Quick 30-second Rock roughmix (Bogner Ecstacy, SLO100, Paramore snare)

[Ermz]

Hey guys,

I had a bit of free time today so I decided to fool around and try out Presonus' new DAW as far as mixing goes. Took a little while to find my feet, but I think I've more or less got my head around it.

So what I did was take some raw tracks I had from a project I did in my second year of engineering and do a quick, more modern rough mix with them. I was curious to see whether I could pull a better mix these days, in less time.

There are no vocals in yet, just drums, bass and guitars but I think it's enough to have a quick listen and see what ya think. I just jumped straight into it, so no editing at all, drumagog running in real time, nothing tightened up.

By all means this definitely was a rough mix, and what you're hearing is it essentially bounced through the stereo bus chain - no mastering etc. I'm thinking the bass is a little too mid-bass shy.. which is something I always do since I have strong standing waves in those frequencies in my room. Really hoping the new acoustic treatment will sort those out... only 2 more days!

Here's the quick mix: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/285689/Everything-NewBounce.mp3

and here's the few year old full-song version, just for giggles: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/285689/darylsong_final.mp3

 

[Nebulous]

Guitar and bass sit better than the old version, but the drums are too loud IMO.

 

[slayercannibalsuffohead]

A tad bit of Devin in those vocals. New one sounds much better. Agree with Nebulous about the drums, especially the snare, too loud.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

Sounds good. The band have myspace?

 

[Ermz]

Thanks guys. I agree, the drums are too up there.

It's funny really, since I changed my tools and working methods over my problems switched around. I always used to struggle getting my drums through the 'mastering' chain and getting them nice and loud. Since the new plug-ins and approaches I've been using it's the opposite. They pop out like crazy, so I need to work at 'gluing' them back in. Bus compression has become more important, haha.

If you'd believe the snare actually has no serial compression on it whatsoever. Just a little bit of parallel, and a mixture of the paramore snare, a fat slate one and the raw one. Funny how that goes.

 

[Morgan C]

It's funny really, since I changed my tools and working methods over my problems switched around. I always used to struggle getting my drums through the 'mastering' chain and getting them nice and loud. Since the new plug-ins and approaches I've been using it's the opposite. They pop out like crazy, so I need to work at 'gluing' them back in. Bus compression has become more important, haha.

Mind elaborating a bit? I compared an unmastered version of the rock mix I posted a while back to the mastered version and was pretty shocked as too how much better the drums sounded. The mastered version had no punch in the lowend of the kick and the snare was just a mess. I'm going GClip -> Comp -> GClip -> Limiter (Elephant).


As for the mix, I think the Paramore snare is too upfront, it really needs more 'real' snare drum in it (slate or the original or whatever, its too distorted atm), and the snare drum overall is too loud, rest is all good.

 

[cobhc]

Yeah, bring that snare down, and the kick too I feel. Toms sound pretty weakly played to me.

 

[Nebulous]

They prbably could have been played a touch harder, but the main problem here IIRC was the tuning. In a mix it was hard to get them sounding like anything other than a cardboard box.

 

[Ermz]

Hahah yeah actually those toms were all triggered Slates, but just buried in the mix. Don't worry, they're all just level balancing issues.. inherent to my quick mixes, haha.

The idea was to see whether I had the potential to do a better mix than a few years ago, and how easily. Partially also to see how little guitar processing I could get away with. Only 1 EQ plug-in on rhythms! Whoo. So anyway I'm happy. Chances are I won't go anywhere with this since the vocals are horrible and I've put Studio One through the paces. Just have to toy with automation now! Thanks for your comments.

 

[rino655]

very cool drum and guitar sound dude. where did you grab the paramore snare from?