Praetorian - Thoughts on the mix?

[Face_down_in_blood]

Hey all,

Feeling generous and want to give one of my tracks a critical listen? Any feedback would be most appreciated, whether critical or otherwise....I create these tracks on my own, programming the drums, multitracking guitar, bass, vocals, etc... and as such, am starved of the technical input of other musicians or studio professionals. Any thoughts would be great to give me a little more tech-savvy mixing/mastering direction. I put it together with Fruity Loops, Cubase SX, and a bunch of Waves plugins, my attempt at mastering was largely done through T-Racks. Oh yeah, with a respectful nod to Andy, I put the guitar tracks through his C4 settings (the ones he posted on his main site).

Homo Sacer

Thanks guys....your thoughts are appreciated!

Cheers

 

[Hammer Bart]

The music is way more extreme than what I usually play and what I listen to. That said, the song sounded like a collection of little parts to me (as opposed to one coherent piece of music). If that's what you're after then more power to you though.

Also, I found the drums to be a bit distracting due to their sheer speed and sound. Again, this may be me not appreciating the style or the musical effect you're trying to obtain. It's always hard to get programmed drums to sound good.

 

[006]

Well, as an appreciater of this style (saw Cryptopsy and Cattle Decapitation last night \m/), all I can recommend from one listen on my system is that the guitars don't cut through as much as they should for the STYLE. I don't know how partial you are to these specific takes, but whatever you used for your guitar tone (POD, actual amp, whatever) try re-recording the tracks with more mids on the amp/pod/whatever itself, then remove them later on after they've been recorded. I've found that this helps a ton, and trust me, the guitars may sound like ass at first, but you get them to sound like you want them using the C4 and any parametric EQ coupled with it. I use to use Fruity Loops as well for my endeavors, since no drummers around here could play that style. Sounds like you have a good grip on mixing them, not many suggestions for that as it sounds like thats how you want them. In other words they sound fine to me.

Bass sounds great/fine, vocals came out great as well (props), maybe try upping them just a hair on volume. Thats about it, if you don't want to re-record the guitar tracks with a more middy tone, then I would say try to not cut them mids on the C4 *as much*, remember: Guitars are a mid instrument. They require them to cut through drums. All I can think of right now. Cheers and nice track . I should post some of my stuff sometime, you'd probably appreciate it, hehe.

~006

 

[MR NINE]

Hey all,

Feeling generous and want to give one of my tracks a critical listen? Any feedback would be most appreciated, whether critical or otherwise....

Thanks guys....your thoughts are appreciated!

Cheers

Hey can't you go faster?!?
Just kidding!

Too much distortion on the guitars. The drums are sounding like a bunch of tupperware. Try harder!!

Keep working!

 

[Face_down_in_blood]

Thanks guys...sorry it has taken so long for me to get back and thank you for your comments but i've been all over the place with work, and I thought the forum itself would email me if i received any post, when I guess it doesn't.
Oh well...

Your impressions are very much appreciated...i've taken them into account and my latest track is this (unfortunately minus vocals at the moment) : Accelerated Decrepitude
Would you consider this an improvement or step backwards from this other recent track: Solve & Coagula ?

Any chance any of you could spare some time to give this a critical listen. I've tried very hard to bring out the kick drums, and to make the guitars cut a little better, but to be honest i'm not really happy with it...maybe i'm being a little hard on myself though. I'm having alot of trouble with the bass guitar, as no matter when it seems to be dominating - this was intentional, but i'm after more of the Cryptopsy "None So Vile" bass sound ie. - present, but not so muddy. No matter what I do, whether compress or low-cut off, I can't seem to make it fit in the mix without sounding too muddy. Again, this could just be my impression...might be fine.

I think the problem is i've been fiddling about with mixes so much, i've kindof lost my direction somewhere in the middle, and i'm trying a million and one things to solve small problems. As you can seem, a bit of help wouldn't go amiss. It could perhaps be the fact that i'm mostly working off a pair of M-Audio BX5's? (quite small - maybe messing with my impression of the bass).

Finally, in terms of mastering, can any of you give me any tips for music this style, or even say, Nevermore or Blaze style for T-Racks? I know it can produce great results, but i'm finding it hard to make headway with...

Thank you all so much...

Anthony

 

[Razorjack]

What synth/samples are you using for the drums?

 

[Face_down_in_blood]

What synth/samples are you using for the drums?

I'm using Fruity Loops as mentioned above, but the smaples themselves are a mish-mash of one recorded by myself, and samples from around the net...I really couldn't give you a specific source. I have DrumKit from Hell 2 as it happens, but I never got very far using it.