That Deftones style mix... Questions

[melovine]

I have many favorite bands, but as far as favorite mixes go though the Deftones are my #1. I am recording at home now and i am rather new to mixing but im starting to "develop my mixing ear" i believe. I am going to start preproduction with my band in the next few weeks on some new tunes and i would really like some general pointers to get me in the direction im trying to get to.

What I like about their mixes:

the kick and snare are very present in the mix but don't seem to over power the bass or guitars.

the overheads tend to sound lower in the mix (i am a fan of lower overheads) but never seem to get lost in the mix

the bass blends extremely well with the guitar (is this because of post production or more so because of gear and playing style?)

their mixes have so much more depth than mine do

Should i try and find stems of one of their mixes and analyze it that way???

Here is a clip of something i was working on recently to give you and idea of what kind of sounds im getting at the moment.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8136720/The Great Dying.mp3

Appreciate any tips!

 

[Charles J]

you're not toooo far from that "S/T" Deftones-style sound.... drums need to be louder but the sounds are good!

GTRs may have too many mids...carpenter's tone is really weird so you may always have a bit of a struggle on your hands with that one.

Plus, fucking Terry Date did all of their good shit (i do love Diamond Eyes and Saturday Night Wrist, don't get me wrong!) and he's a legend amongst audio Gods....

 

[Monkkeystew]

i love deftones as well, and i've had a lot of the same quandaries as you. im relatively inexperienced myself, but i think i can help you out still.

first of all, your mix sounds really great already, so well done!

i'd recommend you turn up the level of your snare, not so much for the clean sections, but definitely for the hard rock sections. in deftones music, abe's snare is the second or third loudest thing in the mix. the overheads and bass drum sound great, and will sound even better once the snare is louder

on guitar tone (which relates to the depth of the mix): it depends what record you listen to--when steph is using an eight string, its really low and crunchy, which sounds good in the 250-500 hz region, and the 7 or 6 string stuff is more mid-heavy, somewhere below or right up to 1000 hz. but it's difficult to say exactly what sort of frequencies he's using in the preamp and in the EQ, there are a lot of possibilities. but to be honest, your guitar tone sounds really great already!

just make sure that the bass is carrying the low end of the heavy guitar riffs--that's what makes deftones and a lot of other metal sound so heavy. you can go into iTunes, open up the equalizer, and boost the knob at 64hz to see what i mean. it will work with pretty much any deftones song--you really get to hear the bass. boosting those low frequencies in your own works is a definite recommendation.

the bass and guitar have a delicate relationship in terms of the relationship of their frequencies. keeping the guitars strong on mid-frequencies sounds good if you keep the bass in the low end, but sometimes you can have a really crunchy bass tone in the mid section with a super muddy guitar in the low end and it will sound just as good to certain ears. it's all about personal preference. but if you want the super heavy deftones sound, keep the bass between 64-200 hz, and the guitar between 200 (or 250)-1k hz. i think a common mistake is to rely too much on the heaviness of just the guitars, but you really need both the guitars and bass for a good heavy sound. it's uninteresting to hear all of the string instruments in one range, splitting up the frequencies works much better for a deep sound.

also, it sounds like you may already have this down, but make sure you're layering those heavy guitars, and splitting the layers in the stereo range. the more layers you build, the thicker the wall of sound is.

all of this will help add a lot to the depth of your mix. hope that helped!

 

[Drummerrrrr?]

This song/mix owns

 

[Sludgekicker]

I don't know if you did it intentionally but if i were you i would balance the guitars, i feel the left one dominating although really nice mix and i love deftones too(at least i loved them till saturday night wrist came out )
i also like the mid frequencies are filled not thin like on the newest album. keep on the good work!

 

[shredder10]

Hey Melovine;
Your song and mix is just great! It makes me think a bit more of Tool than Deftones soundwise, but thats just me!

I did a quick cover on Diamond Eyes today, it's still in progress but what do you think?
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7261693/Diamond%20Chutz.mp3
=)