Need help with the bottom end of my mixes

[Revelation7069]

Hey. I am having trouble getting that "good" sound to the bottom end of my mixes. I am going for the clean bottom end that joey does since most of the bands that come in here are trying to get with Rise Records. I cannot seem to get it and I have no idea where I am going wrong. Here is the mix and below are the settings. Is it my bass guitar that is the problem or is it the bass drum or both? Thanks.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=942535&songID=7753782

Drums:
SSD 2.0 with drumagog on bass drum (sneapkick and yamahasubkik) and snare drum (sneapsnare).

Bass Guitar: (Got these settings on this forum)
Gearbox bass plug in
Eq 1= -3.9db at 361, -2.6 at 63, -10.4 at 93 and low pass at 6982
Eq 2= -15.7 at 85 w/ 13.5Q, -9.6 at 141 w/ 14Q, -1.8 at 245 w/ 7Q
VoxengoMarquiComp: 50:1 Ratio, -6 db Thresh and 40db Knee, Attack 0.05, Release 102
L1 Maximizer: -25.6 Thresh, 121.62 Release with Out Ceiling at 0
C4: (Low = 68, Mid 489, High 11071) (1) -29.5 Thresh, Gain 5.1, Range 3.0, Attack 99.3 and Release 5.9, (2) -71.5 Thresh, -3.5 Gain, -8.0 Range, 5.77 Attack, 43.45 Release (3) -47.4 Thresh, -1.8 Gain, -8.0 Range, 4.99 Attack, 9.98 Release
Gate w/ sidechain on kick: -14.7 Thresh, Attack 1.0, Hold 15, Release 200 on Duck from Kick

Both Sneapkick and Bass Guitar are sent to a buss and compressed with C1.

 

[AStacy2]

I'd say the problems are with the bass and the guitar and not the kick.

 

[Revelation7069]

As far as the guitar settings. I use gearbox.
I have 3 tracks of guitars, two are the same played with different presets in gearbox and panned 100 percent L and R. The other is the lead panned 26 percent right. The two panned L and R have these EQ settings.
EQ: HighPass at 87, -2.4 at 747, -7.3 at 83 nad LowPass at 10764. They are then sent to a bus and then eq'ed again and compressed.
EQ 2: HighPass 141, 2.5 at 590 and -5.2 at 2055.
C4: Sneap-like settings I got off of here a while back.

 

[Revelation7069]

Any ideas for getting that guitar and bass to sound better together?

 

[Fragle]

haven't been able to listen to your clip on a decent system yet, so i'm going purely by your settings now.

actually, i think there's too much going on. ditch the compression on the guitar bus, and double check if the multiband is really necessary (=low mid woof on palm mutes). i also wouldn't hipass as high as 147hz on guitars....80-100hz should be fine.

as for the bass, seems like your EQ'ing out all the frequencies that provide that bottom end punch....
generally speaking, i usually notch out a small band where the kick has it's peak (=where it's boosted....this is usually anywhere from 70-100hz or something), low shelf eq BOOSTING those sublows (anything below the kick basically), and then it's about balancing the mids/treble with the guitars....if the bass is too audible, try cutting some higher mids/highs, too woody, cut around 500hz or something, too little definition, boost low mids, to little snap/dull sound, boost high míds/highs.


edit: btw, you could also try to duplicate your bass track, lowpass it to hell and back (like 200hz or even lower...you want to hear only the bass lowend here), and then SMASH the fuck out of it with a comp/limiter....then add this to taste.
basically, what you're trying to do here is to provide a steady lowend that doesn't kill your bass articulation

just some general stuff i usually do....maybe start from scratch again with bass/guitars and do something in the ballpark of it and see if it works out better or not.
as i said, i haven't listened to your mix on a decent enough system yet.

 

[Revelation7069]

Thanks. I will give that a try. I always have a problem with the lower end of my mixes. They always seems muddy.

 

[nwright]

I agree with what everyone else has said.

To me, the whole mix sounds unbalanced and overcompressed, leading to things getting buried. I think the mix is so overcompressed and cloudy due to that that I don't even think you could say the low end is muddy, it's just kinda gone, IMO.

Guitars are too loud, kinda thin and almost too in your face IMO, and it sounds like it's a bit louder towards the right side, and not very spacious...I'm assuming this is due to the "lead" guitar track playing all the time slightly off center. IMO it overpowers rather than supports the rhythm guitars chordal movement.

When the guitars hit big chords, or the loud sung vocals come in, you can hear the compressor kick in and push the drums and bass even further back into the mix than what the overcompression is already doing during the verses.

I'm assuming you have some sort of "mastering" chain set up...If so, turn all that off and post that mix clip. I think it would be easier to discern true mix problems rather than trying to pick out things among the overcompression on the whole track, which (i'm assuming) could be coming from a mastering chain or general mix buss (over)compression.

 

[Revelation7069]

That's what I figured. I am still pretty new to this so I put ozone on the master bus. I will post a clip later on with nothing on the master bus.

 

[doclegion]

I can tell that the bass is EQed bad and i dont gotta listen to it.. I would recommend you take every single plug in off the master buss ( maybe light comp) but thats it everything on every channel gone if you dont need it

I never try to over EQ something.. I would say High pass guitars till they lose a small amount of low end and low mids.. Take the bass and instead of any negitive DB, try a low shelf at 3 DB around 400 just to see how that works and with your kick scoop the Mids between say ???? 700-200? and put a low shelf on that about ten DB but keep the kick drum overall VOLUME at the level of the guitars but dont add high end if you dont have to that will ensure fattness, oh and know your monitors and environment

But This is what works for me and i hardly ever EQ anything else
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...9-arcane-design-rate-my-mix-jsx-mesa-cab.html

LATE

 

[Revelation7069]

I can tell that the bass is EQed bad and i dont gotta listen to it.. I would recommend you take every single plug in off the master buss ( maybe light comp) but thats it everything on every channel gone if you dont need it

I never try to over EQ something.. I would say High pass guitars till they lose a small amount of low end and low mids.. Take the bass and instead of any negitive DB, try a low shelf at 3 DB around 400 just to see how that works and with your kick scoop the Mids between say ???? 700-200? and put a low shelf on that about ten DB but keep the kick drum overall VOLUME at the level of the guitars but dont add high end if you dont have to that will ensure fattness, oh and know your monitors and environment

But This is what works for me and i hardly ever EQ anything else
http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...9-arcane-design-rate-my-mix-jsx-mesa-cab.html

LATE

WOW! Sounds like I was over doing it and you basically made it sound easy. I will give this a shot and post it again. That sounds sweet BTW.

 

[Revelation7069]

Okay. I went ahead and got rid off all my eq and masterbus plugins. I started over using yalls tips. Here is what I have. Any suggestions?

http://soundclick.com/share?songid=7756613

 

[doclegion]

There ya go its more tame

 

[nwright]

I think that sounds much better, but I still think there is a bit of unbalanced sounds, but the low end IS intact.

I'd lower the vocals (both the screaming and the backup sung stuff) a bit and that lead guitar track is IMO way too loud in parts. The rhythm guitars still sound buried and thin, but overall this is a vast improvement.

I'd wager that some parallel compression on the drum bus would really help them out, too.

 

[Revelation7069]

Thanks for all the help. I will need to retrack the guitars because they sound thin. I will try a different POD setting. I will post another clip after I retrack them.

 

[vespiz]

Thanks. I will give that a try. I always have a problem with the lower end of my mixes. They always seems muddy.

I have no idea about your listening environment, but this seems like an acoustics problem? Ie. not hearing the low-end properly and making wrong decisions based on that. (sorry, didn't listen to the clips, just thinking out loud!)

 

[Revelation7069]

Here is the updated mix. Thanks to all of you for the help.
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=942535&songID=7753782

@nwright: I lowered the lead guitar and pulled back the vocals. In order to thicken up the guitars I used harmonic exciter and waves shuffler.

@vespiz: I really don't have a good environment and I am still working with old studio monitors (I really need new ones).

If anyone has any feedback about this mix please let me know. I'll take anything I can get!