Need mastering help

[mx]

Hey guys,
I've spent some good time trying to mix/master a demo for my band and I'm just hitting a brick wall - not quite sure where to go from here. I know this is the rate my mix/tone thread, so think of this as a request for recording technique as well as rating the tone At the bottom of this post there's a link to the song in 3 different formats - the first two (Truth&Justice and Truth&JusticeNEW) are two attempts at mastering it - one with basically just Izotope Ozone 4 with the Rock Master preset, and the second one using Steven Slates suggestions (EQ -> Comp -> GClip -> GClip -> Elephant). The third file is the mix before any sort of mastering buss was applied (The one that says RAW).

Aside from getting everything to sit/mix nicely, I'm having real trouble getting the song anywhere near as loud as songs released on CD (I'm A/B'ing this with anything on August Burns Red Messengers, The Absence, At the Gates - all of these just sound HUGE compared to mine even though I've been doing what I consider to be a fair job at clipping/limiting)

I've just been reading up on all sorts of shit and I think I've kind of lost my way with all the possibilities so I'm just looking for a little direction here - any help would be much appreciated. Thanks, and hope you guys dig the track.

songs-
http://www.rochesterhatesmusic.com/matt/

 

[mx]

Also any tips on how to get the guitars a little drier would be awesome!

 

[mx]

Any thoughts at all?

 

[XnaySaturo]

How are you panning your stuff?

The RAW version sounds like it's all mono and the other ones sound like they were "stereo" imaged with iZotope or something.

 

[mx]

I have 4 rhythm tracks 2 hard L/R and 2 L50/R50, and thats actually all the panning I've done - do you pan anything else?. I believe thats the case on all mp3s up there. ozone definitely has a stereo imager running so I'm sure its more dramatic on the clip with that enabled

 

[mburton21]

I'd pan the second set of Rhythm guitars harder than that. I quad track and I always pan 100/100 89/89.

 

[mx]

I see, I'll try that. Also I'm panning them Guitar 1: L100 - R50, Guitar 2: R100 - L50, sort of cross panning them so there's a little bit of each guitar in both sides.

Any other thoughts on the mix as a whole? Anything sticking out too much, any ideas on how to make the guitars pop a little more?

 

[Harry Hughes]

Pan the second set of guitars at least 80 left/80 right, seriously

 

[mx]

OK, I've panned the guitars, sounds a little more isolated now - are there any other suggestions? It occurs to me at this point that the topic is misleading, as what I'm really looking for here is probably help with my MIX not mastering the track itself.

 

[mburton21]

Sounds like your overheads are too loud and drowning out the guitars. Are they rolled off at around 500Hz? That should help decently.

Also to clear my previous post up: I pan L 100/89 and R 100/89 in case there was any confusion (and i use on/off-axis micing so the 8 tracks of rhythm guitars sound huge)

I also pull the OHs in to about 81/81 so that the guitars have their own space in the extreme ends of the panning spectrum. Freeing up the space from about 85-100 pan really does wonders IMO to let the guitars shine.