First Mix NEED CRITIQUE

[ErickWeinreich]

I just recently got into mixing, and just started learning to mix metal. I keep running into the problem that my mixes just aren't as loud as my reference tracks even though it peaks at 0.1db throughout the entire song. I have so much to learn and my feelings are never hurt by criticism. So any advice would help! Hope to be posting more mixes in the future!

[Axel]

Very good mix, well done. The only thing i can say is that the guitars are a little thin for my taste but they sit good in the mix.

[Krabbe]

Hi

Nice first mix!

Overall it could use some more low end body, and the vocals seems very mid loaded.

Keep up the good work and stay healthy

[kayanme]

The things could be fixed for my mind:
- low end is too boomy and moody - it is a lot of work to tame bass guiatr here.
- there is no overheads at all (it is a record issue, however)
- for drums being pushed forward like here, they could be less synthetic, for my taste

[Blitzzz]

Regarding the loudness: That's usually because you don't use that much compression, clipping and limiting that most professional mixers do.

E.g. it's very common to compress the vocal tracks first, followed up by de-essing (which adds even more compression), clipping and a final limiting stage with something like Waves L1 (or any other limiter - it's not the plugin, it's the technique that matters) so they barely move in terms of loudness. All the "movement" aka loudness changes in a mix is done via volume automation by bringing the volume faders of the vocals down, but the vocals stay at a very, very small dynamic range.

That's also true for guitars: If you want a wall of guitars in your mix, use a limiter, bring them up to a certain volume by limiting them and let them stay at that volume throughout the whole song. If you need to bring the guitars down to add some movement and excitement, use volume automation.
https://youtu.be/5Mu3_qcE0Ug?t=243

As for heavy bass, that's almost always limited in an extreme way. You can limit the bass track heavily until the volume of the bass doesn't change at all (really, it never moves and stays at the same level ALL THE TIME). Or you can copy the bass track, use filters to split the track in two and limit the shit out of the bass portion, leaving the higher frequencies untouched.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00kI0Ashqp8

Also, people usually use a lot of clipping on the shells of a kit, and even limit elements like the snare to reduce the dynamic range. Limiting Overheads and is also very common.

As a general rule: The faster and harder the music, the more compression and limiting you need.