Dark Ride - Burning Bridges

[pauli]

I don't necessarily agree you should stay away from reverb if you don't know what you're doing... My suggestion is to read read read and experiment until you DO know what you're doing. That's probably what blitzzz means but it seemed important to clarify.

There are twenty dozen or so mixing primers that more or less say "reverb is not that important" but unfortunately that really makes light of how critical it is to get the reverb right!

I've read quite a few interviews with famous producers/musicians who claim that reverb isn't necessary in today's styles and they don't use it at all... What's important to understand here though is that they're only telling you half the truth. It's true that in many modern styles, adding ambiance can make the sound feel far away and it can kill the drive... But those producers are talking about mic'd tracks recorded in excellent live rooms! So whether they'll admit it to themselves or not, every time they adjust the mic position during tracking, they've tweaked a reverb setting during the mix, because they're adjusting the instrument's relationship with the room- it's just not a virtual room.

In the case of burning bridges, which was recorded remotely in different rooms and uses a simulated kick, some ambiance will be necessary for blend and a more natural sound.... But when things are this busy in the low end, creative reverb goes out the window. I'd suggest a fully technical approach, starting with a very short ambiance preset with no reverb tail, and I'd cut the lows somewhat severely on the send channel both before and after the signal feeds into the reverb processor (feel free to PM me if you need help setting that up). Remember to set the processor to 100% wet, and slowly fade in the send channel until you can barely hear it on the vocals when they're soloed- then turn it down a decibel or so.

You'll still need to finesse the timing a bit to fit the tempo, and this isn't perfect by half, but this setup should get you about 90% there in most heavy rock styles. Remember that you can also adjust how much each track is feeding into the send channel, so if something feels like it should be a little closer (like the vocals) don't be afraid to pull back the send level a db or two after everything is set up.

One more thing worth mentioning: the faster the low register instruments are playing, the less bass you can allow in the final mix... Because bass waves move very slowly, so your ears (and your speakers) won't be able to keep up, so you get mud. Just as an experiment, try high passing the master buss at 50 Hz. That should clear up the low end quite a bit, and it'll give you a pretty good idea what instruments need low cuts.

Hopefully some of this is helpful, keep at it!