Ola's Feared Song Test Mix

T

trianglebutt

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Feb 22, 2012
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Hey guys, I've lurked around here but only just got around to registering. Hopefully I'm allowed to post this in here even though it's not my song or raw tracks. I play drums and guitars and am starting to really work on my recording and mixing skills. However I haven't been able to record a full mix with vocals and bass myself so I saw Ola had posted the raw tracks for this and figured I could give mixing it a shot!

I used the Superior 2 Avatar kit for the drums, and LePou's 456 sim for the guitars with an ENGL Pro 4x12 IR. Bass was all just DI with some distortion blended in.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17103404/Feared Test Master 5.m4a

I'd really love some input on how to better approach mixing and such, as I'm pretty much a complete noob at this. So any critiques or pointers or tips are welcome!

- Aaron
 
Hey there Aaron and welcome to the forum!
There's way too much room on the drums (the room channel in superior drums is too loud). If you want to give them some depth and space, use a little plate reverb. And bring the overall volume of the drums up a little, and the guitars lower. Vocals could use a little bit of reverb too.
Also, try minimizing the interaction between the vocals and the cymbals/overheads. A little trick i like to use is boost the overheads at 12k+ and make a notch at 5k (wide Q, -9, -10db) and using a harmonic exciter or linear phase eq on the vocals in the 5k range. That's exactly how i did it with this song when i had a go at mixing it.

BTW, your guitar tone is one of the best i've ever heard, real gritty and brutal. Where did you find those Engl pro impulses? And what else did you use in your guitar chain?
 
JohnTheRipper: Thanks for the tips man. I completely agree with everything you said. My ears must have been completely shot last night because the room is indeed ridiculously high hahaha! No idea what I was thinking... Thanks for the the tip on the vocals too, I struggled getting them to sit well in the mix. The cleans especially were giving me trouble.

Here's a new, much much clearer mix: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17103404/Feared Test Master 8.m4a
Before anyone says anything, I realize the kick is now overpowering everything. It was lacking some bass in the overall tone, so I've got it sounding how I want it now but it needs to be tamed and fit into the mix. My ears are again tired out so I'm going to come back to it later and work on it a bit more.

As for the guitars, thanks dude! My chain is pretty simple. EQ with a high pass at around 100hz > stock Logic noise gate > LePou 456 > ENGL Pro IR. Guitars were panned at around 85%, so at 50 in Logic Pro. Here's a shot of the sim settings: http://grab.by/c4nO

The cab IR is from a pack called "Sperimental Impulses", I found it quite a while ago and it has a selection of Mesa cabs along with a Framus and the ENGL Pro. The exact IR from the pack I used was "NGL PRO 4x12 V30 57 New 05". If you can't find the pack, I can upload it for ya but I'm sure it's floating around somewhere still.

elapidae1: Sounds good, I'm digging the toms a lot. Guitars seem a little fizzy to me but that might just be my personal taste. The overall balance of the mix seems good until it gets to the parts with multiple guitar layers. The guitars overpower the vocals. I struggled with this too haha.

Cheers!
- Aaron
 
trianglebutt said:
JohnTheRipper: Thanks for the tips man. I completely agree with everything you said. My ears must have been completely shot last night because the room is indeed ridiculously high hahaha! No idea what I was thinking... Thanks for the the tip on the vocals too, I struggled getting them to sit well in the mix. The cleans especially were giving me trouble.

Here's a new, much much clearer mix: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17103404/Feared Test Master 8.m4a
Before anyone says anything, I realize the kick is now overpowering everything. It was lacking some bass in the overall tone, so I've got it sounding how I want it now but it needs to be tamed and fit into the mix. My ears are again tired out so I'm going to come back to it later and work on it a bit more.

As for the guitars, thanks dude! My chain is pretty simple. EQ with a high pass at around 100hz > stock Logic noise gate > LePou 456 > ENGL Pro IR. Guitars were panned at around 85%, so at 50 in Logic Pro. Here's a shot of the sim settings: http://grab.by/c4nO

The cab IR is from a pack called "Sperimental Impulses", I found it quite a while ago and it has a selection of Mesa cabs along with a Framus and the ENGL Pro. The exact IR from the pack I used was "NGL PRO 4x12 V30 57 New 05". If you can't find the pack, I can upload it for ya but I'm sure it's floating around somewhere still.

elapidae1: Sounds good, I'm digging the toms a lot. Guitars seem a little fizzy to me but that might just be my personal taste. The overall balance of the mix seems good until it gets to the parts with multiple guitar layers. The guitars overpower the vocals. I struggled with this too haha.

Cheers!
- Aaron
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comment. I think i should automate that section a bit. So far on the track i done no automation.
 
trianglebutt (funny name btw): you could automate the double kick parts with a high-pass filter at 90hz, so it wouldn't be overpoering, and then just bypass the filter when the slower parts come in. Or just lower the midi velocities, that's what i did. here's my take for reference:
Also, you should put a tape emulator on the summed drum track (something with lots of mid-range saturation), the transients are too sharp on the kick. Voxengo TapeBuss's Tape 2B does wonders on drums. The transient issue can also be avoided by distorting the high end of the kick (3 to 5 khz region).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I never thought of distorting the high end to fix the transient issue, good idea! I'll definitely mess around with it a bit more, thanks for the help.
 
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