Hollow Ground-Left Blind

[Debellatoris]

hope you guys and gals enjoy
any and all comments, suggestions, and critiques welcome

[dcp10200]

Hi Debellatoris, the mix here seems to be interesting for a metalcore mix, the clean guitars mixed with the original lead guitar is really odd and doesn't seem to work together to glue the track together. The kick and toms generally work when the mix gets louder but in the intro they have a pencil hitting a plastic bucket sound to them. The snare also seems like there is too much snare rattle and not enough body and attack, however it makes more sense considering the cleaner guitar tone. The bass and vocals are the strong points of the mix in my opinion, the bass has a nice low end presence that isn't fighting with the kick or the low end of the guitars. If the guitars were more distorted I would suggest splitting the bass into 2 tracks, one track high passed at 400 Hz and the other track low passed at 400 Hz. Add some heavy compression to the low passed track to keep the low end even and thick, while on the high passed track use a guitar amp sim to add some grime to the top end and use a limiter to stop any stray peaks from getting through. Blend the low end from the low passed track with the grind of the hi passed track to taste. The vocals are quite clear and clean, I wouldn't really do much to them. If you plan on using the DI tracks for the guitar, start by reamping them using a reamp box coming out of you interface or DAC into your guitar amp and record that with a mic of your choice or use an amp sim like Bias, Amplitube, or Guitar Rig. I personally used Guitar Rig because that's what I own but really whatever amp sim you have will do. If you have access to drum samples, use them, the drums on this track require alot of processing to get a usable tone out of. Overall This mix has potential but needs a fair bit of polish to make it work in context. The raw files themselves are pretty tough to work with, however it's possible to get a good mix out of them. Good luck with your next mix and here's a reference track to use while mixing this track, Witness by Counterparts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6znVtJVAUgk

[Blitzzz]

This is a hardcore song from a typical hardcore band - like Biohazard, Pro Pain or Hatebreed. I honestly don't know what you were thinking when you mixed this song. It NEEDS brutal guitars. Brutal drums. Brutal everything. And even more brutal brutal brutal on top of that.

It's a song for the moshpit. People want to go crazy. They certainly don't want to fall asleep.

[Debellatoris]

@dcp, thanks for the input, still workn on my sound. if you dont mind take a listen to my 2nd mix, it still has issues. i took the stupid bucket out the the stupid toms. gonna mix it again using your advice just for the simple fact you took the time to listen and comment with so much information...much love and thanks for the info

@ blitzzz you know whats crazy, i was tryn to mimmick the lows in your guitars (love that shit) and the ambiance of your toms cant say i did, but your mix was the first to stand out. dont know what a mosh pit sounds like or know if i ever will. metal is my most coveted of all genres but i dont look, act, or live the part. just wanna perfect the sound. call me the mocking bird.

[Blitzzz]

hahaha, okay =) You need more distortion. more beef, more everything. Metal is all about sounding larger then life. This is a hardcore song so it's not exactly the same genre but most of the rules are the same. Big guitars + Big drums + Vocals in your face.

If you want my guitar sound from that song, thats pretty easy. I mean, really, really easy. Head over to toontrack.com and buy EZMix 2 + the Andy Sneap add-on. Andy Sneap is known for his drum and guitar sounds for bands like Testament, Killswitch Engage or Amon Amarth and the virtual amps from his EZmix-addon are a 1:1 copy of his the guitar sounds on those records. So if you want a good guitar tone without spending hours on tweaking virtual amps i would say go for it.

here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9xleK0UzM8

I think I did use Slate Trigger and just replaced the toms with the metal tom samples from his deluxe set. I´m not 100% sure because I have deleted a lot of my old projects.

Ps: I´m pretty sure I used the Calitrash Amp preset (boogie Rectifier sim) for this song

[dcp10200]

The new mix is better but the guitar really need some high gain distortion on them try running them through an emulation of a 5150 or Dual Rectifier as a starting point and work from there. The snare needs some high end and to come up in the mix as well

[Debellatoris]

gave it another go