manuke mix

[manuke]

No idea how I'm supposed to mix metal but sure have a blast trying. Thanks psoares, had a lot of fun.

[pauli]

Manuke, in many ways, this is a great mix. It's loud as hell for one thing (usually not a bonus for me, but this IS metal), but transient definition for the most part doesn't seem to suffer much from the compression involved... that suggests disciplined gain staging and careful compression on the mix buss as well as the channel by channel compression. The low end in the center lane is pretty open, which is absolutely essential with all the kick rolls going on, but I think you'll find that clearing everything beneath 125 out of the sides will focus the kick even more and make it a lot easier to balance with the bass. I do that in almost every mix regardless of genre, even if there's nothing audible in that range on the sides... the more headroom the better, especially when you're going for loudness... and if you can't hear it, you don't need it. Personally I use a mid/side equalizer on the main mix buss and highpass the sides channel, 12 db per octave, at 125, but there are plugins like Basslane that will sum everything from a user specified range to mono if you prefer... though this can smear the guitars toward the center if you're not careful. If you choose to process the sides with an equalizer or stereo shaper, it's absolutely critical that the EQ plugin is before the mix-buss compressor in the FX chain or you'll lose half the benefit.

A couple quick things I noticed that might help you improve future mixes: During the bridge there are silences between the spurts of power chords... TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THOSE because they're one of your only opportunities for striking dynamics in music like this. In the raw tracks, the guitars note tails aren't dampened enough and extend into the silence, and compression will increase the sustain of the tails until those spaces are mostly filled... get your scissors tool out and trim those tails down, keep the stops symmetrical from left to right, and you're going to wind up with some seriously striking dynamic contrast during the bridge, and that is ALWAYS a good thing, regardless of genre. Things like that are part of the difference between a good home studio mix and an outstanding professional mix, and metal-heads LOVE it.... it makes the loud and raucous stuff feel even louder and more raucous! Contrast is key to emotional engagement.

For me, the guitars are a little too bright and consequently bury the vocals a bit here and there throughout the mix. The opposite is true of punk rock or screamo, but for black metal I'd say the body of the guitar is more important than the noisy thrash in the high mids, so I'd emphasize the chugga-chugga going on from 500 hz to 1000 hz personally. It would give them a more muscular sound and free up the vocal... although I wouldn't have any illusions as to improving the intelligibility of the lyrics . The vocal performance is raw, committed and powerful, so regardless of whether or not you can understand a flying thing he's singing about, I'd do everything I could to keep the guitars out of the way of such a vividly emotional part of the track. A high shelving cut on guitars 1 and 2, just a few db, from 3000 up did the trick for me.

Could the bass cut through a bit more in the mids? Matter of taste more than anything else, but I can feel it much more than I can actively hear it's contribution.

A final note... the toms need some gating. In my opinion all you really need out of the toms is the attack and main body of the tone, but the low end and sustained note tails aren't doing anything but eating up precious headroom and fogging up the mix. If hard gating isn't your style, a high ratio expander would sound a little more natural and still do the trick.

Anyway, hope some of that helps and isn't way off base. It's not one of my preferred genres, but the technical stuff doesn't change from tune to tune, so give it a whirl and see if it helps.

[manuke]

pauli, hey thanks so much for taking all that time to leave such detailed feedack, really appreciate it and given me plenty to think about, awesome. Especially pleased re the compression comment, no way do I normally crush stuff to that extent [and you're right, not too much on the buss but lots on every track bar the rhythm gtrs]. I actually use m/s eq all the time but mainly to clear out the middle, never really considered what you suggested re the sides. Brilliant, definitely gonna start experimenting with that one. And def gonna take the rest of your advice on board, [though me and gates don't get along too well]. Again, thanks mate. Stu.

[pauli]

Hey Stu, I'm glad I'm able to help you a bit... almost everything I know about mixing I learned from this forum.... it's the least I could do.

Regarding compression, I've learned that compressing a mix in stages much as you've described is often the key to a good balance.... and you can never have too many compressors to choose from, even if you mostly only use a couple. Quick tip: not sure how much you like to use tools like these, but I've found it useful in some situation to consider saturation and distortion as very colorful forms of compression, as they decrease the dynamic range as they color the signal, but without the "squeeze." So sometimes, when a channel needs a bit of flare, you can ultimately get compression and color at the same time.... and if you do it in parallel, you can EQ the distorted signal and get the color/compression only where you want it!

Regarding M/S eq, cutting the bass in the sides channel is the best use I've ever found for it. Basically, all bass frequencies are non-directional in the real world because the waves are too large for our ears to discern where they came from, so having bass in the sides channel really doesn't accomplish anything other than eating up headroom and pissing off your buss compressor. Be careful about EQing the mids channel, though... that can ruin a decent mix really quickly... tends to sound really weird IMHO, and you might be better off using a normal stereo compressor in most cases.

Another cool M/S EQ trick for quieter genres is a small high shelving dip in the treble range on the sides channel. Think about it in terms of the depth field: the instruments furthest to the side of your mix will generally be what you want sounding furthest away from the listener, and high cuts are a great way to create that illusion. The cool thing about EQing the sides channel is that the further you pan a channel from the center, the more it will be affected by the EQ... so rack toms panned 20% from the center won't be distanced by very much, but tambourines and shakers panned hard left and right will be pushed further back uniformly... just remember that subtlety is the key with any sort of M/S processing.

So gating... why do you have a tough time with them? In fast paced rock it's necessary almost 100% of the time to trim the note tails off of the toms, especially the floor toms, if you want to keep it loud and rocking with a clear low end. Gating is honestly the easiest way to do it if there are tons of fast fills like this, but if you prefer to do it manually that'd work just as well. Expanders will work and might be a bit easier to keep natural sounding, but if you're like me and you like to compress the drum buss, that compression will most likely fight the expanders, so IMHO a gate is a better option.... but they take a bit of practice and I honestly prefer editing to gates in most other situations.

Anyway, I'm no expert and certainly not a pro, but you clearly are eager to learn, so let me know if you'd ever like another detailed review and I'll be happy to oblige with what little I know. Such a big topic, mixing is, and I seem to learn something new every time I load up a new track. Keep it up, dude.

pauli, hey thanks so much for taking all that time to leave such detailed feedack, really appreciate it and given me plenty to think about, awesome. Especially pleased re the compression comment, no way do I normally crush stuff to that extent [and you're right, not too much on the buss but lots on every track bar the rhythm gtrs]. I actually use m/s eq all the time but mainly to clear out the middle, never really considered what you suggested re the sides. Brilliant, definitely gonna start experimenting with that one. And def gonna take the rest of your advice on board, [though me and gates don't get along too well]. Again, thanks mate. Stu.

[manuke]

Again, thanks a lot pauli, I appreciate your response. Yeah I do use a lot of saturation type effects, even on quieter genres, Decapitator gets a thrashing, but just lots of little bits, though wonder if it's the cause of the too bright gtrs. And by 'cleaning out the middle' I only use that on stereo synths, gtr busses etc, wouldn't do it to the master though am definitely gonna try your suggestion re cutting low end on the sides next mix. Will be very curious. I guess with gates I never got the results I was after on things like toms so I just go in and clean them up manually, a lot of work but worth it I think. Thanks mate, you've given me plenty to think about.