Hammer Down Mix and Faux Master by Doug

[dcp10200]

SSL Master buss emulation on it rather than my usual Neve emulation.

Sounds legit. I find that when mixing toms you really have yo exaggerate the space to help them breathe in the stereo field. Everything sounds balanced, the LDGTR aren't overly loud, and I can hear the synths in you chorus' and everywhere else too.
I find that the Neve emulations are pretty colored and its like using a sledge hammer for putting up paintings. With this sound in particular harmonic distortion can work against you if used too liberally. I use console one for my emulations and Steven Slate what do you use?

Good Job dude.
[/quote]

Thanks Wes, I use Waves NLS for my master buss emulation, it's old but it work well for what I need it to do. Generally I hate the SSL in that plugin because of how it interacts with the top end of the track (particularly the cymbals) as it makes them sound like hitting paper even on the most conservative of drive setting, for this mix it actually worked which is surprising although it isn't really a fair comparison because of the other aspects I did change but who knows. I was driving the Neve emulation very hard (8 out of 12 on the drive knob) which was killing the transients too much.

Side note: According to one of my friends who used to work at RCA Studios Toronto, the only reason SSLs got used was because the Total Recall system and automation was better and more intuitive than Neve Flying Faders, the pres in those boards aren't that great for tracking because of their relatively colourless sound. Hence the idea of tracking on a Neve and then mixing on an SSL, back in the day when budgets could afford that kinda thinking .

Cheers,
Doug

[wesleyamltd]

Side note: According to one of my friends who used to work at RCA Studios Toronto...

Cheers,
Doug

[/quote]

Sounds similar to reasoning behind Ibanez tube screamers in that they were affordable so everyone used them and they found their way onto many records. As a result we have been influenced to associate that sound with those great recordings and covet the tube screamer. In actuality, the tube screamer chip is cheap and by today's standards, garbage. But, we've been conditioned to like the aesthetic of the tube screamer and if there were some other pedal used instead we would find that pedal on lots of records too.

[dcp10200]

Side note: According to one of my friends who used to work at RCA Studios Toronto...

Cheers,
Doug

Sounds similar to reasoning behind Ibanez tube screamers in that they were affordable so everyone used them and they found their way onto many records. As a result we have been influenced to associate that sound with those great recordings and covet the tube screamer. In actuality, the tube screamer chip is cheap and by today's standards, garbage. But, we've been conditioned to like the aesthetic of the tube screamer and if there were some other pedal used instead we would find that pedal on lots of records too.
[/quote]

Probably so, when I mixed this track I used Waves SSL channel strips as my eq and compression solution for most every thing, probably the best eq for guitars and bass because of how surgical they can get without sounding strange at extreme cuts and boosts. That also is why I generally go for a Neve style master buss emulation, most of the time it works (especially for lighter stuff) but for this track the SSL sound works (that top end distortion drives me up a wall though )

[fjuarez3]

sounds great but like my first mix a bit to soft. I do like the overall blend of all the instruments! Great Job!!!

[Blitzzz]

- the vocal fx right at the beginning of the vocals shouldn't be that loud. it's a fx type of thing, not an actual vocal part. should be more like a whisper
- you should try to make the verse smaller and quieter in comparison with the bridge/chorus. panning the guitars and synths at 75 or even 50 instead of 100% L/R will help. also bring down the volume so the verse feels smaller.
- the mix has too much highs on my headphones in the office (Presonus HD7), mostly coming from the overheads. it gets annoying the longer I was listening to your mix.

the biggest thing for me is the dynamics of your mix. there is way less energy/volume/wideness in the verse of the master compared with the bridge and chorus. the original mix has a build up with each part getting bigger and louder until the chorus comes in. For the verse I used panning to bring stuff closer together and simply made things quieter with volume automation and it worked very well. Right now your mix goes from 0 to 100 and stays there for the rest of the song. fix that and the overheads and you are very close to a perfect 10.

My final advice would be:

- Tame those overheads. I think they are too loud and a lower volume might be enough to get them in the sweet spot. Maybe you also have to make a cut at 2-3khz or 5khz - or use a de-esser
- In terms of balance, eq and compression there is not much to complain. now it's time to really mix this song and breathe some life into it.

Ps: This mix is way better than 3 stars. I don't understand why we need this kind of rating system, because people do updates to their initial mix but the rating can't be changed

[Roy]

As far as the Stars, for some reason it was one star early on. I gave it a 5 to bump it up but that only works out to 3 stars.

[dcp10200]

As far as the Stars, for some reason it was one star early on. I gave it a 5 to bump it up but that only works out to 3 stars.

Thanks Roy, I really don't care about star ratings TBH, if someone really doesn't like my mix I'm fine with that. Give it whatever rating you want but from my understanding , if you have time to give 4-5 separate mixes a star rating you have time to give at least one small critique to the poster of the mix.

Cheers,
Doug

[Roy]

Yeah, I agree. I never look at or worry about the star rating but seeing it at one star right off the bat seemed like it wasn't fair, in a way, so I tried to balance it out.

I don't have the right ear for the heavier stuff anymore so I'm stepping back from critiquing such mixes. But this one felt pretty good from the start and everyone else touched on anything that jumped out at me.

[dcp10200]

- the vocal fx right at the beginning of the vocals shouldn't be that loud. it's a fx type of thing, not an actual vocal part. should be more like a whisper
- you should try to make the verse smaller and quieter in comparison with the bridge/chorus. panning the guitars and synths at 75 or even 50 instead of 100% L/R will help. also bring down the volume so the verse feels smaller.
- the mix has too much highs on my headphones in the office (Presonus HD7), mostly coming from the overheads. it gets annoying the longer I was listening to your mix.

the biggest thing for me is the dynamics of your mix. there is way less energy/volume/wideness in the verse of the master compared with the bridge and chorus. the original mix has a build up with each part getting bigger and louder until the chorus comes in. For the verse I used panning to bring stuff closer together and simply made things quieter with volume automation and it worked very well. Right now your mix goes from 0 to 100 and stays there for the rest of the song. fix that and the overheads and you are very close to a perfect 10.

My final advice would be:

- Tame those overheads. I think they are too loud and a lower volume might be enough to get them in the sweet spot. Maybe you also have to make a cut at 2-3khz or 5khz - or use a de-esser
- In terms of balance, eq and compression there is not much to complain. now it's time to really mix this song and breathe some life into it.

Ps: This mix is way better than 3 stars. I don't understand why we need this kind of rating system, because people do updates to their initial mix but the rating can't be changed

Thanks Dirk, I did end up starting my mix over and used the KSE Holy Diver Cover as the basis of the new mix and also tried that trick Nolly uses for mixing snare and kick. The cymbals track had a fair bit of 2.5 kHz in them so I scooped that out and pushed C4 a little bit harder on the cymbals to tame the top end. I also did some automation on the whole mix to bring certain sections down and panned the guitars closer during the verses.

I'm not too worried about ratings, it wasn't only me that had 1 star on my mix when I posted and really it doesn't affect much on the site anyway. It just annoying when someone rates a bunch of mixes but doesn't bother to leave any feedback or a critique, the whole point of this site in the first place

Cheers,
Doug

[kapu]

(. . .) I'm not too worried about ratings, it wasn't only me that had 1 star on my mix when I posted and really it doesn't affect much on the site anyway. (. . .)

Just wanted to point out that there is a 3 stage pattern in this star rating:

1) A section opens for new song at forum and people start posting the early mixes.

2) At some point a certain user, who seems to be very worried about the condition of other users egos and ability to learn, posts his/her mix. Although this user mysteriously disappeared some time ago, there is a new user who seems to be carrying on exactly the same behavior, and puts out very similar suprisingly decent mixes. This mix gets 5 star rating.

3) All other mixes suddenly get a 1 star rating. If there are already over a dozen mixes present, then only the mixes sounding above average get 1 star rating.

Your mixes sound great. In faux master 2 there is some noticeable distortion in the highs. Smash 'em to the limit, if you ask me.