Please Help me (noob )

[Morgorroth]

Hi,
first of all I want to thank every one of you, for sharing all your knowledge (especially in tutorials) in this forum, it already helped me A LOT.

I use cubase SX 3.1 and Wavelab and a PreSonus firepod.

Now, here is my first mix ever and I have A LOT of problems.
First of all, the guitars are from a band I recorded; (I did the drums just to have something to work with, so please don't care about the mistakes). Guitars were LTD EX 400 and Epiphone LP Standard trough Powerball 3rd channel ,with wrong settings ( I realized later on :/ ), and a Engl Standard cab, doublemiced with 2 sm57.
I used Q filter on the guitars, a bit of EQ and multiband compressor on one of the tracks for each side, panning L100%, L75% ; R75% , R100%.

Then, I already realized, I made some mistakes recording the drums, I hit the snare way to hard in the later part of the recording and I can't gain control of the snare's dynamics.
Also, I should mention that I recorded the kit with 2 sm57 as Overheads (obeyed the 3:1 rule) a audio technica sm57 clone for snare and a Sony dynamik vocal mic for the bassdrum.
Well, BD and snare heavily compressed (3:1 & 4:1 with almost no Attack an release on the BD and few on the snare), both gated and used lots of EQ on it and also added a bit of reverb.
OH are just low- Cut and a bit high boosting.


Alright now, I worked a lot on the mix ...and this is the best I can do , but I can't get that bloody thing LOUD. I tried compressing it in Wavelab (also using a limiter at -0,5 DB ) and then raised the master, but it isn't even near the loudness of a usual CD.
I am so frustrated right now ....

So I thought you might help me by giving me some tips or links to helpfull stuff or whatever.


Now here is the Mix (without mastering or whatsoever):

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=846505 << MIX1

Thak you

Greetings (and sorry for the noobish questions)

 

[Unavailable]

Don't even bother with getting the mix loud right now. You have a lot to do still in the mixing and editing stage.

It sounds like you uploaded the track to soundclick in mono.

The kick has way too much click, and not enough boom. Snare sounds really far away; bring down the reverb and boost the attack/high freqs.

The guitars need more low end. I wanna hear the cab resonating.

No bass yet?

Oh and those are just some beginning pointers. Like I said, there's still a lot to do.

 

[AudioPhile777]

The kick has way too much click, and not enough boom.

At least he is using the right daw for that...

 

[ahjteam]

Just concentrate to make the mix sound good first, don't worry about the loudness for now. You can get it at the mastering stage.

 

[Morgan C]

"Also, I should mention that I recorded the kit with 2 sm57 as Overheads (obeyed the 3:1 rule) a audio technica sm57 clone for snare and a Sony dynamik vocal mic for the bassdrum."
Ack. I've found my SM57 picks up NOTHING thats at a decent distance from it so they're probably pretty poor as overheads, but if thats what you've got then I guess you'll have to work with it. A vocal mic for the bassdrum? I actually like the tone, but as said above, needs less click and more boom.

Well, BD and snare heavily compressed (3:1 & 4:1 with almost no Attack an release on the BD and few on the snare), both gated and used lots of EQ on it and also added a bit of reverb.
Raise the attack on your compressors. Snare is usually pretty long, about 20-30ms, and I think kick about the same but I usually don't get good results compressing kicks so don't take my word for that. Also try parallel compressing if you want some more attack (duplicate track, or create a send to a bus, and then add another compressor with about 10-15dB gain reduction, I think 6:1 and a smaller attack, between 5-10ms).


Guitars sound really thin. Maybe its the EQ you used on it or maybe the phases on the 2 mics are making it out. Zoom in as far as you can and align the 2 tracks so that the wave forms are approximately in the same place.


Also you said you made "a lot of mistakes" in tracking. Honestly, try these things but I think you're much better going back and changing the stuff at the recording stage. A good guitar tone shouldn't need much EQ (I rarely ever use EQ on my guitars and if I do its just to make space for other instruments not to fix something in the guitar track).

 

[gorath23]

Firstly I'll say well done for getting even a half usable sound from the drums considering the very limited mics you had available. The thing that really sticks out is the kick drum. I think there's probably only so far you can go with corrective EQ. That Sony mic isn't really designed for the job. If you have drumagog or even a simple audio to midi converter (free off the web), stick the kick drum track into it and then replace using samples or DFHS/EZdrummer or whatever.

I don't suppose you have any photos from the session do you? I'd be interested to see how you positioned the mics on the cab. If it is a phase issue thinning the guitars out then Voxengo's free Sample Delay could help align it: http://www.brothersoft.com/voxengo-sample-delay-download-111929.html (hosted here because this version is no longer available on the official site).

 

[Morgorroth]

Thank you very much everyone!

I know there is a lot of work coming up for me .

The guitars suck bad I know.
Next Time I will single mic the cabs and they play it two times, the song isn't that hard .
Is there a chance that it wouldsoun better, if I just kick one track and use only a single track ?

Then, I"ll try parallel compression on drums.

Well the bassdrum isn't as clicky as I wanted it to be, to be honest Oo.
I had to cut a lot of the frequencys at 8000khz so the snare doesn't make a "click" sound everytime I hit the snare (gated the bassdrum and did some manual editing, but sometimes I can't completly get rid of it )

And the Reverb on the snare is at about 15% in the mix Oo ( 0,5 sec reverb time)


Another noobish question: does it matter in which order I put the Insert effects on a channel in cubase? (compressor in the first slot, reverb in the second, etc ?)

Greetings

 

[cobhc]

Can't listen because I'm at work. But if you have limited microphones that are suited to the job, then I suggest you use your best mics for the overheads, and then gate/manually edit and sample replace the main drums afterwards. If you're having trouble with getting rid of the snare in the kick mic, you should just go in and manually edit the kick. It shouldn't take you too long. Also you generally shouldn't have reverb before a compressor, otherwise you will be compressing the reverb. Reverb's and delays normally will go last in the chain. EQ and Compression on the other hand, lots of people have different views on which way these should go, generally go with what sounds best for that application.

 

[Morgan C]

I usually go EQ -> compressor -> delay -> reverb but often switch it around, you don't HAVE to stick to that, but it does make a difference.

"I had to cut a lot of the frequencys at 8000khz so the snare doesn't make a "click" sound everytime I hit the snare (gated the bassdrum and did some manual editing, but sometimes I can't completly get rid of it)" I'm assuming you mean every time you hit the 'KICK'? Heh. I've noticed that in a few pro things (ie. Roundhouse Tapes by Opeth) and its annoying. I can suggest if you want to use YOUR kick instead of sampling someone elses, chuck an SM57 in there (it'll sound better than the mic you're using and will probably pick up more low-end), turn the snares off so you dont get sympathetic vibrations and take a few samples, then chuck the Sony mic back in there for recording and just sample replace it with the samples you made of your kick, then you can EQ/etc. without having to worry about all the bleed and without having a POS recording in the first place.

If the kick still isn't 'clicky' enough maybe you're raising the wrong freq's (I find 2khz is a sweet spot for that 'hard' characteristic in drums, lowering there gives the drum the feel of more give (ie. a looser skin) while raising there too much will make it sound like you're playing on wood. Try mucking around there if you want more click, or use a plugin like dominion (free, transient shaper, you can raise or lower attack and sustain volumes and lengths). Also parallel compression will help with the attack.

As for reverb, it depends..I'd go for a longer reverb time, maybe 1.5 seconds. You're not trying to make it sound BIG with reverb..that was the 80's I think, gated reverb, but you're trying to make a close-mic sample sound like a tighter, cleaner overhead or room sample. Sometimes if you have a lot of overhead or room sound in your mix you won't need reverb at all.

Try doing all this and try playing around with the guitars, maybe only use one mic if it sounds better, but try phase-aligning them first. Upload em and then we'll see.

 

[cobhc]

I normally use room reverbs of about 1.5-2.0 seconds length, 20ms or so of predelay so it stands out a bit from the actual hit (similar sound to Andy).

 

[Morgorroth]

Hi,
I realized that there is no use in fucking around with that shitty mix. I will start record some stuff all by myself in the next few weeks and then ask for help again, but thank you all for your eforts

Greetings

(until then I will have bought some decent drum mics )

 

[Morgorroth]

Hi,
I tried something different now.
I quad tracked a song through a Pocket Pod and used Brohymns' Mesa Impulses on the guitars.
Then I recorded some drums (just a quick test) and used apTrigga (demo unfortunatly ) with andy sneaps samples from this forum.
Snare & BD are both compressed with Steinberg on board VST compressor (Snare 4:1, BD 6:1 ), I additionally used the blockfish compressor on the snare.
Used Voxengo EssEQ on everything .
I think it sounds nicer now.
I also added a tiny bit of compression on to the sum-bus and a bit of eq.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=846505 (Mix 2 APTrigga Demo)

what dou you think ? better or worse ?
Greetings

&#8364;: I forgot: I used parallel compression on the guitars (one track per side 4:1 compression with about 14 dB of gain reduction)