New song, need the mix critics to chime in..(BTW, its BRUTAL!!)

[DeadManWalking]

Dude, that's pretty bad ass!

Thanks man.. Any mix issues/thoughts? I swear it sounds the way everybody in my band has been wanting.. But I send it to them, and they say"Yeah, its brutal, but I need to hear it more.." {censored}!! hahah Its never been like this before.. Everyone is complaining about their {censored}ing instrument. The vocalist already said he thinks his vocals are a little low at times.. The bassist thinks the bass could be more prominent.. Im {censored}ing sick of it. We have been haggling over this mix for months now. I havent touched it in weeks and after some time off, I really think I nailed the vibe this band should have and they are still bitching...

[DeadManWalking]

Listened to the new updated clip and I have to say it is absolutely {censored}ing AWESOME! Drums sound fantastic dude. I don't think you need to do a whole lot more to it, The metal fans that can't find a single redeeming quality in this music most likely aren't fans of extreme music or any form of Death metal

Thanks a lot man.. I appreciate it!! I'm pretty happy with the drums on this too.. BTW, Im the drummer in this band.. I actually wrote and played the guitars on this song, though..

ANd you are absolutely correct about people who dont like this kind of music.. If they cant find ANYTHING they like about it, then Im not sure why they would comment.. If they were a fan of Grind and thought it was {censored} or had an opinion on it, then it would hold a little more water in what they say.. Otherwise, the fact they dont get it makes me think they have no clue.. WHich is true...

[Nolly]

I really like the mix, especially the drums. I do think that more clarity and precision in from the guitars would make it sound more brutal, rather than less though.

[DeadManWalking]

I really like the mix, especially the drums. I do think that more clarity and precision in from the guitars would make it sound more brutal, rather than less though.

 

 

Cool.. YOu are probably right about the guitars. But again, when we started recording this we had a few things everyone wanted to accomplish, which was noisey but still be somewhat coherant.. So instead of less gain on the guitars during tracking(which I usually do), we did a little MORE!! hahah I knew it would {censored} me during the mixing, but I said "{censored} it, lets make it {censored}ing dirty.." I prolly would have liked to do one track of the guitars to be less gain and better defined. We did 3 rhythm tracks total. L, Center, R.. Woulda, coulda...

 

Thanks for checking it out..

[DeadManWalking]

bada-bump........

[thinkpad20]

need to listen to the updated mix, but currently I'm on laptop speakers, and at work... I will give this a listen as soon as I get a chance though.

[nwright]

2nd mix sounds much better to my ears...Everything is cleaner. I wouldn't up the vocals myself. I've never heard a grind band where the vocals are too up front. Maybe for a little more sibilance, try a 1dB shelf EQ boost centered around 1kHz.

I would up the bass guitar a bit, but I'd do it by compressing the {censored} out of it, and adding makeup gain to taste.

As for the guitars, I think this mix sounds less cluttered and cleaner on the guits. Since you recorded with more gain, you could try parallel compression on the guitars, and it may allow you to back off on the center panned guitar track.

Do you know how to parallel compress?

if you haven't done it on the drums, I'd do it to those, too. Could make them huge.

This mix sounds good, just food for thought.

[tws!]

I {censored}ing hate death metal and that sounded great.

One of the only deathmetal/grind songs I can listen to for some reason.

[exafro]

I don't see what there is to get. I just look for any redeeming quality. Can't find one. I don't see how it expresses anything. And as said before I wasn't slamming on you, just questioning the whole genre.

 

The fact that you can't find a redeeming quality to it illustrates the fact that you don't "get" it. Plain and simple, it isn't for you.

[DeadManWalking]

2nd mix sounds much better to my ears...Everything is cleaner. I wouldn't up the vocals myself. I've never heard a grind band where the vocals are too up front. Maybe for a little more sibilance, try a 1dB shelf EQ boost centered around 1kHz. I would up the bass guitar a bit, but I'd do it by compressing the {censored} out of it, and adding makeup gain to taste. As for the guitars, I think this mix sounds less cluttered and cleaner on the guits. Since you recorded with more gain, you could try parallel compression on the guitars, and it may allow you to back off on the center panned guitar track. Do you know how to parallel compress? if you haven't done it on the drums, I'd do it to those, too. Could make them huge. This mix sounds good.

 

I havent forgot about sending you the mix. I wont be able to until tomorrow though..

 

The bass is compressed pretty heavily.. Its the one thing that has really given me fits. Im still not a 100% happy with that. Prolly about 50% happy...

 

The drums are being Parallel compressed. I could maybe bring up the compressed buss a little bit more...

 

The center panned guitar is kinda the more cutting one. I made it to be a little bit more mid heavy on this mix.. I usually dont like center panned guitars, but again with this recording I tried doing it differently by using 3 guitars instead of 4.. The guitars individually are all being compressed just a bit, to try and knock down the palm mutes a bit. I am running a freq. dependant compressor on the guitar buss as well, from 75hz to 300hz. Again just trying to tame the palm mutes a bit. Becasue they were pretty overbearing. I'll see what parallel comp. the guitars will do..

 

On the vocal buss I added about 3db's at 1k already. Has a slight delay. I dont think I have any verb on them..

 

I actually have a newer mix were I made the snare a bit more cutting(I actually think it really helped) and on the bass guitar I brought up the Fuzz channel we had. During the recording I mic'ed his Ampeg and he ran a direct line from his SansAmp into the board.. It was just over the top distortion from the Sansamp.. IN hindsight I wish I ran a clean direct in, and used distortion with that, or I could have used it to Re-amp..

 

The updated mix is about 98% mic'ed bass.. But on my new mix(which I havent posted) bringing up the fuzz guitar actually helped sit the bass a little better, believe it or not..

[cobrahead1030]

the guitars seem a bit dark to me, and the vocals are kinda loud

[nwright]

Sounds like you know what you want and how to do it, now it comes down to tweaking it to death...The BEST part about mixing

[DeadManWalking]

Sounds like you know what you want and how to do it, now it comes down to tweaking it to death...The BEST part about mixing

I kinda know what I want, but then it seems I dont get the response from the band I was looking for. Im personally pretty happy with what I have got.. I am definitely mixing it the way you hear it on purpose.. As bad as that may be..

And I know the "BEST" part of mixing comment was tongue in cheek, but man if I tweak anymore Im gonna throw my DAW out the window.. Usually it is kinda fun, now IM not having fun..


Any tips on the bass guitar? It seems on most of my mixes the bass is always the hardest for me to really get right.. I have a pretty big EQ boost around 2k. I am cutting a little bit from 300-400hz. I have the lows of the bass kinda strong around 80-90 hz,, I dip it a little bit around 60hz to make a little room for the kick drums low.. Its still a very flabby bass guitar track..

Anyway I will be able to get to my DAW tomorrow night.. I have to bounce a few tracks for you, if you are still interested. The kick sample I have is running out of Battery and I have a snare sample beefing up the snare..

[dimperdoo]

...they say"Yeah, its brutal, but I need to hear it more.." ...Everyone is complaining... ... Im {censored}ing sick of it. We have been haggling over this mix for months now..

 

 

I listened to the 2nd version and the version from post 46

 

And, I think it sounds pretty well "tightened up." I think if you bring the bass in any further (w/ eq) it might start to get a little lost. Yeah, the kick could come up a touch. And, while the vox are a little forward in the mix - it's certainly fine. YES, I do see the guitar issue. It's not lost though - it's just not right up front. Maybe some subtle higher freq boost IF it bothers you.

 

Overall, yes the mix is great. I wouldn't bow to your bandmates - only to your sense of what's going to make the best overall mix possible.

 

Yeah, GREAT song too - I get it...

[nwright]

I kinda know what I want, but then it seems I dont get the response from the band I was looking for. Im personally pretty happy with what I have got.. I am definitely mixing it the way you hear it on purpose.. As bad as that may be.. And I know the "BEST" part of mixing comment was tongue in cheek, but man if I tweak anymore Im gonna throw my DAW out the window.. Usually it is kinda fun, now IM not having fun.. Any tips on the bass guitar? It seems on most of my mixes the bass is always the hardest for me to really get right.. I have a pretty big EQ boost around 2k. I am cutting a little bit from 300-400hz. I have the lows of the bass kinda strong around 80-90 hz,, I dip it a little bit around 60hz to make a little room for the kick drums low.. Its still a very flabby bass guitar track.. Anyway I will be able to get to my DAW tomorrow night.. I have to bounce a few tracks for you, if you are still interested. The kick sample I have is running out of Battery and I have a snare sample beefing up the snare..

Bass is the hard part for me as well.

I usually have a "stock" setup I use for heavy music.

generally, I've been using a clean DI and then adding in the grit with plugins.

Anyway, my usual setup is to give it some fuzz (Cubase's QuadraFuzz plug is great for an Ampeg style growl) and then compress, compress, compress...Usually something like 20-30dB gain reduction, fast attack, slow release and makeup gain to bring it up just under the point of clipping (using the comp plugins gain meter as a reference).

After the compression is when I add in the EQ and whatnot...Doing EQ tweaks before compression has less of an effect, as compressing that much flattens out the EQ tweaks.

Anyway, I usually leave a "pocket" for the kick as well, but most of the time, the meaty part of the kick sits somewhere between 60-75Hz in the music I do.

So, I actually boost around 50-60Hz on the bass with a tight Q. I then apply a slight boost around 180Hz with a medium Q (and I usually use a single channel of a MB compressor to compress this area on guitars). I then usually will boost the high mids (anywhere from 800-2kHz roughly) if necessary. THe QuadraFuzz plugin adds a nice boost in that range anyway, so depending on the bass tone, I may or may not add in EQ there.

The boost in the 50-60Hz range gives the bass some oomph, but it's almost a sub-bass "feeling" rather than an actual tonal thing, but it's till out of the way for the kick.

I'm still interested in mixing this. But, after hearing yours, I'm not saying mine will be better. I'd just love to see what I can do with this style of music.