everybody's falling apart mix 04/04/2014

[Andreas Tyranopoulos]

Hello guys here is my mix, I hope you like it and I would like to read your comments-advice!!

[pauli]

I think the overheads are maybe 2 or 3 dB too loud, or perhaps they need a little high shelving cut in the upper ranges to tone the cymbals/hat down a bit... there are a few spots where they're dominating the mix, further forward than the guitars to my ears. Maybe they're reacting a little too strongly to any sort of drum bus compression you might be using. I'd also try putting a transient modeller or some sort of slow attack compression on the kick drum to shorten the length of the beat so that it's not bumping uglies with the bass guitar too much.

In the current mix I think the bass guitar actually sounds pretty darned good, maybe trim it a little in the 500 to 800 range, but it cuts through pretty well for the most part. IMHO this song was recorded 5 to 10 BPM too slowly which is what makes this such an issue, but the principle difficulty in this track is getting the bass guitar and kick to get along nicely. In a faster track you could afford to probably trim out more low end which would shorten both the bass guitar and drum sustain and it'd be fine and dandy, but alas! I don't think the bass guitar is the issue in this mix, though, because in my reference phones I can hear the low end contribution with a bit more definition, but on my speakers I'm getting lots of rumble jumble down below 200. Not really your fault... it's an issue that would have been best sorted out in the tracking phase, but in my opinion killing some of the sustain on the bass and kick with compressors or transient modellers would give you more definition in the low end, which'd drive the song along and make it feel faster and more exciting.

Other than the low end issues, which EVERYONE struggles with on this mix, I think there's some pretty good stuff going on here. I love the high end presence of the bass guitar attack... really groovy and funky, and I think the guitars sound pretty decent with one another, which is always a trick considering they're always trying to eat the other channels!

My main suggestion apart from tightening up the drum balance, which is probably as simple as rolling off high end on the cymbals/overheads and maybe shortening the release time on any kinda compression you might be using, and getting a little more low end definition between the bass and kick is to take a hard look at your send effects... reverb and delay. I have to confess... I love reverb, and much of my favorite music (classic rock) has some level of it, but be vewy vewy careful in a funky track like this. I'd stick with tempo based delays and very short (.2 to .4 seconds) reverb returns with high predelay settings, and keep them very quiet... more subliminal than something actually heard. And low cut the snot out of them to make sure nothing below 2 or 300 is happening, or the low end issues will almost certainly get worse. Room effects can really bring a mix to life, but they can also bog it down in bubbling, tar like murkiness.

All in all, a good mix . I tend to be excessively wordy with my suggestions, but the things I'm suggesting (with the exception of verb and delay considerations which I tend to agonize over lately ) wouldn't take but a few minutes to implement if you find your ears are agreeing with mine! Another suggestion, though, is to trust your instincts... if when you read suggestions like mine and you think "this guy is nuttier than a squirrel turd," then go with what feels right to you! I personally see great promise in this mix and I'm looking forward to hearing more of your work!

[thedon]

Hello Andreas

Compression and limiting is tricky ,maybe try less on the master bus as can hear some pumping and distortion !

[pauli]

Hello Andreas

Compression and limiting is tricky ,maybe try less on the master bus as can hear some pumping and distortion !

Master bus compression might also be part of the problem I heard with the cymbals, bass and kick if the release is too slow. Compressors are particularly sensitive to bass frequencies since they require so much power to be heard, so it might be the culprit as far as extended sustain on those instruments is concerned!

[Andreas Tyranopoulos]

Hello Pauli and Don, I really appreciate that you listened carefully to my mix and gave me some information about what was wrong with it. I tried to lower the level on some of the cymbals and i cut some of the high end in overheads. Apart from that I tried to gate the one channel of the bass guitar with kick channel side-chain, in order to make it sound more direct with less sustain. And finally I lowered the reverb in vox and kick channels for more direct and punchy sound.

[pauli]

It was my pleasure, I enjoyed hearing your vision for the song. I can hear some subtle changes in mix 2 that are accumulating into considerably more clarity... a huge improvement and a huge step in the right direction.

I think the technique you used for separating the kick and bass guitar got a lot of mileage toward clarifying the mix, but I'm wondering if some of your changes have reduced the subjective level of low end energy in the bass guitar? I think you've cleared the reverb out of the mud frequencies, which is a good thing, but it's possible the verbs at the bottom end were making the bottom end subjectively bigger... it'd likely look about the same on an analyzer but it can trick you into thinking you've got more welly than you do. If it were me (and of course it's not... consider my suggestions with your own personal taste) I'd give the kick a small broadband boost somewhere between 80 and 100 to give it more power and cut everything below 40 to let the kick occupy that space. Then feed the sidechain of a multiband compressor or dynamic EQ on the bass guitar with the kick and focus the active frequencies on wherever you feel the best low end energy is coming from on the kick so that the low end power remains more consistent... maybe a tiny bit of extra control with a master bus low end compression at the mastering phase and I think your mix will be pretty solid.

The main challenge in this song was getting the kick and bass to an appropriate level for drive, IMHO, but you're a lot closer than you were before. A little (less is more) more surgery and dynamic control from 300 Hz downward and you'll find you have a lot more headroom to bring that region up without the typical bottom end cacophony that's always a risk in a funky song, especially if there are tons of rather distorted electric guitars (which song great in your mix, btw... great work with the filtering... sounds even better with the smaller reverb) threatening the lower mids! If you choose to bring the low end up in any revisions you may feel like doing, you might find you have to fiddle a little bit with your filtering, but I don't imagine it'll be too difficult because it sounds like you've got a decent ear for electric guitar equalization, which is great because those are almost always the hardest elements to mix. I also think the overbearing cymbal intrusion sounds much better too.

Great improvement! Keep mixing and posting, you'll learn a lot here!

[thedon]

It was my pleasure, I enjoyed hearing your vision for the song. I can hear some subtle changes in mix 2 that are accumulating into considerably more clarity... a huge improvement and a huge step in the right direction.

I think the technique you used for separating the kick and bass guitar got a lot of mileage toward clarifying the mix, but I'm wondering if some of your changes have reduced the subjective level of low end energy in the bass guitar? I think you've cleared the reverb out of the mud frequencies, which is a good thing, but it's possible the verbs at the bottom end were making the bottom end subjectively bigger... it'd likely look about the same on an analyzer but it can trick you into thinking you've got more welly than you do. If it were me (and of course it's not... consider my suggestions with your own personal taste) I'd give the kick a small broadband boost somewhere between 80 and 100 to give it more power and cut everything below 40 to let the kick occupy that space. Then feed the sidechain of a multiband compressor or dynamic EQ on the bass guitar with the kick and focus the active frequencies on wherever you feel the best low end energy is coming from on the kick so that the low end power remains more consistent... maybe a tiny bit of extra control with a master bus low end compression at the mastering phase and I think your mix will be pretty solid.

The main challenge in this song was getting the kick and bass to an appropriate level for drive, IMHO, but you're a lot closer than you were before. A little (less is more) more surgery and dynamic control from 300 Hz downward and you'll find you have a lot more headroom to bring that region up without the typical bottom end cacophony that's always a risk in a funky song, especially if there are tons of rather distorted electric guitars (which song great in your mix, btw... great work with the filtering... sounds even better with the smaller reverb) threatening the lower mids! If you choose to bring the low end up in any revisions you may feel like doing, you might find you have to fiddle a little bit with your filtering, but I don't imagine it'll be too difficult because it sounds like you've got a decent ear for electric guitar equalization, which is great because those are almost always the hardest elements to mix. I also think the overbearing cymbal intrusion sounds much better too.

Great improvement! Keep mixing and posting, you'll learn a lot here!

Great advice , a great improvement !

[Andreas Tyranopoulos]

Guys thanks for your advice! I 've tried a lot of changes on the 2 bass guitars channels and the kick channel and spent so many hours trying to get the sound that you describe me. Finally that I understood is you cannot do many things and many changes in an already finished mix, so I believe that I got to the point the closest I could. Otherwise I should start all over a mix that I really liked generally speaking. I would appreciate If you were honest with me and tell me exactly what you like and of course what you do not about this mix, which actually is a way for improvement. And finally if you want take a look at the mix I 've done to the song I'm Alright. See you soon! Thanks for your time and sorry about my english (I know I suck :p)!

[pauli]

Your english is just fine, and this is a tremendous improvement, dude. Go back to your original mix project, give the bass guitar a dip around 125 with a narrow peak filter, gate the kick so it's not ringing so long, and if you feel you're up to this just yet, try feeding a sidechain multiband compressor on the bass guitar with the kick, focusing the gain reduction in the upper bass frequencies, and this'll be solid. Awesome work and work ethic for so early on, keep it up!