Parkway Drive / Killswitch Engage - REALLY mix in progress

[Folkrav]

The guys kept asking me for a first mix for them to listen. It's not mastered, it's a first shot mix with headphones, so some things might be a little unbalanced. When listening in my car, I noticed the bass was a little to strong, and snare pops out sometimes. Most job was done on vocals overall, but no automation at all for the moment. Missing vocals in the second chorus. 2 vocalists, had some issues with their vocals burying each other.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6505151/CalltoArms/TEH/The Eleventh Hour - Surfacing mix te.mp3

Band is The Eleventh Hour (I don't know what they thought when they chose the name - everyone has heard that before, just look at LoG and ABR).

Nothing fancy musically, really generic metalcore stuff, but I kinda learned to like their stuff music. The guys are awesome to work with, we're finishing vocals tonight if everything goes well.

I'd just like to have some pointers to where I should take this mix from here, as I know there is a lot of people with a lot more experience than me here. I have 5 other songs to mix, all in this style, more or less. I know, the drums sound like Idols and Anchors.

Thanks already!

UPDATED LINK - Dec. 19, 2010:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6505151/CalltoArms/TEH/The Eleventh Hour - Surfacing-mixt 1.mp3
UPDATED LINK 2 - Dec. 20, 2010 :
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6505151/CalltoArms/TEH/The Eleventh Hour - Surfacing preMaster.mp3

 

[zer0_c00l]

haha, the drums are almost the same for Idols and Anchors.

I think the bass zone is a bit muddy... apart i think it's pretty good

 

[Folkrav]

I had the same thought when I heard it too haha! I have to clean up the mix a bit, I feel like bass is a little out of control like you told me. I have to figure out what's going on right there!

 

[pipaguapique]

its sounding really good man. congrats. once you mix this on monitors, automate and fix the bass, it will be a really good mix. keep us updated.

what are the guitars??? 5150?? i noticed that right before the first singing part comes in the guitars get cut off like bad editing or something.

drums sound nice?? what are you using?

 

[Folkrav]

Guitars are LeGion and LeCto, through lolzgreg free impulse, with LP/HP, nothing fancy. Used a little bit tape saturation on guitar buss. Drums is Metal Foundry, kick 50/50 with a sample I found, and snare about 70% MF/30% Slate i-don't-remember-which-one. Drums has a shitload of buss sending to other buss sending to... you figure the rest. A lot of parallel compression going on, now that I learned and practiced that trick, I found that it does miracles, helped to bring up the cymbals without them being too present, and toms punch pretty good even if they're not so loud.

 

[Folkrav]

UPDATED LINK:
Early and fast master right now, just would like to have some pointers so I can push this to where those guys expect me to go... Sound like a bomb even if I have no / almost 0 budget. I'm kind of starting to record in my area, and I got a little excited, so I didn't charge so much for what I'm giving to them... Might pump a little, especially in the bass section, as I am struggling to make the bass beefy without it getting killed by bass drums...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6505151/CalltoArms/TEH/The Eleventh Hour - Surfacing-mixt 1.mp3

 

[P-E]

Shit, le monde est petit, j'pense que j'connais un gars que son band a joué avec eux en show.

Si j'étais toi j'baisserais la bass un peu pis j'utliserais un peu de multiband compression sur les guits, y prennent un peu trop de low-mids à mon avis. Sinon le mix est cool, mais les voix pourraient avoir vraiment plus de compression et être un peu plus à l'avant du mix, un bon truc pour y arriver c'est de deesser à fond, booster les aigus avec un EQ assez musical pis après de compresser avec plusieurs compresseurs. Pis à part de ça ça pourrait être intéressant de booster autour de 4hz (ben en gros, où ça va bien sonner) sur la bass pour avoir un peu plus de "grit" dans le son.

J'aime ben le feel du mix, avec de l'automation ça va être nice, good job.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Shit, le monde est petit, j'pense que j'connais un gars que son band a joué avec eux en show.

Si j'étais toi j'baisserais la bass un peu pis j'utliserais un peu de multiband compression sur les guits, y prennent un peu trop de low-mids à mon avis. Sinon le mix est cool, mais les voix pourraient avoir vraiment plus de compression et être un peu plus à l'avant du mix, un bon truc pour y arriver c'est de deesser à fond, booster les aigus avec un EQ assez musical pis après de compresser avec plusieurs compresseurs. Pis à part de ça ça pourrait être intéressant de booster autour de 4hz (ben en gros, où ça va bien sonner) sur la bass pour avoir un peu plus de "grit" dans le son.

J'aime ben le feel du mix, avec de l'automation ça va être nice, good job.

Yes, definitely agree with that

 

[P-E]

 

[Folkrav]

Les gars viennent de Saint-Jérôme, ça se peut donc très bien!

Strange for me when you say there's not enough comp on the vocals, there's like 2-3 compressors chained on each vocal track, a little saturation on one of the vocalists, with a limiter on the vocal buss. Struggling a little to figure out what automation I would have to do more than that...

For the bass I'll have to pull it back : it seems that someone fucking unplugged the subwoofer on my reference system (don't ask, I mix with a weird setup but I know it well) so I put in a lot of bass for no fucking reason.

 

[Folkrav]

UPDATE 2 - Dec. 20, 2010 :

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6505151/CalltoArms/TEH/The Eleventh Hour - Surfacing preMaster.mp3

More "coloured" compression on vocals, and a little higher in volume, turned down bass rumble and a little boost around 4kHz, and compressed for a couple of dBs guitars low-mids. Corrected kick that was competing with bass guitar.