Hi,
Another attempt at this one.
Cheers!
Update: 2.2 Increased volume level of OH during verse, added subtle limiting of main guitars, and a few other tweaks.
Update: 2.3 Raised volume of tom hits going in to chorus, and a couple of rhythm guitar tweaks in the chorus sections too.
Banger! I would only bring up the cymbals/hhat/ride a tiny bit in certain sections of the song (e.g. verse) because there is so much detail in Dirk`s play, and it would be a shame if it was all buried underneath the wall of guitar. Other than that, it`s a great mix with a lot of energy. I especially like how the song gets more powerful from verse to chorus - great job.
Next-level tip:
If you want to bring the mix to the next level, do another automation pass and ONLY work on small little details. Don`t touch anything else; your focus is to make me feel something when I listen to this song. Define that something.
Let`s say you want me to feel strong and powerful when I listen to the song. You could therefore raise the volume of the rhythm guitars from 03:52 to 03:55 by 0,5 to 1 db to add more energy to that part. Or make the snare/kick/toms 1 db louder in the last chorus starting at 4:10 up until the end to add more energy/excitement. Or remove the eq cuts on the guitars for the vocals (if you have made such cuts) at 4:30 to make the guitars bigger and take up more space in the last riff to make them sound fuller and richer - creating this huge wall of sound with guitar, bass and drums modern metal is known for.
Whatever you do, all those changes need to be felt, not heard. As soon as a regular listener can clearly hear that something has changed, it`s too much. Their brain starts to focus on the change and they stop "feeling" the song. You need to avoid this at any cost.
The goal is to add more excitement /energy to your mix to force a reaction from the listener. It´s all about emotions, and a good mix puts the spotlight on exactly those parts within a song that help to bring out those very emotions in me. Everything else - the roughmix, the compressor settings, the EQ cuts on the bass, all of that is just a means to an end so that I as a listener feel something while listening.
Thanks!
I'll go back and have another look at what more I can do regarding the 'small details' automation. I did do a pass or two of that already, but as you say I was really afraid of overdoing it from what I had going on. I felt a lot of the details in the drums that I would usually look automate (snare hits, mainly) were coming through already due to the great performance. I was running out of ideas after I'd done a few things to try and get a bit of verse/chorus contrast.
For some reason I don't usually think about automating the OHs, so I'll start with giving that a go. Thanks for the tip regarding removing the eq cuts - that's not something I would have come up with on my own and gives me something new to think about.
Cheers!
You can easily overcook things now, I guess doing multiple versions is key to being able to go back to an earlier, more focused mix if needed. Also, only work on a small part of the song for 30-60 minutes and then leave it to do something else and listen to your changes with fresh ears the next day. It takes longer to do it that way, but it helps you to stay neutral and don`t get too excited. I always had a list of things I wanted to change and then worked on them from the end of the song to the start, instead of jumping around like crazy or starting at the beginning of the song. You want the song to be at max power at the end! Apart from highlighting a couple of cymbal hits you probably don`t have to do much in the beginning anyway, because the song offers enough new elements in the first half without you doing any mixing magic.
Tip: If you don`t yet use a limiter on the rhythm guitars, give it a try
Don`t let it go too hard on the guitars, you don`t want too much additional distortion, only the limiting. By limiting the rhythm guitars until they barely change the volume when they play, you can create this constant wall of sound you hear on almost every modern metal record. I always did this on all of my mixes to all rhythm guitar tracks. Only when I moved the faders for the rhythm guitars up or down, their volume in the mix changed.
Update: 2.2 Increased volume level of OH during verse, added subtle limiting of main guitars, and a few other tweaks.
Cheers!
"The goal is to add more excitement /energy to your mix to force a reaction from the listener. It´s all about emotions, and a good mix puts the spotlight on exactly those parts within a song that help to bring out those very emotions in me. Everything else - the roughmix, the compressor settings, the EQ cuts on the bass, all of that is just a means to an end so that I as a listener feel something while listening."
Yeah man, the key words are "to force a reaction from the listener". These are the gems I have been looking for. But that is, imo, a higher level of skill. The step prior should be processing to get the instruments ready first. I can only speak for myself but I am still elbow deep in this level. But I am working my way toward there bc it is also my goal.
Sure, the skill is just a means to get there, but technical know-how is still an important part of this level. The actual means, if you will. Any mixer's worth his/her salt should know this step inside out and backward, imo. So yeah, I still need to learn how to listen to these hard to hear nuances and use my tools to extract whatever I am looking for from it or add to it. Right now I can only get them to sound the way I want 1/2 of the time, but I am working on it. I guess that if one thinks that one is capable then one can go straight up to that level. Me? I don't mind marinating myself in this level for a while longer. I want to make sure I know what to do. Thanks, man. I learn one more thing today.
"a good mix puts the spotlight on exactly those parts within a song that help to bring out those very emotions.."
I agree but, sadly, easier said than done. I still don't know which one. Still stuck on the who, what, when, and where, all except why. I am thinking that it would be hard to pinpoint bc the choices become too subjective, hence my reason of my being stuck. There is no actual answer. Is there? I would like to hear anybody's thoughts on this.
Making these choices is up to the band, the producer (if there is one) and the mixer. Some of them are obvious, like additional tracks with short melodies for certain parts of the song, a spectacular drum fill, or whatever musical gem a song has to offer. For the mixer, that often means listening to certain parts of a song or tracks without touching anything. Just listen. If you hear something that you like or think is special, chances are that others like that as well. Write those things down, and when you are done with your rough mix, it`s time to work on those details.
I've been mixing mostly in this order:
- Roughmix with faders and panning only, no EQ/Comp other than my bus compressor (which also added some brightness)
- Solve problems that can`t be fixed with volume automation, but don't change the sound of the band too much by making drastic eq cuts and boosts if not necessary.
- Check the song structure and make sure that the song slowly increases in intensity, i.e. make the song gradually louder by driving the mix harder and harder into the compressor. This happens mainly via automation
- When the song has a decent climax and sounds right, look at the list and decide for each interesting detail if it makes the song better/more interesting, or whether it doesn't trigger anything. only keep those that make you feel something. Those can be very small things, like raising the volume of the rhythm guitars in the bridge just so slightly that the bridge feels really heavy.
Please take this with a grain of salt, I didn't learn to mix to make a living, it was always something that interested me. A professional mixer might very well have a totally different approach.
Well, a lot of it is subjective and a matter of taste.
All the same, there are some general things to think about. You want the choruses to be bigger than the verse. You might want some sort of transition between sections, maybe automate up a snare fill that leads into the chorus to announce that the chorus is coming, etc? You want to ensure each section has the right energy level. You might need to automate the balance of the instuments within each section, compared to the static/rough mix to get a good blend and also contrast.
Some examples that you might be able to hear in mix 2.2:
Guitars at 0:06 are louder than during the verse. The intro needs some impact, but not as much as the chorus so we need to hold back a little bit. The guitars are center stage to start with, but they drop into the background a touch when the vocal comes in for the verse. We want the vocal to be center stage during the verse. Guitar riff at the 16 second mark is automated up in volume compared to the static rough mix. This and other little riffs are automated up in volume. Volume of the overheads are automated up at the start of the verses (mix 2.2) compared to mix 2,1 and the rough mix. As Blitzzz pointed out - the volume of the overheads is actually quite low at those points and needs to be raised in volume to be heard. Guitar volume is automated up for the pick slide at the 45 second mark so that it can be heard and has more impact and adds excitement. Guitars are automated up in volume at the 47 second mark to balance out with the distorted vocal and to give a different balance to that pre-chorus section. We want it louder than the verse, but not quite as loud as the chorus. We bump up the volume of the chorus at the 1:07 mark. I might have automated the vocal and a few other things up in the mix, as well as bumping up the master fader volume. We drop the volume back down at the 1:27-28 mark.
Sometimes all you need to add is a little delay and reverb to get the chorus to open up, as in this Saturn Syndiate mix:
https://discussion.cambridge-mt.com/show...?tid=42461.
You might think about adding stereo width, automating up the volume of the room mics, all sorts of things.
Just takes a bit of experimentation and practice.
Cheers!
Edit: To add to what Blitzzz has posted above (as we were posting at the same time!), I find the rough mix kind of guides you in a way. If you check the rough mix I posted in your thread (just faders and panning), the vocal level was driving me nuts, so the first thing I did was to automate that to level it out before I added any processing (compression, etc). The rough mix also helps you to plan out the long term dynamics - you kind of want to work backwards from where you want the most intense part of the song to be.
Whilst working on the rough mix I find I start to get a real sense of where I want to get the track to. I find I kind of hear what I want the finished result to be, and it is then a case of working towards that, once I have a goal in mind.
@mikej: At first I thought I was listening to the original mix, hahaha. Don`t know if this is a good or bad thing, but 2.2 sounds really beefy. Maybe the Toms could need a little boost, e.g. the little hit at 1:05. or in the verse at 01:43. Maybe you should overall raise them a bit?
Anyway, if this was a real gig, I would be super happy with the mix. I would still send you a list with 15-20 things to fix, but we would be talking about very small things, and most of them would be personal preferences.
A really very good mix, and it's great to see how you improved step by step
Thanks. Can't remember now if I did anything to the Toms between 2.1 and 2.2 or not, as I actually did that mix a couple of weeks ago and was a bit slack about posting it. I agree they do need a bit more of a boost now you point it out. I might try adding touch of saturation too, as per your tip in the other thread.
I think you are allowed to have some personal preference with this mix Blitzzz! Actually I quite enjoy the more detailed feedback. As soon as I checked the OH for the verses in mix 2.1 I could see right away that I'd completely missed the fact that they should have been there, and you couldn't hear them.
Cheers!