New hardcore track, think Miss May I or TDWP

austinhue

austinhue

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Feb 28, 2011
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This is a demo I made for my band, so unfortunately it is done and released now. But your comments are still very welcome, because we haven't even started the album yet. I realize there's lots of progress to be made for me as a producer, but I am simply too emotionally invested in my own music to realize what's wrong with this mix. That's where I need your help!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6920288/Captain Demo Final.mp3

Production Details:

Drums:
Quantized in Logic's Flex Time
Kick, Snare, Toms recorded and replaced 100% with apTrigga
2 overheads, 1 china, 1 hi hat mic (CAD, SM58, SM57 respectively)
Compression/reverb bus

Guitars:
Schecter Damien
Amplitube modeling
2 rhythms left and right, 1 lead in center

Bass:
Lakland P-bass
Logic default bass amp
2 layers - one pitch-shifted an octave lower

Vocals:
Screams recorded with SM7A, super-super-compressed and EQ'd a tiny bit
Singing recorded with AKG C414, super-duper-compressed and EQ'd a tiny bit more
All vox go through short reverb bus, long reverbs and tape delays are automated all over the place

Synths:
Created in Ableton Live with ReFX Vanguard and NI Massive, delay and reverb added in Logic

Mastering:
Gentle, 2:1 compressor with <2dB gain reduction
EQ HPFing 28Hz, small small bumps in areas to smooth, Hi shelf at 6K
Logic's default Adaptive Compressor to limit dynamic range
 
I like the production quite a bit. The synth parts are great.

The singing parts near the end sound pretty lo-fi. Not sure if that was intentional or not.

I think the drums are controlling the entire mix a little too much. I would love to hear more guitars and bass.

I would also have loved to hear the synth parts from the beginning making their way back into the song 2/3 of the way in somewhere.

Toms sound boxy.
 
^^^ what he said (drums and guitars)
I'd also like to add my own bit of creativity and suggest you put some saturation on those screams :D
It'll definitely help get that miss may I sounding scream
 
has a really nice hardcore vibe to it, it's quite cool. it's produced pretty well, and mixed alright too, and doesn't sound too much like the 100% quantized *-core bands.

the song is good too!

you've done a good job with the guitars, they sound pretty good for a modelling sim!

i like prominent drums, but they seem to be causing the mix to pump a little.. your choice of samples is.. unconventional, but they seem to work quite well!

thanks,
 
AHChris said:
There´s clipping pretty much all the time... Sounds super squashed IMO
Click to expand...

There's no clipping according to the waveform... try dragging it into Audacity and zooming into the sample level. Plus, when listening to it through my computer speakers at a low level I can't really hear any compression. I'm a noob at mastering though, what would cause my track to clip (considering the mastering chain I detailed above)?

Thanks to everybody for the comments, by the way!
 
Hey this is a silly question but what's the best way to do the cut in and out thing that you do a lot in the song. I mean I could just automate muting 16th note regions of a vocal part or something but I was wondering it it's some plugin or something you do.
 
labelchild said:
Hey this is a silly question but what's the best way to do the cut in and out thing that you do a lot in the song. I mean I could just automate muting 16th note regions of a vocal part or something but I was wondering it it's some plugin or something you do.
Click to expand...

Nope, I just automate muting =] Although it's actually 32nd note regions. This is the best way, you have more control than if you used a plugin.
 
Oops. This is the link I meant to post - sorry about that. NOW tell me what you think.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6920288/New Captain.mp3

P.S. Genre names in this area are so subjective - I always call bands like TDWP hardcore, ABR is metalcore, and All That Remains is melodic death metal. "Real" hardcore band like Rise Against or whatever... I don't really know, I don't listen to that kind of music =p
 
austinhue said:
Oops. This is the link I meant to post - sorry about that. NOW tell me what you think.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6920288/New Captain.mp3

P.S. Genre names in this area are so subjective - I always call bands like TDWP hardcore, ABR is metalcore, and All That Remains is melodic death metal. "Real" hardcore band like Rise Against or whatever... I don't really know, I don't listen to that kind of music =p
Click to expand...


All those bands are definitely metalcore man :p. All That Remains is DEFINITELY not melodic death metal. Rise Against is just a pop punk band.


ANYWAYS. The song sounds a little smashed. I'd turn the vocals down for a bit more balance, and I cut some low mids from them too. How high are they high passed?
 
AllanD said:
All those bands (TDWP, ABR, ATR) are definitely metalcore man :p. All That Remains is DEFINITELY not melodic death metal. Rise Against is just a pop punk band.


ANYWAYS. The song sounds a little smashed. I'd turn the vocals down for a bit more balance, and I cut some low mids from them too. How high are they high passed?
Click to expand...

Alright. Any advice on how I could smash the mix less without just making it quieter? My RMS meter is reading -10dB right now, which is right about where I want it.
The vocals are hi passed at 100Hz, 24db/Oct, .71Q.
 
Try high passing the vocals higher around 200, maybe 300. They're very muddy and covering up a lot of the mix.
 
Hi passed the vocals at 250 instead, made them a bit brighter, played around with guitar tone, pushed back the limiter and the mixing on the OHs, brought back the reverb on the snare, brightened up the attack on the toms, brought forward the kick, made the rhythms meatier, reworked the bass tone, compressed vox more, turned up the mixing on the bass drop and added an automated HPF on the master whenever it hits that starts at 75 and moves down to 28.

Phew.

I think I might still need to balance the screams and cleans a little better and work on the annoyingness of the lead tone, but we're getting there...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6920288/Captain_progress.mp3
 
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