Please help with my hardcore/metalcore mix!!

austinhue

austinhue

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Feb 28, 2011
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I am in a band called All Things Shine, and we produce and mix and master all of our own stuff. We don't have a whole lot of sound nerd friends (and even fewer who can tolerate or understand our music) and we could REALLY use some objective opinions on our production.

Please feel free to critique the process of production, the mixing, the mastering, the performances, songwriting, whatever. This is my band so I can work on it. We're not afraid to go back and retrack anything.

We're going for that whole super-polished "Joey Sturgis" sound (yeah yeah, us and everybody else), though keep in mind that our resources are extremely limited (the vocals may or may not have been recorded with a crappy $60 MXL condenser).

EDIT: Here is the new link.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6920288/The%... Try 2.mp3

Here's some details on the production if you're interested:

Drums:
- Recorded live, replacement on drums (kick and snare are Slate, toms are Sneap), cymbals and hi hat are live.

Guitars:
- Schecter Damien
- POD Farm 2 amp modeling (Cali Diamond Plate, 4x12 Treadplate modeling, gate, delay, reverb)
- One rhythm track on each side, leads in the center

Bass:
- DI, active pickups
- POD Farm 2 bass amp modeling (California)

Vocals:
- Recorded with MXL V57-M (yeah, shut up)
- Chain looks like this (in order): Logic's built-in DeEsser; Logic's GoldVerb set to a rather large room at 11% mix; EQ with HPF at 100Hz and LPF at 12kHz, slight bump at 3400Hz to correct the flaws of the microphone, cut at 1000Hz for a little radio effect on screams only; Logic's compressor with very fast attack and release, 20:1 ratio, threshold set so gain reduction approaches 16-18dB at loudest sections.

Synths:
- Programmed from MIDI with Fruity Loops Studio 6 (3xosc with saw, another saw an octave below, square an octave above).

Mastering chain (in order):
- Very soft compressor (long release, 1.8:1 ratio, not even 1dB of reduction)
- EQ to take a bump out at 95Hz, plus a hi shelf at 6k and above
- Logic's Adaptive Limiter with the ceiling set to 0, gain at +0, input scale set to make the waveform look like a big rectangle for most of the song. This part does almost all the compression.


Thanks so much guys! Your input is very appreciated and valued =]
 
A couple things; while the MXL isn't the best mic it should be usable. Try adding the verb at the end after the EQ and compressor, that should help quite a bit. Also, some of the vocals need some more de-essing. The guitars sound good and are well edited but are lacking some high end. The bass and guitars don't sit too well together and are clouding the mix.

Edit: the vocals need more compression. Try staging several compressors instead of using one with such a high ratio.

edit 2: leads sound good, btw.
 
Damian B said:
A couple things; while the MXL isn't the best mic it should be usable. Try adding the verb at the end after the EQ and compressor, that should help quite a bit. Also, some of the vocals need some more de-essing. The guitars sound good and are well edited but are lacking some high end. The bass and guitars don't sit too well together and are clouding the mix.

Edit: the vocals need more compression. Try staging several compressors instead of using one with such a high ratio.

edit 2: leads sound good, btw.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll check into all of these things and reupload.
I started with the verb after the compressor, and it sounded really distant... I think I'll try what you suggested though and place the verb after the first compressor, then lower the ratio by a bit, then send all the vocal comps through a group channel with another compressor.
I'm not too familiar with good bass tone - any idea how I could change it to help it sit better with the guitars?
I'll work on the de-essing too, do you think the vox need any more EQ for correction?
I'll also work with the guitar tone to make it bite more - compared to some of my favorite mixes, I see now how it's kind of muffled.
 
Damian B said:
A couple things; while the MXL isn't the best mic it should be usable. Try adding the verb at the end after the EQ and compressor, that should help quite a bit. Also, some of the vocals need some more de-essing. The guitars sound good and are well edited but are lacking some high end. The bass and guitars don't sit too well together and are clouding the mix.

Edit: the vocals need more compression. Try staging several compressors instead of using one with such a high ratio.

edit 2: leads sound good, btw.
Click to expand...

Okay, I changed all these things. I like it much better, tell me if you think I still have stuff to work out.
The first snare hit got chopped off, ignore that...

https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/All Things Shine/_Bonus Features/The Counted Try 2.mp3?w=019a3e01
 
Please help guys! We're making a music video for this song soon and we need it finished. I really appreciate your feedback (even better than my audio professors' and friends'!)
 
Is there anybody else who can help me out? Got quite a few views and only one piece of advice...
 
I dig it bro. Sounds thick and full, everything seems pretty solid to me instrumentally. My only criticisms would be regarding the vox. The pitch software is pretty noticeable on the chorus, maybe you're going for that; or it might just be the melody he's singing, a simpler one might require less pitch correction and be less obvious. Not really a major issue just something i noticed, and the other thing was that both the cleans and the screams sound a little dry to me, a little more reverb or short delay could give the vocals more space in the mix, without being "sharp" for lack of a better word. The bridge sounds really good as it is though.
 
ThriceFan said:
I dig it bro. Sounds thick and full, everything seems pretty solid to me instrumentally. My only criticisms would be regarding the vox. The pitch software is pretty noticeable on the chorus, maybe you're going for that; or it might just be the melody he's singing, a simpler one might require less pitch correction and be less obvious. Not really a major issue just something i noticed, and the other thing was that both the cleans and the screams sound a little dry to me, a little more reverb or short delay could give the vocals more space in the mix, without being "sharp" for lack of a better word. The bridge sounds really good as it is though.
Click to expand...

Thanks man! Yeah, the words "of my life" are tuned for effect, sort of a Kanye West or T-Pain thing, you know? I'll make it a little more obvious that it's an effect. I'll work on the space issue with the vox. Thanks for your input!
 
Lefthander said:
vocals are horrible:)
i like solo guitar tones
mixing is ok
Click to expand...

yea, they need way more compressoin, like 16:1 at -35db or somethin... and eq/Dess out the sibilance, it annoys. The instruments are great tho. The mix in general sounds fine from here.

EDIT: seems someone already covered that, also try boosting between 800-2k and cutting 250, it'll sit on top better that way. There's no reason to ever compress reverb... unless you want ur vocals to get lost in space
 
i agree everything sounds great except the vocals, which sound bad...
de-esser on screams, and more depth, and definitely more compression.
guitars sound great man.
drums are well done too.
 
I'll compress 'em some more, I guess... Let me tell you now though, I've got a 20:1 compressor at -26dB right now, plus a bus with reverb and a compressor at 8:1. I'll lower the threshold some more, try mixing the bus better, and reverse the order of the compression and reverb on the bus. Then I'll try de-essing more effectively and brightening them up some more, then repost. Thanks so much for your help guys!
 
Okay, the director of the music video needed the finished version yesterday, so I finished it up according to your advice. The vocals probably could have used some more effective de-essing but I did the best I could (it's way tougher than I thought...)

Should have fixed everything else though, tell me what you think and what I could improve on next time.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6920288/The Counted Redo.aif
 
oroinvictus said:
Thanks. The mix in general sounds very dry. Vocals could have used less volume and a lot of de-essing, guitars could have used a gain/volume boost, drums could have stood for some 'verb.
Click to expand...

Do you think the issue with guitars is with volume, or gain? Because I spent a long time tweaking the gain, and I honestly don't think I could have cranked it any more without losing a significant amount of clarity.

I'm afraid that a lot of the de-essing problems has to do with the mic, actually - I spent about an entire day trying out different de-essing techniques and settings, and I couldn't get rid of it any better. But we just finished up recording a demo with a Shure SM7A, and it's beautiful.

Would you recommend staging reverbs for drums, or anything crazy like that? Because I have the snare and toms all sent at 0.0 dB to a reverb bus, with a fairly long-tail setting, and when you solo the drums the verb is nuts. I tried boosting it but it's distracting. How big a room size do you aim for when you bus verb for drums? Do you even bus?
 
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