else. I'd turn it a tad down and scoop some mids, but that's down to personal reference. The drums sound like you'd expect your slate samples to sound. The snare could use some more treble though.
 
Yeah, I'd drop the Lead quite a bit and center it. Give it a different EQ curve than the rhythms so they don't blend in too much with them and get lost. Bring up the rhythms a lot (pan L/R 100%). Get that bass to fill up the eq spectrum where you carved the rhythms, and it should sound really full. Also sounds a little too mid-rangy for my taste.(I'm a mid-scooped kinda guy. ;)) It's lacking punch in my opinion. Then again, I don't know the original song, so I'm not sure what the original vibe is supposed to be.

And my advice from above is just what IIIII would normally do when doing a track like this...
 
That sounds really really bad now. All the clarity is gone now.

Also, you will never have a truly good mix until you have a truly good performance. Put the extra time in being a dick to yourself over keeping takes. Get the performances perfect and inhumanly tight before you even start editing or anything and it'll be worth it.
 
Quad tracking doesn't make a mix cloudy. Poor guitar tone or poor mixing is what makes a mix cloudy.

Your new mix is unbalanced. Pan TWO TAKES of rhythm guitar; one hard left and one hard right.

Put the lead around the middle. A lot of the time, I will track a lead dead center. If vocals are involved, I will pan it right around 70% and call it a day. It depends on the track.
 
Actually, I was being constructive. The best mixes around are the ones where the mix engineer has obviously spent more time flexing his creative muscles instead of having to edit the fuck out of less than stellar performances to get something usable.

I'm just saying man. Just be a little more harsh on yourself with which takes you keep. Go for EPIC tightness every time, 110% every single take. Concentrate like you've never concentrated before in your life, and then concentrate even harder next take.

That'll make a huge huge difference to your recordings man. I'm not saying "OMG YOUR A SHIT GUITAR PLAYER" or something like that. My opinion of your instrumental skill is irrelevant. I'm saying that tighter performances will improve your mix without you actually, yknow, improving your mix.
 
yeah I wasn't even being sarcastic, sorry since it came out that way. I just know that you criticize almost everything I post on here and I appreciate it. I don't think anyones going to become a better engineer by producing shit and it gets praised. shit=shit period.