Teenage Metal Mixing Help?

J

j4ked4vis

New Metal Member
Oct 11, 2009
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I've recently been recording a lot of teenage metal bands (most of which can't play to a click track so there's some tightness lost), but I'm just not getting the sound I'm looking for and it all feels very loose and unorganized. Any help and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm doing pretty decent from what I'm told.. But I can't live with myself if my mixes never get any better than this. -Jake

(the first 3 songs are what I'm working on now.)
www.myspace.com/pyramidrecording
 
Dude, I think it sounds good considering their performance. The only thinking that bothered me was the snare on the blast beats. I think the velocity or volume can come down a bit. But the kick is really punchy. It's got "balls". I'm listening through my headphones instead of monitors right now. It sounds like you beefed up the kick to make the mix a little heavier. It's always hard to tell a customer that they need to tighten up their playing. But when transients from palmutes line up perfectly, it makes the mix sound bigger and punchier.
 
I was not really wanting to have to do the snare that way, but the guy repositioned my snare mic so it got way too much bleed from the hihats so I had to trigger it which was a shame because I just busted out a nice Tama Metalworks snare. It's true about the kick, Not only was it beefed up; I just really am not sure about what to do to make it fit in the mix. I need some real help with eq and compression to keep an awesome kick sound that still cuts through. I would enforce no recording unless you can play to a click track, but then I would be broke.
 
No problem man. I know exactly what you're going through. I recorded so many teenage metal bands in my area that people thought my mixes were awful. I slowly lost more and more business. Then when people heard mixes of my own music they thought otherwise... Only because I played the parts over and over until they were right. After awhile, bands came to record with me and didn't even try. The drummer would play horrible and after the session the other band members would say "don't worry about it, Greg will doctor it up in Protools". In the end I usually programmed the whole drum track and used superior 2.0, then quantized the cymbals. For the last year I feel like I just get paid to make shitty bands sound better than they really are. lol
 
Wow man, that's a rough life. I really feel like I'm going downhill recording this stuff. Anyone wanting to be decent at their instrument should practice to a click track a lot, or at least get used to it before coming in to record. The singing vocals got messed up and it was "It's cool, he'll just autotune you"... Nahp. Nothing could fix it so I had to reverb the F out of them. I haven't had to program a whole drum track yet. (agrrgg that must've sucked) but I have had to go back later and rerecord drums which wasn't fun. eek. I wonder if it's me and my lack of ability to produce, or the band and I usually just sit and convince myself that it's me and my mixes stay the same.
 
Hehehe, I feel for you what the performances of the band is concerned. Mixwise my thoughts are these: Kick and snare are ok in the mids. Kick is a little too boxy. Less in the 150-250Hz area. I don't really hear the bass. I would go for a growly bass which blends with the guitars. Make sure that you have a nice glue in the 200Hz area between guitars and bass.
Guitars are too bzzzzz while their low end is muddy. Are they DI'ed? If so see if less gain improves that. Better balance in the upper mids can improve that too.
Your overheads don't sound good. The comp is slowly breathing while it sounds too pressed. Less compression and better frequency choices.
Overall the mixes have too much upper mids. It's fatiguing when listening for a longer time.
Hope that helps.

Shogger
 
Thanks a ton man, the guitar tones are from a Digidesign eleven rack. I let bands make their own tones with it... These bros went super gain&super feedback and buzz. The overheads are two rode NT1a's, but they pick up the drums more than cymbals so I did a pretty drastic Hi-pass on them which was probably not the best idea. Also I just checked and What I thought was one guitar track each for left and right was a group track of 2 of the same left and right guitar tracks...so there's some extra shite. I was scared to compress too much because the kick was killing the compressor. What should be done for master compression in metal mixes? Some say to leave the kick out of the comp and compress everything else?
 
Anyone have suggestions or settings for master compression & eq for something like this?
 
To be honest id try and remix it again to some degree before I even considered throwing it at a compressor or a multiband limiter or whatever. Theres a lot you could do to tidy it up in terms of eq/filtering to tidy it up first.
My meters register a lot of super high mid gain between 3 and 5 Khz so id focus on that area where the highs are concered.
Regarding the lows, look below 100hz and sweep a couple of notches in to tame the low end.
 
Jake we're in the same boat, my pc is such a piece of shit it can hardly handle just the standard nuendo gates and reverbs with t-racks before it starts to sputter... I wish I could use my waves bundle and click quanitize

Right now I'm just working and saving up for a new pc and to expand my interface and all that before- until then, I spend most of my free time on here in the production tips and discussions learning as much as I can and use what I learned on the best of old sessions I have... Which like you have experienced are superficial kids who don't know what they're doing and expect this AMAZING product made from practice amps and firstact drums with cracked cymbals not tracked to a click- and in my case, I have to be a mobile service because I can't afford renting out a space... So I've had to record in the shittiest situations with the shittiest resources- and obviously most of my mixes sound terrible, but I did the best with what I was given

I got down on myself, but I lurk some of the local guys out here in Sac and they have the talented musicians and the resources coming through but the product sounds like shit, because the engineer behind it all doesn't know what small really important details make in a good mix- and I realize too that most business from younger musicians comes from reputation- you get enough popular local bands talking you up and you can potentially be booked for months by ignorant musicians... It can be good or bad... I was jealous for the longest time about dumb shit like that but now I'd rather work for everything myself.

Time, talent and good sources is what I've learned makes a good product, but I have yet been able to work with that just yet... It's always been one flaw or another with my experience a combination of bad musicianship and terrible gear... A great guitar player with a nice stack usually comes hand in hand with a drummer with a terrible drumkit with impossible to tune everything and cracked cymbals or the other way around. I feel you man, I'm tired of recording SpiderIII's all the time and cracked Sabian B8s...

I recommend networking with some friends of yours that have talent and decent equipment and just produce them for near nothing on your free time when you're like not working or at school and not booked and just take DAYS on one thing... In the break that I've taken from recording to re-learn from some of the "gurus" on here I'm not getting down on myself anymore, I'm actually excited for all this reading and practicing to pay off when I get to time to produce my friends band or my own band and to actually have everything like planned out and done good and right- and be able to have that up as my own product

For where you're at man you're doing good- we're all our own harshest critics, just keep reading and make time to have a session where you're not worried about time and shit. Once the circumstances are good- then you can apply the cool outboard gear and what you've learned to do with it all... It takes time, just stick to it man

Not really any tips, but a gay miniature essay- hope you get my point though
 
Wow man, definitely! I was in the same boat until I very lame(ly) moved back in with my dad and started recording in his garage. I could tell you my story but it's essentially the same. I recorded a great band for free when I first started but I had REALLY crappy gear then... so I'm back in the same situation. I'm recording a band this week who claims to be able to play to a metronome. I'll post that stuff once It's done if you care to listen and we'll see. I'm always in a constant debate of whether it's my fault, or the band's playing that makes my mixes shitty. We'll see soon. Thanks for that man, definitely makes me feel better, most people on here kick ass and it saddens me still. ;)
 
Depending on what software you're using to record on it might be as simple as pressing a key on your keyboard and using a draw tool on the timeline if you have tempo changes

As for finding out how to do anything for recording on here if you're too embarrassed to ask you could just google "how to trigger drums ultimate metal" or for any question that comes up as you start making these confusing things a basic part of your everyday work-flow or whatever.

Any senior member on here though will just tell you to dig around in the forums, that's what I did when I started so I didn't have to feel dumb asking questions... The internet is your friend

Look up a program called Drumagog (my first choice) or apTrigga if you use a mac (I don't have experience using)

You're going to need a host program like PT, Cubase, Sonar, ect.

If you're JUST getting into recording though, I recommend sifting through the forums for mixing tips first of all so you know how to properly eq everything, gate and compress drums and all that before you just dive into replacement

When I first got drumagog I just used it the wrong way and didn't learn anything from it, and then my demo ended and I was forced to get the best natural takes I could get- it's for the better because you learn how to properly tune shit and mic the kit and learn how to get things to sit in the mix, rather than just taking the easy route
 
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