The Black Crown - 'Flames'

[niektb]

There it goes! My first metal mix ever! Interesting to see how different problems occur between different genres (sounds need to be much aggressive and upfront in order to be able to cut through the heavy guitars for example...) Curious what you guys think of my take on this track

One thing I would like a discussion about is the role of the background vocal. I used them to create a subtle doubling effect (I also used Soundtoys' Little Alterboy to make a bigger, darker sounding vocal stack) but I'm not certain whether this is the best way. What do you think?

I also had a little doubt about the Bass Guitar: I quite didn't like the amped sound so I used the DI to make up the body of the sound and then subtly layer the Amp track to give it more presence. But now it sounds more like a conventional bass guitar, not sure if that was the band's intention? What do you think about it?

Edit: I've attached a new version based on takka360's comments

[takka360]

The guitars are drowning out a lot they are so loud and masking
The drums are pretty weak sounding but a lot of that is the guitars in the way ,needs some meat on that snare too
The mix is just turns to mush as it goes on.Metal is hard to mix its pretty specialist I find.
Keep up the practice and it will get better

[niektb]

The guitars are drowning out a lot they are so loud and masking
The drums are pretty weak sounding but a lot of that is the guitars in the way ,needs some meat on that snare too
The mix is just turns to mush as it goes on.Metal is hard to mix its pretty specialist I find.
Keep up the practice and it will get better

Ah, you're probably right! I've been listening to several metal tracks and noticed that the drums were often put in the back and barely cutting through (check f.e. 'Back To Me' from Of Mice And Men) and with the guitars really the main element (sometimes even more than the lead vocal). But now that I'm comparing them again I think I went a bit too far Thanks for pointing out!

With snare meat you mean those dark sounding snares like Three Days Grace has in their track 'Break'? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4VCpTZye10

[takka360]

Yes,great snare sound would make a good reference track

[niektb]

I've reworked the mix a bit to address the issues that were mentioned by @takka360. Thanks for your comments!