Need some crits on my mix

[Vihaleipä]

I need some tips how to make my mix better, song is on my signature.
Would be very nice if you could share your thoughts!

 

[EnjoiTrent]

Drums lack presence and body, try a transient designer and a clipper on the shells.

 

[Vihaleipä]

Drums lack presence and body, try a transient designer and a clipper on the shells.

Thanks for the feedback! I will try that and post new mix here.

 

[Vihaleipä]

https://soundcloud.com/vihaleipa/slow-disco-new-version Is this any better? I mixed guitars little louder, clipped shells and made some little changes.

 

[tmitchell33]

Not sure why you would clip MIDI drums? There is such little dynamic range to begin with, your just sawing off the attack. If anything I think the drums need a bit more bleed, room and dynamic - they sound unnaturally separated. Presence could be achieved with parallel compression or gentle AUX group compression (Waves PIE compressor is a particularly good for this). Also watch the drum's top end, it's very coarse.

 

[EnjoiTrent]

I dunno, I just hear that little bit of pop when I throw gclip on drums. I mean, to each their own, but I like what it does to my drums.

 

[Vice//Versa]

No offense... but using clipping (when it comes to persecution) is meant to ensure that the snare doesn't disappear during the limiting stage of mastering. You're trying to snap out the "bumbs" in the waveform fooling the limiter. Ermz talks about it in his awesome guide http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/andy-sneap/675045-systematic-mixing-series-2-soviet-russia-drums-slam-you.html

The process uses hard digital clipping to chop the top and bottom of the waveform in order for it to use less headroom. Now instead of a master limiter squashing the originally large snare transient downward whenever it hits, it instead lets the chopped peak through. The D/A converter panics because it cannot recreate the chopped waveform (a pure square wave doesn't exist in the analogue realm) so it essentially overshoots and creates a faux-peak which retains the illusion of a punchy snare on output.

Crafty? Yes! But very easy to over-do. Only use this sparingly – ideally while monitoring through a temporary master chain of your own. Too much clipping and you will castrate the attack of the snare.

You shouldn't be trying to "hear" it during mixing.

 

[tmitchell33]

Great guide, but this is refers to real drums, with a real player. So there is a greater need to manage the dynamic range. MIDI drums with every velocity set to 125 probably won't have more than a few DB in dynamic range, unless you specifically change the velocities yourself

 

[EnjoiTrent]

I take no offense at all. I'm just saying it seems to work well for me, because I transient design and clip it so it doesn't hit red every time the drum hits.

 

[Vihaleipä]

Spent some more time with this mix, does it sound better? https://soundcloud.com/vihaleipa/slow-disco
I added some parallel compression and fixed few things, drums should sound more natural now.

 

[tmitchell33]

I take no offense at all. I'm just saying it seems to work well for me, because I transient design and clip it so it doesn't hit red every time the drum hits.

I agree, there is no right or wrong, and a clipper is a great tool to use on your drum AUX providing you don't shave too much off!

Spent some more time with this mix, does it sound better? https://soundcloud.com/vihaleipa/slow-disco
I added some parallel compression and fixed few things, drums should sound more natural now.

Drums sound thicker, your toms decent (SSD FAT?), kick is a little loud compared to the snare. But I would say all in all a good improvement