Overproduced rock (ala Nickelback, Chili Peppers). Real gtrs/drums.

[Morgan C]

Okies

Drums were fully sample replaced (snare is 70% my sample, kick is lasse's, toms are 100% mine). OHs were $5 on chairs, with a mono OH to balance it out, and a room mic. Fuck me that was hard to get sounding good, esp getting the drums out of the mics. Massive surgical EQ and sidechain comp.

Bass was slapped (apart from chorus), and an awesome player. Then into Studio Devil and Juicy77.

Gtrs was a Les Paul I think, pretty good player, and reamped by lolzgreg into the Windsor. I had to EQ out a bit too much of the lowmids i think and so might be getting it redone by Ryan. Its sounding decent tho.


No vocals yet, and hopefully I'll convince them to put clean guitars in the verse so its not so empty. I'll bump this thread again when those get done, but would appreciate comments now. especially from those with good monitors. I'm mixing on headphones, and while I check on speakers and shit I don't actually own monitors.



TLDR version:;
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/AllHandsDown30Aug.mp3



PS:
I'm fucking pissed off because I made that awesome snare sample, and then saved over the project so I only have 1 sample instead of the 25 I could have had. Luckily this style doesn't really call for dynamics.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

only listening on 20$ computer speakers atm, but it sounds good on those.
I'm gonna give it a listen on my main system later to find out what kick that is and if I still have it in my sample library.
your snare sounds really cool (from what I can tell on these speakers).

would love to hear it with vox

 

[Oligopod]

Sound good to me too, headphones here. Snare sounds good, you can't really tell it's one sample. Only negative is there's some weird digital distortion when the guitars are hitting a long powerchord on their own (?), e.g. @ 2:00 and at the very end.

 

[lolzgreg]

Dude, these guitars are too loud for this particular mix IMHO. I don't think its necessary that you cut anything out of them, just lower them a bit. I hear the digital clipping in the guitars that Oligopod mentioned and it definitely wasn't in the tracking stage.

 

[HandsOfDespair]

Yeah guitars are too loud but they fit the mix IMO. The bass is friggin' awesome.

 

[MetalMiller]

Dude, i dig your snare sound a lot. Especially the samples lasse has sliced are my new favorite snare. But i must say you are right, it´s a bit static with just one sample. Otherwise good mix.

BTW: who´s the bitch in your avatar?

Thanks

 

[mjgg6]

I´m hearing on KRK studio monitors and the guitar is cliping a lot... as Oligopod said I notice a lot on long chords.
THe bass is incredible dude.

Good work.

 

[Ermz]

Listening on cans, I think you've been too brutal on the midrange. Sounds very scooped, and as a result a bit thin. Don't be afraid to fatten it out, leave those mids in there. Parallel compress everything sideways. But yeah that guitar tone is definitely something you don't want. It needs to be way fuller, less pushed/EQ'd sounding. Dual mic would help a lot there.

 

[Dexter_prog]

Sounds good. But I think the guitars are too distorted for this type of music and I also think I heard some clipping. Bass and drums are great.

ps: I don't have monitors. Just Edifier R1000TC

 

[ahjteam]

There is some really weird sounding resonant sound in the chorus. Overall the mix could use a bit more headroom. Eventho its 2009, dynamics are still nice.

 

[Morgan C]

Thanks for all the comments guys!

Yeah the digital distortion is just clipping, the compressor raises the guitars by a tiny bit when there are no drums and they start clipping.
I could lower them a little, I guess I've raised em too much but its hard to tell without vocals. Hopefully will get those done this weekend.

@Ermz, I'll try putting some mids back in.. altho I really dug the Underoath/Paramore productions when I first heard them, they now sound REALLY cloudy to me. Way too much mids and way too much masterbus comp. Maybe I've gone too much the other way with this.
Do you think its mostly the guitars that need more mids, or the mix as a whole?

Guitars are a bit too distorted but not something that I can do now. I'll see what Ryan comes up with and see which ones turn out best.

@MetalMiller
The samples I used for this I haven't actually uploaded. I can if you want, but of course I did a SHITLOAD of processing (mostly layers of comp and sat/distortion) to get to this.

@ahjteam, there are two synths in the chorus, on on the left which is gated and really sharp and one which is just playing 1/4 note chords which is probably what you're hearing. As for dynamics.. I'll try lowering the guitars to stop the clipping but I want this to be 'radio-volume'.

Thanks again guys, I'll bump this later when I track vocals and clean guits and update the mix.


edit: chick in my avatar is 13 off House. Olivia Wilde.

 

[iekobrid]

Are the snare rolls in the intro just coming through the OH and room mics?

 

[Morgan C]

Are the snare rolls in the intro just coming through the OH and room mics?

No (the tracks were shitty and panned to the left).

Fuck that took a long time.

All the ghost notes were sampled. I think it adds a lot, particularly in the fill in the middle of the chorus, and in the fills at the end.

 

[slayercannibalsuffohead]

Dig ya bass sound Morges. Cant get me head around the snare though. Must be me (most others like it and ones that are similar) but to me it sounds like a dull paper bag with a very loose strainer and a shitload of treble.

 

[kev]

Bangin' Bass tone there!

 

[MetalMiller]

Hey morgoe, can you give little more info about bass? Have you used studio devil bass amp or guitar amp, and than traight into juicy? No impulses at all? No other plugs or EQ, comp. It sounds fantastic...

Thanks

 

[Morgan C]

Bass went into Studio Devil Bass Amp which has a choice of 2 impulses, I chose the 4x12 on there. Then the track was split into that tone (which already had a fair amount of distortion) and then the Studio Devil Bass Amp -> Juicy77 for some more midrange grind.

Lots of EQ and compression and multiband and limiting and I think I even used a de-esser to stop the harshness on the high notes. The original track was good but I did a lot of processing to get to this sound (not necessarily a bad thing).


edit; it finally hit me yesterday how awful the guitars are mixed, way too much high mids and not enough mids. Hopefully will get to track vocals next weekendand then I can fix that all up.

 

[lolzgreg]

edit; it finally hit me yesterday how awful the guitars are mixed, way too much high mids and not enough mids. Hopefully will get to track vocals next weekendand then I can fix that all up.

I was saying this! They're my reamps and they sounded GREAT with just faders up and HP 100hz and LP 12.5khz. I checked every reamp with your backing tracks and I wouldn't have sent em' to you if they weren't up to par. The way you mixed my reamps makes them sound bad

 

[Morgan C]

I was saying this! They're my reamps and they sounded GREAT with just faders up and HP 100hz and LP 12.5khz. I checked every reamp with your backing tracks and I wouldn't have sent em' to you if they weren't up to par. The way you mixed my reamps makes them sound bad

I know, I know ;p

I still think the original tracks were a bit cloudy. But everyone's been saying they're too scooped and I couldn't really hear it til yesterday when I compared the song to another one and everything was kewl but the guitars were just way out of whack. People can point out stuff but until I realise it myself I can't really change it. They'll def be changed now.