Eddies cellmate
Member
Man Rabs, that would be cool! 
I've often wondered if someday we might be able to stage an IMG "convention" together somewhere. It would be a blast to all sit around jammin and recording and shootin' the shit (so to speak).
I certainly did notice that you nailed the crunchy mids that are so characteristic of that album. I just was thinking that you might want to widen the bottom end of those mids a bit to give the guitars a little heaviness too. Very nitpicky though, as I'd agree with Meds that the guitar sounds are pretty faithful to the original and also mesh together well.
Hmmm... I use that word "space' a lot when describing mixes, don't I?
Probably too much, and sometimes I mean different things when I say it.
What I mean in this instance is that it sounds to me that there's a bit of "distance" between the instruments. If you could imagine the left/right - front/back spectrum of the music, then imagine how much of each segment of the spectrum each instrument is filling up. I don't just mean "fill up" as level, I also mean it as frequencies.
For example, let's say you pan a guitar sound 80% left. That's usually pretty standard, but it depends on the guitar sound itself. If it's a very thin, dry sort of tone, 80% may be too far, and the track will sound "isolated" in relationship to the other instruments. If it's a thin tone like that, it may only occupy 10% of the sonic spectrum. So while it's panned 80% left, it's only occupying 10% of the spectrum, so you can imagine it residing in the 85%-75% "space". Now, on the other extreme, that same guitar tone may be a thick, lush, wet tone with lots of overtones in it. In that case, it may occupy (have overtones in) 25% of the sonic spectrum. So, when panned to 80% left, it's actually occupying 100% - 55%. A huge difference in "space".
Then of course the same idea applies to front/back, reverb space. If one instrument in a song has a large reverb on it, and another is dry, then the first instrument will be in the "back" and the second will sound in the "front". The amount of reverb (and depth and other parameters) will dictate how much of the front/back space is occupied.
And lastly, I always look at the sonic spectrum in relation to front/back and left/right space. Every instrument has overtones in thier timbre that stretch out in either direction, highs and lows (and gaps in the mids as well). Seperation or "space" can also refer to the distances between each respective instrument's overtones when laid aside another. For example a bass sound like Harris's has a "rumbly" bottom end that stretches pretty far away from his mids, and also some very "clippy" highs that do the same. So his bass sound is large, it occupies a lot of "space".
It's hard to do (good engineers make a lot of money mastering this stuff), and every track, album, or band will have different goals in this respect, but managing the "spaces" in a mix is essential, I think. There's no tried and true method for it, again because every situation calls for something different.
In the case of your mix, I'd say that your rhythm guitars are tight with one another, but could use to stretch out thier bottom end just a bit to reach near the upper frequencies of Constantine's track. His bass track isn't extending very high, so it would make the track more solid to bring the range of the guitars down towards the bass a bit. It's pretty close, but I'm hearing a bit of a gap between the top end of the bass and the bottom end of the guitars.
Now, that might not be a problem if your drum track was filling that gap, but it's not. If I had to guess, I'd say that the drum track is probably your challenge in this one. It's sounding a bit thin, and not filling out like it could. It's got gaps in it's frequency spectrum, and isn't occupying much "space". ( If I were in a studio I might try an acoustic environment simulator on it, or even a BBE sonci maximizer to see if it might be able to boost and cut the drum track's spectrum to even it out some, but alas...)
Anyway, that's probably more explaination than you wanted!
But to sum up how I'm hearing it, I'd say that there's no way to extend the highs on the bass track without re-recording, so maybe bring the bottom end of the guitars down to meet it. If you can do that, I'd say that the three guitars would be right on the money.
The drum track is going to be more difficult, for the reasons I mentioned above. Medsy mentioned that the snare sounds "shrill" and I'd agree, but I think it's just sounding "isolated" because it's the only thing occupying that part of the spectrum right now. The vocals might help push the snare back deeper into the mix when they're added.
I'd just try to identify which segments of the frequency spectrum are too "empty" and try to fill them up. It would solidify the overall track, and make it sound more like one band rather than five instruments.
Well, I hope that's understandable. That's hard to explain like this. I'd also say too that if you asked ten different people that same question, you'd get ten different answers. None, including my view of it are exactly correct. There is no one answer, but that's just how I look at it. I'd mention again that this is hard to accomplish, and in my hands it may be no better as I'm not Martin Birch either.
Whew!
I've often wondered if someday we might be able to stage an IMG "convention" together somewhere.
It would be a blast to all sit around jammin and recording and shootin' the shit (so to speak). I certainly did notice that you nailed the crunchy mids that are so characteristic of that album. I just was thinking that you might want to widen the bottom end of those mids a bit to give the guitars a little heaviness too. Very nitpicky though, as I'd agree with Meds that the guitar sounds are pretty faithful to the original and also mesh together well.
Hmmm... I use that word "space' a lot when describing mixes, don't I?
Probably too much, and sometimes I mean different things when I say it. What I mean in this instance is that it sounds to me that there's a bit of "distance" between the instruments. If you could imagine the left/right - front/back spectrum of the music, then imagine how much of each segment of the spectrum each instrument is filling up. I don't just mean "fill up" as level, I also mean it as frequencies.
For example, let's say you pan a guitar sound 80% left. That's usually pretty standard, but it depends on the guitar sound itself. If it's a very thin, dry sort of tone, 80% may be too far, and the track will sound "isolated" in relationship to the other instruments. If it's a thin tone like that, it may only occupy 10% of the sonic spectrum. So while it's panned 80% left, it's only occupying 10% of the spectrum, so you can imagine it residing in the 85%-75% "space". Now, on the other extreme, that same guitar tone may be a thick, lush, wet tone with lots of overtones in it. In that case, it may occupy (have overtones in) 25% of the sonic spectrum. So, when panned to 80% left, it's actually occupying 100% - 55%. A huge difference in "space".
Then of course the same idea applies to front/back, reverb space. If one instrument in a song has a large reverb on it, and another is dry, then the first instrument will be in the "back" and the second will sound in the "front". The amount of reverb (and depth and other parameters) will dictate how much of the front/back space is occupied.
And lastly, I always look at the sonic spectrum in relation to front/back and left/right space. Every instrument has overtones in thier timbre that stretch out in either direction, highs and lows (and gaps in the mids as well). Seperation or "space" can also refer to the distances between each respective instrument's overtones when laid aside another. For example a bass sound like Harris's has a "rumbly" bottom end that stretches pretty far away from his mids, and also some very "clippy" highs that do the same. So his bass sound is large, it occupies a lot of "space".
It's hard to do (good engineers make a lot of money mastering this stuff), and every track, album, or band will have different goals in this respect, but managing the "spaces" in a mix is essential, I think. There's no tried and true method for it, again because every situation calls for something different.
In the case of your mix, I'd say that your rhythm guitars are tight with one another, but could use to stretch out thier bottom end just a bit to reach near the upper frequencies of Constantine's track. His bass track isn't extending very high, so it would make the track more solid to bring the range of the guitars down towards the bass a bit. It's pretty close, but I'm hearing a bit of a gap between the top end of the bass and the bottom end of the guitars.
Now, that might not be a problem if your drum track was filling that gap, but it's not. If I had to guess, I'd say that the drum track is probably your challenge in this one. It's sounding a bit thin, and not filling out like it could. It's got gaps in it's frequency spectrum, and isn't occupying much "space". ( If I were in a studio I might try an acoustic environment simulator on it, or even a BBE sonci maximizer to see if it might be able to boost and cut the drum track's spectrum to even it out some, but alas...
) Anyway, that's probably more explaination than you wanted!
But to sum up how I'm hearing it, I'd say that there's no way to extend the highs on the bass track without re-recording, so maybe bring the bottom end of the guitars down to meet it. If you can do that, I'd say that the three guitars would be right on the money.
The drum track is going to be more difficult, for the reasons I mentioned above. Medsy mentioned that the snare sounds "shrill" and I'd agree, but I think it's just sounding "isolated" because it's the only thing occupying that part of the spectrum right now. The vocals might help push the snare back deeper into the mix when they're added.
I'd just try to identify which segments of the frequency spectrum are too "empty" and try to fill them up. It would solidify the overall track, and make it sound more like one band rather than five instruments.
Well, I hope that's understandable.
That's hard to explain like this. I'd also say too that if you asked ten different people that same question, you'd get ten different answers. None, including my view of it are exactly correct. There is no one answer, but that's just how I look at it. I'd mention again that this is hard to accomplish, and in my hands it may be no better as I'm not Martin Birch either. Whew!
