Working on a mix template for the Mammoth EP, please help me out :)

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Long time since I posted stuff on this part of the forum. I'm working on a four-track EP for my project "band" Mammoth, and having the tracks somewhat recorded, I'm struggling to make a nice mixing template. Here's one of the songs: http://www.selmary.com/Mammoth - Scarred soil WIP3.mp3 (don't mind the ending, there's going to be a fade out)

Could you guys point out some of the mistakes I've made and give your opinions on what and how to improve in the mix? That'd be greatly appreciated, since even though it's going to be a free download, I'd like to make the EP as polished as possible.

EDIT: Newest link: http://syliin.com/jarkko/Mammoth - Scarred soil WIP11.mp3

 

[JJO]

Hmzz.. i'm not the most experienced guy... but i definatly like the sound of it. Nice guitar sound, drums have bit to much room or something for my taste. or atleast the snare. Anyway wish i could record like this already! oow and btw, there's some kind of irritation going on with the parts from 00:36 where the guitars have open chords stuff. It's kinda flangy or something ;p Thank god i totally know what i'm talking about!

 

[jess.oceans]

The guitars are a bit loud, and sound too bright.
The drums could come up in the mix a bit, as well as the bass.
Your kick sounds good. As well as your snare, though it could use just a bit more smack.
The keys really bring alot to this mix when they kick in. I think they would sound even better if the guitars werent so bright.
Is there going to be vocals for this? That could also fix some things in the mix as well, as the guitars sound really out there.
Your bass tone needs a tighter gain, it sounds too fizzy.
Cool track though.
How'd you record everything?

 

[JonWormwood]

I like the bright guitars (I hate dark tone for the most part) but they do need to come down. Sounds like the drum bus is a bit too smashed or something.

 

[The-Zeronaut]

The guitars sound a little too bright but i like your tone. what did you use for guitars?
and cool song dude!!

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Thanks a lot for the replies, everyone! Your help is greatly appreciated.

I changed the guitar impulses to a bit darker ones, lowered the guitars, brought up the kick, snare and bass, added some 250-350Hz to snare for a bit more smack and re-did the bass sound. Here's the current mix: http://www.selmary.com/Mammoth - Scarred soil WIP4.mp3

Any better? The changes were somewhat minor, because I didn't want to overdo anything. My ears are getting pretty deaf to the mix already

And the details on the recording:
Drums are Addictive Drums with the kick and snare replaced with Sneap's samples. All the drums are sent to a bus for parallel compression with a low-pass EQ so the overheads won't jump out too much. The snare itself is sent to another parallel compressor to make it stand out a bit more in the mix.

Guitars are quad-tracked with my LTD EC-400 (EMG81, bridge position) and processed with the TSS plugin for boost and Revalver MKIII (5150 rhythm channel, Guitarhack's impulses). Each of the tracks has a CurveEQ on top, running with a curve I took from Sneap's 5150 tone. The four guitar tracks are then bussed together, and the bus has a Waves EQ to handle hi-/lo-passing and cutting a bit at around 600Hz to get rid of the nasty mid-honking.

Bass was recorded with my friend's LTD bass. I compressed the hell out of it and duplicated the track letting the clean DI signal handle the lows and put Revalver MKIII on the other to bring the distortion in. The tracks are then bussed together and compressed yet some more.

For the synths (pads and FX) I used Surge and Atmosphere.

I'm not attempting to make a final mix of the song yet, since I'm ordering a pair of new monitors and stands tomorrow (Yamaha HS80M's - my Event's are really nice, but I'm having a hard time getting a good picture of low frequencies with these due to the size).

Ask ahead if I missed something

 

[Trevor Marks]

Really solid material dude! I really like the subtle synths to give it an epic flavor. I guess I really don't have any mix advice, but I'm sure as hell waiting to hear the rest of the songs

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Really solid material dude! I really like the subtle synths to give it an epic flavor. I guess I really don't have any mix advice, but I'm sure as hell waiting to hear the rest of the songs

Thanks dude! I still got half of the last song to track and lyrics to write for two songs. When that's done, I'll start asking around for a willing vocalist to do the vocal tracks and then I'll do the final mixing. Finally I'll have to struggle with the cover art and stuff, but if all goes well, I think it'll be a month or two 'til I get the EP out

 

[JonWormwood]

Something about the drums still sounds like there's too much comp.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Something about the drums still sounds like there's too much comp.

Agreed, the cymbals sound a bit too smashed, though I can't point out where the problem is. Turning down the parallel compression doesn't affect the cymbals that much, and the main drum bus doesn't have a compressor. Maybe it's the master bus compressor, I'll have to check that.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Ok, here's one more mix of the song before the new monitors arrive (they're scheduled to be here next tuesday): http://www.selmary.com/Mammoth - Scarred soil WIP7.mp3

Any better? I think I got the guitars a lot darker now and gave the 2-bus compressor a bit ease. And did a shitload of other tweaks, too

Again, all help is greatly appreciated!

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

The new monitors are here, and I'm in love They switch to bigger monitors really helped out on hearing what's going on in the low frequencies.

This is most probably the final mix: http://syliin.com/jarkko/Mammoth - Scarred soil WIP11.mp3

I still have one song to track and two songs to remix with this template. Then I'll start searching for the vocalist.