The Dice Mixed by Dcp

[dcp10200]

After messing around with this track for a week I sat down and did this mix and master. The tracks were actually nicely presented and pretty easy to get a good sound out of.

Kick wise I used the outside kick to supply the bottom end (500 Hz and Below) and the inside kick to give me the beater sound (500 Hz and above). From there I used a soft clipper and about 2 dBs of compression to tie the 2 signals altogether and some minor filtering to taste. The top snare mic has a soft clipper on it to tame the peaks alittle and a neve emulation being driven hard to give some crunch to it and a 2 dB cut at 360 Hz to remove some mud. The toms, overheads, and room mics are all unprocessed and the whole drum buss is run through an Audio Damage Rough Rider Compressor for some glue.

Bass is treated similarly to my other mixes.

Guitars have some multiband compression and reductive eq to help them sit. I've automated a phaser in on certain sections of the song for a cool swirly effect.

Vocals got some pretty heavy compression and minor volume automation to even them out. During the bridge I used a Flanger on the vocals.

Finally the whole mix is run through an SSL Buss compressor emulation, a Pul Tec Program Eq for colour, and some tape saturation. I made 2 seperate masters, one mastered hot and the other less hot (both are processed the same but one has more limiting).

Please leave your critiques below and enjoy!

P.S Wurstdrummer, would you guys happen to be fans of Dorje? This track really reminds me of some of their material mixed with Tool.

[thedon]

Hi
Í Love your punchy mix sounds great ,the phaser,swirly effects give a really cool vibe.
Just some personal taste thoughts while listening on my horrortones which are very sensitive to quick transients.
The electric in the verse sounds just a touch soft ,love the smack of the kick , snare and toms,maybe just a touch more compression the front end attack of the snare and put a little on the toms to tame some level as popping out a touch ,the top end of the kick beater around 2-5k is also popping out a just touch not by much maybe just a db or 2 max but not a big deal.
Well Done .

[wurstdrummer]

Hi dcp,

definitely a more professional mix. It sounds well balanced and everything sits in it's place; you definitely know how to deal with compression and EQ'ing, that's for sure.
Tight!

I don't know Dorje, but I'll take a listen. If this track reminds you of them it could be that they'll appear in our main influences sooner or later, thanks for that Would you have a specific track or album you'd recommend?

Cheers!

[dcp10200]

Hi dcp,

definitely a more professional mix. It sounds well balanced and everything sits in it's place; you definitely know how to deal with compression and EQ'ing, that's for sure.
Tight!

I don't know Dorje, but I'll take a listen. If this track reminds you of them it could be that they'll appear in our main influences sooner or later, thanks for that Would you have a specific track or album you'd recommend?

Cheers!

Thanks for the comments Till, glad you liked the mix. As for Dorje, they have 2 EPs out now. Their first EP Primordial Audio Chronicle is a great place to start and it's only 2 tracks long. The second EP Catalyst is also really great, it includes a rerecorded and remixed version of the first song on Primordial Audio Chornicle and some new material. Check out the Track "Aeromancy" off of the first ep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkJrBBD3xpE, and "White Dove" off of Catalyst: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3SvTL2_sAU.

[wurstdrummer]

Wow, this is actually really awesome. Thanks for that recommendation!

[dcp10200]

Hi
Í Love your punchy mix sounds great ,the phaser,swirly effects give a really cool vibe.
Just some personal taste thoughts while listening on my horrortones which are very sensitive to quick transients.
The electric in the verse sounds just a touch soft ,love the smack of the kick , snare and toms,maybe just a touch more compression the front end attack of the snare and put a little on the toms to tame some level as popping out a touch ,the top end of the kick beater around 2-5k is also popping out a just touch not by much maybe just a db or 2 max but not a big deal.
Well Done .

Thanks for the critique Don, I'll make a pop over to your thread soon.

I automated the guitars down in the verses so that they would pop out more in the choruses, I may have went too extreme and should've pulled the vocals back a little, at this point I'm happy with the way the guitars sound in the verses but I may try killing the automation there and see what happens.

The snare could use some more compression I think as well, the toms sounded fine to me without compression (listening on a phone speaker they didn't really pop out too much to me, probably just my taste ;P). Most of my drum sound is actually driving the individual drum tracks into the compressor on the drum buss and using a soft clipper to give some smack to the kit overall, this way I find myself using less compressors on the individual tracks and focusing more on how the different elements affect the overall sound of the drums.

The kick is probably going to get some multiband compression to help out that 2 kHz popping to maintain the sound I've got so far.

Thanks again,
Dcp

[Shul]

Hello Dcp

Here are my observations on your mix.

*Balance: Your drums are poking out in the mix overall. Kick and toms especially. This is more apparent in headphones. I would suggest you drop a couple of db on it. Other than that I have no complains
*Guitars are sounding smooth but I believe that much reverb on it makes it lose power. Are you by any chance using a reverb WITHIN the guitar track itself? or are you using a WET verb on a separate buss? .. just curious because my ears are telling me you are using reverb within the guitars track itself. Which explains why that particular coloration gives me that feeling of less power. If this is the case, I would suggest you leave the guitars raw and put the verb on a buss to prevent coloration of the guitar tone. If not, My apologies.
*I like the eq on the vocal. On the soft part bridge though (3:55).. that flanger you gave it is making the volume drop at points which is making it to get lost in the mix. Nothing some automation won't fix.
*That lead guitar at 3:25 that lead on the left is not as loud as I would want it to enjoy it. Nothing some automation can't fix.

Overall this is really good man. Some of the details I pointed out are a matter of taste and Some I believe you need to fix to make this sound even better.. Keep it up. It's a good mix.

[Dangerous]

Hey Dcp,
This mix is a stand out for me. Really nice. The only thing I can criticise is the guitar intro is coming across a little too quiet when listening through headphones. Nothing major though.

Well Done.
Dave.

[dcp10200]

Hello Dcp

Here are my observations on your mix.

*Balance: Your drums are poking out in the mix overall. Kick and toms especially. This is more apparent in headphones. I would suggest you drop a couple of db on it. Other than that I have no complains
*Guitars are sounding smooth but I believe that much reverb on it makes it lose power. Are you by any chance using a reverb WITHIN the guitar track itself? or are you using a WET verb on a separate buss? .. just curious because my ears are telling me you are using reverb within the guitars track itself. Which explains why that particular coloration gives me that feeling of less power. If this is the case, I would suggest you leave the guitars raw and put the verb on a buss to prevent coloration of the guitar tone. If not, My apologies.
*I like the eq on the vocal. On the soft part bridge though (3:55).. that flanger you gave it is making the volume drop at points which is making it to get lost in the mix. Nothing some automation won't fix.
*That lead guitar at 3:25 that lead on the left is not as loud as I would want it to enjoy it. Nothing some automation can't fix.

Overall this is really good man. Some of the details I pointed out are a matter of taste and Some I believe you need to fix to make this sound even better.. Keep it up. It's a good mix.

Thanks Shul for the critique. My guitars aren't actually running through a reverb, I used a 35 milisecond ping pong delay with no feedbackas I do on alot of the heavier tracks I mix. Generally this gives me the width of adding a reverb without making them too washy. I'll probably just haul that back in the mix or just leave it off entirely. I did volume automate my guitars down in the verses so that they would pop out more in the choruses so that might also be what's causing the guitars to appear less powerful.

Drums wise I agree with you on the drums popping out at certain points, I just working on putting a multiband compressor on the drum buss to that I can keep the attack and punch I'm getting without having the 2-5 kHz range doing anything odd in the mix.

On the vocals the flanger was cool at the time but since listening on other systems I'm less in love with it, I might just can it and use a phaser effect similar to what's on the guitar for that section or even just a doubler to widen it out some more.

I wanted that picked guitar to be pretty low in the mix but I'm going to try to bump it up more just to see what it sounds like.

Thanks again for the critique,
Dcp

[dcp10200]

Hey Dcp,
This mix is a stand out for me. Really nice. The only thing I can criticise is the guitar intro is coming across a little too quiet when listening through headphones. Nothing major though.

Well Done.
Dave.

Thanks Dave for the comments. When I was mixing the track I was going to bring the fader up on that track some more but ended up forgetting about it entirely , I kind of liked it but if I were to actually mix this for public consumption it would be turned up to match the rest of the mix so it's not so jarring. I'll just have a pop over to your thread and have a listen to your mix.

Cheers,
Dcp