Need opinions / Notes on this mix

[JayB]

Hey guys, working on this mix right now, I think I have it sounding pretty decent, but I'm having trouble getting the vocals to sit right with the guitars. It seems like no matter what I do, one of them is getting overpowered. In this mix, the vocals are definitely too loud, which I will fix. I tried doing a wide eq cut between 1500-3000 to give the vocals room to breathe. These guitars were reamped by Ermz by the way, I think he did a great job. So yeah, any opinions would be great, thanks!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Track 8 Empire With Vox 11 28 Mix.mp3

EDIT: updated mix

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Track%208%20Empire%20Revised%20Mix%20Ermin%20Tips.mp3

 

[JayB]

Anybody?

 

[Ermz]

Hey Jay,

Maybe try dipping some high mids on the guitars, and taking away some of that 2 to 3k stuff on the drums. Its sounding a bit scratchy and clacky up there. Subduing the high mids should let the mix breathe a bit more!

 

[JayB]

Hey Ermz, thanks for the response! Does 1500-3000 qualify as high mids? Because I dropped those there on guitars about 3 DB... As for the drums, should I cut that area on all of them?

 

[Ermz]

Try 4k as well on the guitars. I find that spot on the JVM tends to usually give me some issues.

Vocals are sounding great btw. I think getting the high mids sorted on the guitars should let them sink into the mix a lot more naturally without needing to be overpowering.

 

[JayB]

Cool, I'll give it a shot! That's me on the vocals by the way, glad you like them! The vocal mix is still pretty rough, I haven't even edited them yet, just recorded them and threw them in the mix with a rough chain.

 

[JayB]

I'll be posting a new mix in the morning, but in the meantime I have a kind of off topic question: how do I correctly emulate a wah ITB? I want to do this for a solo, and the only plugin I know of is POD Farm, where you can manually mess with the wah and record it, but it doesn't sound quite right. Would something like this go first in the chain, like before even the screamer and amp sim?

 

[Erkan]

I can't comment on the mix since I'm listening on a crap computer at work but it "seems" to sound pretty good! But I commented mostly because of the vocals - pretty good there. How long have you been doing vocals?

 

[JayB]

I can't comment on the mix since I'm listening on a crap computer at work but it "seems" to sound pretty good! But I commented mostly because of the vocals - pretty good there. How long have you been doing vocals?

Hey, thanks for both compliments bro! I'm mostly a guitar player, and decided to do vocals for my band's album when we couldn't find anyone better than me, haha. So I've been practicing for about a year or so. I've been messing with clean vocals since a little before that, just for fun.

 

[JayB]

OK here's a revised mix, using the tips that Ermin gave me. I also notched out 2-3 k on the drum bus and took some out of the overheads to give the vocals some space. Should I only be notching that area out of certain drums? Do any of them benefit from that range? Also, I added a tiny bit of reverb to the toms and snare.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Track 8 Empire Revised Mix Ermin Tips.mp3

Here's some pics of the eq I did on the guitar, let me know if I should change the q or anything

 

[JayB]

Any other thoughts/ thoughts on the updated mix?

 

[Ermz]

Try dipping the rhythms even more around 3k. There is this sort of scratchyness to the palm mutes that you've gotta get out! The new version is definitely better though.

Do you have any saturation plug-ins, or limiters to use on the drums? The plasticky sounding attacks are a little bit abrasive, and feel like they could use to be dulled down.

 

[JayB]

Try dipping the rhythms even more around 3k. There is this sort of scratchyness to the palm mutes that you've gotta get out! The new version is definitely better though.

Do you have any saturation plug-ins, or limiters to use on the drums? The plasticky sounding attacks are a little bit abrasive, and feel like they could use to be dulled down.

Hey , thanks again for the tips. I'll work on lowering the 3k on the guitars. I have izotope trash and L1 limiter... which drums should I use trash / limiter on?

 

[JayB]

Also Ermin, should I only use trash on specific drums, or the whole bus? And should I just use saturation or maybe distortion?

 

[JayB]

OK I tried using the tape saturation on izotope trash on the drums, but it's sounding odd. Unless I make the mix 100% wet, it sounds like there's a doubling effect going on, it's really weird. Also, I'm still confused about whether it should go on the whole drum bus or just certain drums. And I'm assuming it should go before reverb, right? Also Ermz, what about the limiter? Single drums or whole bus?

 

[JayB]

Ok here's a new mix Ermin. I couldn't quite get the grasp of using saturation on drums, so I took your advice on the limiter and applied that to the snare and toms. Not sure if I should be setting it so I'm getting attentuation on every single hit, I feel like that would just be destroying any dynamics. I also redid the bass chain here, but now I feel like it's muddying up the track. Maybe it's just too loud level-wise? I did the trick where it's one bass DI and one one cloned DI with distortion, each eq'd differently. Anyway as always I appreciate any help!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Track%208%20Empire%20Mix%2012%205.mp3