Need some help/opinions on this mix.

JayB

JayB

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Oct 10, 2009
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I spent a good portion of my day yesterday redoing this mix. I'm still not quite happy with it, but I can't figure out what's up. Mainly the toms (slate) and guitar tone are bothering me.

Here's the mix:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Sneap Forum Mix help/7 29 S2.mp3

Here's a mix I found on here a while back that I'm kind of trying to aim for:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Sneap Forum Mix help/Still Beats Your Name Mastered.mp3

I like the toms and guitar tone ( though I would make mine a bit brighter) on that. Firstly, does anyone know what toms he's using there? I know he said he used the X50 on guitars, which I'm using here too.
 
Hey JayB, there's a huge (sub)low end problem on this mix. I would start clearing out the drums in that area. Start using highpass on all the heavy elements (kickdrum, floortoms) just so they still sound heavy enough. Also look at around 200Hz on those elements to see what's happening, but to be honest I can't put a finger on that because it's so dense. When all that is cleared, make the guitars a little less scooped sounding, there should be room enough for that by then. Seems you are mixing on headphones?
 
RaNk said:
Hey JayB, there's a huge (sub)low end problem on this mix. I would start clearing out the drums in that area. Start using highpass on all the heavy elements (kickdrum, floortoms) just so they still sound heavy enough. Also look at around 200Hz on those elements to see what's happening, but to be honest I can't put a finger on that because it's so dense. When all that is cleared, make the guitars a little less scooped sounding, there should be room enough for that by then. Seems you are mixing on headphones?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply!
Not headphones, just not great speakers as I just moved to a new place and have yet to hook my monitors up. I actually just redid the guitars after talking to Ermz about it a bit, and here is the result (funnily enough, I wanted to add more low end to the guitars, as well as get rid of the high end fizz / too much gain).

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Sneap Forum Mix help/Track 2 July 20 More Low End Tone.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354806/Sneap Forum Mix help/Track 8 July 20 More Low End Tone.mp3

As for the low end on the drums, I will get on that tomorrow. How much do you usually high pass kick and toms?
 
The guitar like it sounds in the latest clips is alot better, exactly the direction I meant regarding the midtones. It's not a bad idea to have more lows in the guitar, but I think there's plenty right now, and there has to be room for it in the first place. Highpassing really depends on the music and character of the drum sounds. Usually the faster the music, the more highpass I end up with. A wild guess here would be like around 50-55Hz for the kick and maybe 70 to even 90 for the toms (for toms it's also a taste thing, but the rumble has to be removed when you use so much toms I think). But best is to just take a 'busy' part (e.g. 0:20-0:30 in the original clip) and slide the highpass until it sounds tighter but still big enough. I'm curious how the mix ends up, cause the base sound seems to be nice.
 
RaNk said:
The guitar like it sounds in the latest clips is alot better, exactly the direction I meant regarding the midtones. It's not a bad idea to have more lows in the guitar, but I think there's plenty right now, and there has to be room for it in the first place. Highpassing really depends on the music and character of the drum sounds. Usually the faster the music, the more highpass I end up with. A wild guess here would be like around 50-55Hz for the kick and maybe 70 to even 90 for the toms (for toms it's also a taste thing, but the rumble has to be removed when you use so much toms I think). But best is to just take a 'busy' part (e.g. 0:20-0:30 in the original clip) and slide the highpass until it sounds tighter but still big enough. I'm curious how the mix ends up, cause the base sound seems to be nice.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips man. I'll post some updated clips in a bit. I haven't hi passed the guitar or anything yet, this was just testing this guitar sound on the amp. I was going to do EQ after I rendered the guitars, because last time I EQd before the render and had to render all the tracks from scratch again. I usually hi pass guitar around 100 and low pass at around 10, that's fine right?
 
No problem, I hope I can be of any help. Yeah I always EQ after recording too, it's indeed much more convenient. I always take the same hi and lowpass values (like yours) to start with, usually don't have to change it alot, it depends on where everything else is sitting. When hipassing I listen to bass/guitar 'connection', on lowpassing to guitar/cymbals.
 
RaNk said:
No problem, I hope I can be of any help. Yeah I always EQ after recording too, it's indeed much more convenient. I always take the same hi and lowpass values (like yours) to start with, usually don't have to change it alot, it depends on where everything else is sitting. When hipassing I listen to bass/guitar 'connection', on lowpassing to guitar/cymbals.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks again man. I'll post some updated clips in a bit
 
PS, what velocity do you normally set toms to? Of course I vary the velocity a bit, but is it normally towards the 125 area or lower?
 
Yes I have the velocity quite high normally, indeed around 125. But I'm still experimenting with it too. For the faster rolls I set them a bit lower, like 115/120. That way it sounds more natural to me, I try to get the most natural sound I can get. The music I do also asks for that, but it can be different with other styles of course. I have a mixing thread open, you could take a listen at my mix, but maybe you don't want any help from me anymore then hehehe. :p
 
Last mixes sound much better. Alot tighter now, the drums sound way more controlled and nicer to me now. Maybe try to give the guitars a little more edge, but that's personal too. Major improvement.

*edit*

Listened a few times, there's still many low midtones battling. The basic sound is fine I think, but you could tune those a little bit. I put a little EQ on your mix and scooped a bit at 160 and 360 (Q at 2), and boosted a little at 6KHz. Not ideal of course, it's better to fine tune it in the mix, but maybe you get what I mean when comparing.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19759737/Track 8 July 31 Mix_EQed.mp3
 
RaNk said:
Last mixes sound much better. Alot tighter now, the drums sound way more controlled and nicer to me now. Maybe try to give the guitars a little more edge, but that's personal too. Major improvement.

*edit*

Listened a few times, there's still many low midtones battling. The basic sound is fine I think, but you could tune those a little bit. I put a little EQ on your mix and scooped a bit at 160 and 360 (Q at 2), and boosted a little at 6KHz. Not ideal of course, it's better to fine tune it in the mix, but maybe you get what I mean when comparing.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19759737/Track 8 July 31 Mix_EQed.mp3
Click to expand...

Glad you like the new mixes better.

When you say give guitars more edge, do you mean change something with EQ? Or redial the tone? I'm pretty happy with the tone but I might EQ it a bit. Bear in mind that in those last mixes I've yet to EQ anything besides hi passing the drums. The guitars aren't even high passed there.
 
Yes I would do a tad less (low)mids and some more highs/presence, preferably on the amp. EQing alot on the recorded tracks is never good to get a nice tone. A little lowmids filtering and a bit here and there is normal, also a small boost around 6-8K can be nice in the mix. Well, and the highpasses will help for sure.

Can always send me some tracks to see what I would do with it, if you want. Or start a 'mixing time' thread. It's fun. :)
 
Maybe later I'll just bounce a drums / bass stem and the guitar DI for one of the tracks so you can take a stab at it if you want. I don't want to derail the thread too much with a mixing time thing right now. As for the guitar tone, I keep listening back to it and it still sounds good to my ears. Whenever I try to put more treble in there all these bad frequencies pop out and it sounds worse. But maybe it's also a preference thing.
 
Yep tone is a preference thing also, just make/keep it the way you like it most. :)
 
RaNk said:
Yep tone is a preference thing also, just make/keep it the way you like it most. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks. I might tweak the tone a tiny bit, to give a little more treble and less low mids. But I do think it sounds pretty good right now. I might also put a higher hi-pass on the toms and kick.
 
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