Heads up: This is a loud master!
Now that that's out of the way, here's my first mix and master of Flame, I wanted to try and capture the sound of Sound Awake by Karnivool in this mix (in particular the track Goliath). I must saw the tracks provided were really well recorded (just wondering if anyone involved in the production of this track could shed some light on to what sample library was used, it sounds like the SDX/EZX Progressive Foundry), I really love the guitar and bass tones, super fat sounding!
I think I'e managed to capture some o the sound of that record but it needs some work to get it right, I need some unbiased (any ears other than mine ;P) ears on this to find what needs to be improved (I suspect some automation needs work and some other levels stuff)
Cheers and thanks in advance,
Doug
Update: After a couple of days I refined my mix and worked on getting the guitar and bass relationship more refined sounding and cloudy. The kick this time is closer to my Karnivool reference in that it takes on a bit more of the low end of the mix while the bass is a bit more clean sounding and further down in the mix and less low end heavy.
Update 2: I've made a new mix from scratch, the reference track is the same song but I ended up scrapping the super clicky Kick In mic and using the outside kick to provide everything under 200 Hz and the Kick In 2 mic to provide everything above 200 Hz. The guitars are more upper mid heavy and the bass is a bit different sounding. I also automated the volume of my mixbuss during the duration of the track but the compressor on my master seemed to make the volume differences negligible at best, I'll have to sort that out next revision. I also got to test out Crosstalk2, Transient, and Lisp by the now defunct Sleepy Time Records, I particularly liked the effect that Crosstalk brought to the mix with it smoothing the high end and mids out.
(02-03-2017, 04:02 AM)dcp10200 Wrote: [ -> ]Heads up: This is a loud master!
Now that that's out of the way, here's my first mix and master of Flame, I wanted to try and capture the sound of Sound Awake by Karnivool in this mix (in particular the track Goliath). I must saw the tracks provided were really well recorded (just wondering if anyone involved in the production of this track could shed some light on to what sample library was used, it sounds like the SDX/EZX Progressive Foundry), I really love the guitar and bass tones, super fat sounding!
I think I'e managed to capture some o the sound of that record but it needs some work to get it right, I need some unbiased (any ears other than mine ;P) ears on this to find what needs to be improved (I suspect some automation needs work and some other levels stuff)
Cheers and thanks in advance,
Doug
Hi Doug, Paolo from "The Black Crown" here. Thanks for the mix!
Huge Karnivool fan myself!
I've answered some of your questions in this thread:
http://discussion.cambridge-mt.com/showt...?tid=18254
Let me know if you want to know something else!
Cheers
Paolo
I think it sounds great. I like the dynamics of the mix. For a loud mix you were able to get the chorus to pop out and the mix grows a bit more. If that makes sense. And for a heavy song and "loud" master I can turn up the volume and it's still pleasant to listen to.
I do find the guitars to be a little "blurry". The distortion washes things out. I forget if this one has a distorted bass sound but I think that might be contributing to that.
Other than that the only thing that jumps out at me is in the outro. The hi hat part feels a little messy. As hi hat parts often do. I think if there was a little more definition. It's minor but it's the only thing that really jumped out at me.
(02-03-2017, 06:50 PM)RoyMatthews Wrote: [ -> ]I think it sounds great. I like the dynamics of the mix. For a loud mix you were able to get the chorus to pop out and the mix grows a bit more. If that makes sense. And for a heavy song and "loud" master I can turn up the volume and it's still pleasant to listen to.
I do find the guitars to be a little "blurry". The distortion washes things out. I forget if this one has a distorted bass sound but I think that might be contributing to that.
Other than that the only thing that jumps out at me is in the outro. The hi hat part feels a little messy. As hi hat parts often do. I think if there was a little more definition. It's minor but it's the only thing that really jumped out at me.
Thanks Roy, the bass was given as an distorted Amp track and a DI track, I used both tracks and blended in the distorted track into the DI so that the bass blended more with the guitar (I see bass in this genre as the lower end of the guitars as most of the time it's just doubling the guitar). Also I did use a dynamic eq triggered from the kick to push down on the low end of the bass and guitar. I think backing off the amp track of the bass will help with the guitars (I found that this mix was close to the Tool track when translated to my phone speaker and a low end Home Theatre set up, so what I do end up touching is minor) and clear it up a bit.
I used an Waves SSL Channel Strip in my mastering chain to push the level into my soft clipper and limiter (that plugin when the output is clipped emulates the distortion of an SSL Channel Strip and is great for pushing your master), you just need to trim it down, in that a low pass was engaged to closer match my mix reference (Goliath by Karnivool) I may have taken off a little too much high end but it works when played on a cellphone speaker and still works when played on a HiFi system, if I back it off a bit it should be clearer on the hi hats.
Cheers, and thanks for the listen
Doug
Ps: if you want a good laugh here's what the waveform looks like
Great mix! Maybe it could be a little more bangy for my aesthetics, but there's nothing wrong to my ears in a technical sense. Or maybe the guitars could be somehow a bit more present, I don't know. Good looking waveform you got there. It's always kind of funny, when people are judging the sound by showing the waveform and going 'Look at this sausage! There's no dynamics at all, as you can see!' and then they can be refuted by just saying 'Psst! Zoom in closer!' ^_^
(05-03-2017, 02:04 PM)kapu Wrote: [ -> ]Great mix! Maybe it could be a little more bangy for my aesthetics, but there's nothing wrong to my ears in a technical sense. Or maybe the guitars could be somehow a bit more present, I don't know. Good looking waveform you got there. It's always kind of funny, when people are judging the sound by showing the waveform and going 'Look at this sausage! There's no dynamics at all, as you can see!' and then they can be refuted by just saying 'Psst! Zoom in closer!' ^_^
Thanks Kapu, I think some "Artful Renegades" might disagree but last time I checked music is an Auditory art and not visual
.
Anyhow, I wouldn't really say it needs "impact" so much as more clarity in the low end, I've noticed a lot of the mixes of this track are clear in the bass and high end but are so controlled that the connective tissue of the low mids gets obliterated, I make the same mistake in doing huge scoops in that area to clean it up.
With this track I tried being less aggressive in that respect and not worrying so much about that area and more on the other aspects of the mix. It ended up with a mix that translates to most systems well and doesn't sound out of place with other stuff in the genre, with my revision I focused on cleaning up the low mids so that it has a more refined sound, the first version was lacking a bit of tightness down there.
Cheers,
Doug
New version posted above, it's abit quieter than the first master but I think it's due to the new version having abit less low end and less limiting.
(06-03-2017, 07:17 PM)dcp10200 Wrote: [ -> ]New version posted above, it's abit quieter than the first master but I think it's due to the new version having abit less low end and less limiting.
Nice mix...good balance. The only thing that stands out is the guitar phase/panning effect, not sure this translates in mono well.
(06-03-2017, 07:44 PM)chuck moe Wrote: [ -> ]Nice mix...good balance. The only thing that stands out is the guitar phase/panning effect, not sure this translates in mono well.
Thanks Chuck, when I played the mix through my phone speaker the phaser I used on the guitar seemed to work fine, the bass in the verses is really a mirror of the guitars and with the tones being similar it doesn't really matter too much. I'e made a new mix from scratch without the phaser just to see what it sounded like, it's in the OP of the thread.
Cheers,
Doug
Hi Doug,
Nice solid and balanced mix sounds nice and full on headphones ,the drums sound punchy in the centre which is great,Thinking a touch more balance with the guitars and drum kit in the stereo field as missing some room ambience of the whole drumkit and a lot of low frequencies if the guitars in the side channels.
Just some thoughts while listening on headphones and could be wrong again
Well Done
