The Metallurgist's Semantics

[The_Metallurgist]

...I'd love to hear how you managed so well on this one.

i spent a considerable amount of time on it, too much, if i'm honest. but sometimes it's difficult letting go of a song which has something that you just gotta try and get out, despite the odds.

you can probably tell i muted a bucket load of material and deleted even more. i thought this was probably a 5 piece band...then i checked them out - it's only 3!! unfortunately, the way it was arranged made it impossible to try and present it as a 3-man band, even allowing for modest artistic license in a studio mix. to sound so completely different to your live gigs is what i'd call a risky marketing strategy...so, you watch the performance, buy the CD at the scene, take it home and spin it up only to hear a completely different band? anyway, it gave me some space to flex the creative elements.

the guitar i ran with in the main, was wildly EQ'd. the double-tracked was EQ'd differently, but close e.g. gains in one were matched by attenuation in the other, more or less. then i used a graphic EQ and worked ONLY within the region that had significant material left, alternately boosting and attenuating by around 4 or 5dB? the double-tracked was mirrored (i.e. gain on one frequency was attenuated in the other track). i can't remember if i used my Little Labs IBP to work the phase and delay signal of one of the tracks.....looking for some strength here, if possible, and avoiding thinning was the critical criteria? i'll take a look later on and see what i did and get back to you if i've missed something important that can possibly help. oh, i most likely parallel compressed the E-Gtr buss using something that would add colour and some character back into the guitar.

I tried to mix this song with no samples but I couldn't see/hear how to fix all the problems without replacing most of the drums

so after messing around with the drums for an hour or so I kept the overheads, the hihat and the room and used samples (trigger) for the rest. I still had to kill everything below 2k on the OHs to make the drums sound good.

back to the topic: There are some nice effects and interesting ideas in your mix (e.g. the voice at 3:20). It was quite interesting to compare your mix with mine which is more upfront/in your face and less experimental.

thanks for dropping by Blitzzz. the problem with drastically low-cutting the OH's is loss of character of the cymbals, because a significant part of their signature occurs well below this line. so, what you are left with here, in effect, are cymbals that are quite fatiguing. the snare's harmonics encroach well beyond the 2kHz of your filter, so it's not a win-win situation and the cymbal action is still doing it's weirdness meanwhile. in my opinion, nothing sounds good unless it's ALL working right! but i respect your efforts in the drum department, it's more than i was willing to engage in in the circumstances. we all lost this battle because the outcome could only be a fistful of compromise unless the whole kit was replaced...then we're faced with the next weakest link....vocals?

i note you compressed the hell out of your mix in the master. if you level-match mine against yours, and listen to the chorus section in my mix, i'm confident you would form a different conclusion. also, the problem with throwing everything at your audience, full-on, all the way through, is that you leave yourself with no room for delivering impact when the need arises, like during the choruses for example. i wanted my choruses to bang...and the verse to drop right off. if there's no contrast or expectation, what is there to look forward to?

with respect, your mix has significant low-mid congestion issues which is fooling you into thinking you are delivering power. all you've done is added to the problems of distortion. in my Ovation headphones, this mix is pumping in both ears well beyond the call of duty and the consequence is HIGHLY fatiguing, not helped by the erratic bass-line which booms quite alarmingly. couple this with the drum issues inherent in the mix which you've further exposed by excessive compression on the master buss and less than 20 seconds in i'm looking for the exit. what really worries me, is that you might have missed the fact this multi had significant quality issues everywhere. i'm sure your Foofighter's reference CD (i hope you didn't use an mp3!!!! did you?) didn't have a flabby, uncontrolled, boomy bass guitar for example?

personally speaking, i think if you eased up on the compression, got the bass guitar working, and focused on achieving quality throughout the mix rather than outright loudness, it would appeal to a larger audience.