- Jan 4, 2013
- 14
- 0
- 1
Right I've decided to donate some of my multitrack files for anyone who wants practice.
If you want practice getting guitar tones, mixing drums and augmenting them, general mixing and or mastering then grab the files and have fun
Some notes on the files:
This is a 2 minute segment of one of my tracks with a lot of changes.
This is the segment
[SOUNDCLOUD]https://soundcloud.com/thatsoundswhammy/whammys-master/s-BmMyK[/SOUNDCLOUD]
The drums are Superior Drummer - Metal Foundry.
However I don't mix within the program itself. I mix them on separate channels within my DAW, the same way as I would mix drums I've recorded.
Normally when I mix recorded drums I will sub-group the kick mics together and the snare mics together and process them as one kick and one snare. I'll only do that method if the mics are recorded well. Otherwise I have to get in and fix shit before sub-grouping.
So the top snare, bottom snare etc are bounced as one channel, same with the kick in and out mics.
The drum channels are as follows:
Kick (mono) - removed any spill
Snare (mono) - removed any spill
Tom1 (stereo) - removed any spill
Tom2 (stereo) - removed any spill
Tom3 (stereo) - removed any spill
Overheads (stereo) - Toms, kick & snare turned down but still present
Ambience or Room (stereo)
Although some files are stereo I rarely leave them panned hard left and right except for the room mics which I treat more as reverbs.
The reason being is to give a balanced stereo image of the drums from the HiHats to the Ride with the ambience taking up more of the sides.
I felt the snare was lacking a bit of thump. EQing it in wasn't really a good option. The snare just doesn't have it to add.
So I did some drum augmenting.
I added in another snare (one with more thump) and blended it in with the original. The original already has dynamics and subtle nuances in the playing so I only used one snare sample to add in some thump. I automated the dynamics to match but didn't use different hits from the same snare.
The reason for this was to add some consistency with the tone. The subtle nuances are still left intact, it just has a bit more balls now.
I left the snare sample that I used out of the multi-track so you can use your own and experiment
The bass is DI'd straight in. It's a Warwick Thumb Bolt-on 5-String using the stock pickups. I only used the bridge pickup because the added low end from the neck pickup really didn't help with the fast playing.
It's a bit thin but the low end (quiet as it is) is still tight.
Guitars are DI'd straight in. All guitar parts are a Ibanez UV777pbk. The rhythms are the bridge pickup (BKP Blackhawk) and the solo is the neck pickup (BKP Blackhawk).
During the solo I managed to press the strings off the pickups which is heard in the DI but didn't come through after processing so I left it
Two rhythm tracks, one solo track.
The DI used was just the crappy built in one on the Mbox Pro.
I mixed the track with the intention of adding vocals so there is space left in my mix for the vocals, which I will be recording at some stage so when I do I will up date this with the vocal tracks and it should add another dimension to this.
The tempo is 122BPM and the music kicks in after one bar. There are a few time signature changes but the tempo is always constant.
The master is at an average level of commercially released metal. So if you want to practice mastering to a commercial level you really want to aim for the same loudness.
Obviously the percussive instruments will take a hit when mastered to this level but it's just a balance of getting volume while trying to maintain as much quality as you can.
I've uploaded the tracks to my soundcloud page where you can download them.
All the files are in here and downloadable (I also put my version up for download if you want to use it as a reference):
This is a link to the set. Soundcloud won't allow "set" downloads. Click each file and you'll see the download button"
https://soundcloud.com/thatsoundswhammy/sets/mixmaster-practice/s-BmMyK
If there is enough demand and if people are gaining from the experience I'll upload the full song and update it with vocals once they are done
There are subtle guitar layers in other parts of the song and a quick little clean bit.
I left out those bits because setting up your DAW to match the time signature changes for those parts will be a pain if you've never done it before. A few 11/16 bars in there
The HiHat mic is also used haha
I have multi-tracks which would be more suited for advanced mixing.
Stupid amount of guitar layers, guitars mimicking synths, a few synths as well and a crazy amount of automation to bring it all together.
Before that though I want to see if the above multi-track is of any use to people
If you have any questions feel free to ask
Enjoy.
If you want practice getting guitar tones, mixing drums and augmenting them, general mixing and or mastering then grab the files and have fun
Some notes on the files:
This is a 2 minute segment of one of my tracks with a lot of changes.
This is the segment
[SOUNDCLOUD]https://soundcloud.com/thatsoundswhammy/whammys-master/s-BmMyK[/SOUNDCLOUD]
The drums are Superior Drummer - Metal Foundry.
However I don't mix within the program itself. I mix them on separate channels within my DAW, the same way as I would mix drums I've recorded.
Normally when I mix recorded drums I will sub-group the kick mics together and the snare mics together and process them as one kick and one snare. I'll only do that method if the mics are recorded well. Otherwise I have to get in and fix shit before sub-grouping.
So the top snare, bottom snare etc are bounced as one channel, same with the kick in and out mics.
The drum channels are as follows:
Kick (mono) - removed any spill
Snare (mono) - removed any spill
Tom1 (stereo) - removed any spill
Tom2 (stereo) - removed any spill
Tom3 (stereo) - removed any spill
Overheads (stereo) - Toms, kick & snare turned down but still present
Ambience or Room (stereo)
Although some files are stereo I rarely leave them panned hard left and right except for the room mics which I treat more as reverbs.
The reason being is to give a balanced stereo image of the drums from the HiHats to the Ride with the ambience taking up more of the sides.
I felt the snare was lacking a bit of thump. EQing it in wasn't really a good option. The snare just doesn't have it to add.
So I did some drum augmenting.
I added in another snare (one with more thump) and blended it in with the original. The original already has dynamics and subtle nuances in the playing so I only used one snare sample to add in some thump. I automated the dynamics to match but didn't use different hits from the same snare.
The reason for this was to add some consistency with the tone. The subtle nuances are still left intact, it just has a bit more balls now.
I left the snare sample that I used out of the multi-track so you can use your own and experiment
The bass is DI'd straight in. It's a Warwick Thumb Bolt-on 5-String using the stock pickups. I only used the bridge pickup because the added low end from the neck pickup really didn't help with the fast playing.
It's a bit thin but the low end (quiet as it is) is still tight.
Guitars are DI'd straight in. All guitar parts are a Ibanez UV777pbk. The rhythms are the bridge pickup (BKP Blackhawk) and the solo is the neck pickup (BKP Blackhawk).
During the solo I managed to press the strings off the pickups which is heard in the DI but didn't come through after processing so I left it
Two rhythm tracks, one solo track.
The DI used was just the crappy built in one on the Mbox Pro.
I mixed the track with the intention of adding vocals so there is space left in my mix for the vocals, which I will be recording at some stage so when I do I will up date this with the vocal tracks and it should add another dimension to this.
The tempo is 122BPM and the music kicks in after one bar. There are a few time signature changes but the tempo is always constant.
The master is at an average level of commercially released metal. So if you want to practice mastering to a commercial level you really want to aim for the same loudness.
Obviously the percussive instruments will take a hit when mastered to this level but it's just a balance of getting volume while trying to maintain as much quality as you can.
I've uploaded the tracks to my soundcloud page where you can download them.
All the files are in here and downloadable (I also put my version up for download if you want to use it as a reference):
This is a link to the set. Soundcloud won't allow "set" downloads. Click each file and you'll see the download button"
https://soundcloud.com/thatsoundswhammy/sets/mixmaster-practice/s-BmMyK
If there is enough demand and if people are gaining from the experience I'll upload the full song and update it with vocals once they are done
There are subtle guitar layers in other parts of the song and a quick little clean bit.
I left out those bits because setting up your DAW to match the time signature changes for those parts will be a pain if you've never done it before. A few 11/16 bars in there
The HiHat mic is also used haha
I have multi-tracks which would be more suited for advanced mixing.
Stupid amount of guitar layers, guitars mimicking synths, a few synths as well and a crazy amount of automation to bring it all together.
Before that though I want to see if the above multi-track is of any use to people
If you have any questions feel free to ask
Enjoy.
loving that natural snare 
