Noob needs mixing help/advice

[B Rad]

Hello all. I've been working in my own home studio for about 3 years learning how to mix my own projects. I'm looking for some advice as I am now getting better sound quality at the source (Using Kemper for guitars and bass). I find that I was able to use mics to get a good metal mix, but now that I have really upped the quality at the source it has completely changed the final mix.

I also usually double track guitars, but our guitarist insists that we do quad tracking, because "that is how it is supposed to be done". IMO, I can get 2 guitars to sound better than 4 any day.

So a quick outline of my workflow:
I record everything into SONAR, then bounce Stems to go to final mix

Drums: Record drums with 2 overheads and a room mic, 100% replace kick and Just a tiny little bit of blended trigger on the snare. Everything else is Dry and EQ'd and gated (toms and snare). I edit the drums to be really close to the click.

Bass: 1 DI track which I use primarily for lows, 1 track through an AMPEG profile on kemper

GTR: This is the first time I've tried quad tracking, 4 really kick ass profiles (2 5150's, a Diesel and maybe one other that I cannot recall ) panned 80% and 100%

I then bounce down stereo stems of GTR, BASS (I use hi/low pass on each of the 2 tracks), Kick, Snare, Toms, Room/OH and send to REAPER to get a final mix and polish on everything.

I adjust the shape/EQ, verb etc as best I can to get everything to sit well and to still have that heaviness... I feel like the Guitars are just too much or too little, really hard to find the right spot. Also, I'm not sure if I am compressing too much or too little on my master. the guitar tone changes so much with even just a little shift in compression.

Anyhow... I feel like I'm starting all over again with this new gear and the quad tracking. Can anyone give me some advice on what steps I should take here? I'm just not at all happy with my mix.

I will attach images so you can see the settings on my Master limiter:

And also A PAZ Analyzer so you can see what I'm working with across the board:

 

[Mashreef]

i think you are over compressing

 

[B Rad]

Ok, cool... Any other advice? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

 

[SirKnucklesmd]

the snare is extremely flat (no punch/pop), must parallel compress the sh*t out of that... and the kick is drowning, did you HP the OH mics to cut out all low end? You want a dry low end for this music. It basically just sounds to me you haven't HP/LP your tracks yet, but for a raw recording you have something you can work with here. In regards to quad tracking... when it comes to guitars less is more and more is less. Unless you have the tightest guitar player on the planet quadtracked distorted guitars will more often than not come out sounding a mess. That's an R&B and Rock trick for less saturated tones, defintately not for this genre.

 

[B Rad]

AH! Thank you... So i went in, Dropped all lows below about 300 in the OH mix. I tweaked levels and EQ a bit here and there... Next i will work on parallel comp. Any advice is good advice... please check the update:

[SOUNDCLOUD]<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F70637708&show_artwork=true"></iframe>[/SOUNDCLOUD]

 

[B Rad]

http://soundcloud.com/puritydesign/bb-test-snippet-12-8

 

[Vicioushead]

It's hard for me to give you good feedback owing to the fact that A) I'm not very good at mixing etc B) I'm listening on my laptop speakers at the moment.

I will say however, that I don't think the rhythm guitars are tight enough. It's quite messy during the intro.

 

[lanky noob]

Is there some reverb on the kick or something? It sounds really distant and not very "in your face"

Also try de-cluttering the guitars a bit, http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...-series-1-poking-holes-high-gain-guitars.html

Also sounds liek the bass could be a bit more present, but i'm only listening on laptop speakers at the moment and i'm tired as shit, so that could just be me being a bit special