21-03-2016, 02:00 PM
Hi Sergio - Good instrumental balances in you mix - all the elements are accounted for. It's a very clean and controlled mix, with a nice tight low end. Good definition and separation of the elements too. I love the fat sounding bass and toms - very nice!
Somewhat at odds with all this is the snare. I haven't heard the raw tracks, but at a guess, it sounds to me like the top and bottom snare mics are out of phase. Generally, you need to flip the polarity on the bottom snare mic, because the sound waves are moving in opposite directions on each respective mic. However, don't just do it as a matter of course, because some engineers flip the polarity during recording. A quick test should make it clear. Whatever position where the snare sounds fattest with both mics combined is the right one. If that isn't the issue, I'm guessing you may need to use less bottom snare in the mix, as the overall sound is at present, very thin and papery, lacking in sustain. Often thin snares benefit from some boosting around the 150-250hz range. Parallel compression can help with the sustain, as well as some plate reverb.
I'm guessing your preference is to mix metal, as the mix has a very "scooped-mid" character to the eq curves across the elements in general. This mix has an element of "progressive rock/metal" to it, so it's not at all inappropriate to approach the mix from that point of view. However, one aspect to be aware of is that a lot of the implied "power" & "rawness" in rock and metal actually comes from the mids. In this case, the guitars have plenty of high mids, but they sound rather lacking in low mids, around the 200-500 hz area.
I think you could definitely let the midrange breathe a little more in this track - it would gain more power as a result. The full lows & very prominent highs tend to make for a very "hi-fi" presentation that sounds a little "constricted". Together with the very tightly controlled dynamics, it lends an almost "polite" air to the proceedings.
The vocals are probably the biggest issue other than the snare. I was finding it very hard to make out the lyrics. Then after listening for a while, I realised the problem was that all the sibilant consonants sound like they are being "swallowed" - Again, I'm not sure if this was a problem with the multi-track, or if you may have gone too far with the de-esser. In the latter case, the fix is simple - just ease up on the de-esser. In the former, it's almost impossible to restore "baked-in" over-de-essing.
Additionally, the vocal kind of "comes and goes" in level. Some phrases and words get a little submerged under the music. I'm thinking the performance may have been overly dynamic. With a big loud rock song like this, you can afford to be pretty brutal with compression on the vocals - sometimes multiple stages of compression and/or fairly detailed volume automation is needed.
As a personal taste thing, I think you could afford to go a little "dirtier" with the mix - adding a bit of grit and saturation would give the track a bit more excitement IMO. I've always liked Forrester Savells mixes with Karnivool as a reference for this type of stuff. Very powerful, but characterful too.
Great to hear your take on this!
Somewhat at odds with all this is the snare. I haven't heard the raw tracks, but at a guess, it sounds to me like the top and bottom snare mics are out of phase. Generally, you need to flip the polarity on the bottom snare mic, because the sound waves are moving in opposite directions on each respective mic. However, don't just do it as a matter of course, because some engineers flip the polarity during recording. A quick test should make it clear. Whatever position where the snare sounds fattest with both mics combined is the right one. If that isn't the issue, I'm guessing you may need to use less bottom snare in the mix, as the overall sound is at present, very thin and papery, lacking in sustain. Often thin snares benefit from some boosting around the 150-250hz range. Parallel compression can help with the sustain, as well as some plate reverb.
I'm guessing your preference is to mix metal, as the mix has a very "scooped-mid" character to the eq curves across the elements in general. This mix has an element of "progressive rock/metal" to it, so it's not at all inappropriate to approach the mix from that point of view. However, one aspect to be aware of is that a lot of the implied "power" & "rawness" in rock and metal actually comes from the mids. In this case, the guitars have plenty of high mids, but they sound rather lacking in low mids, around the 200-500 hz area.
I think you could definitely let the midrange breathe a little more in this track - it would gain more power as a result. The full lows & very prominent highs tend to make for a very "hi-fi" presentation that sounds a little "constricted". Together with the very tightly controlled dynamics, it lends an almost "polite" air to the proceedings.
The vocals are probably the biggest issue other than the snare. I was finding it very hard to make out the lyrics. Then after listening for a while, I realised the problem was that all the sibilant consonants sound like they are being "swallowed" - Again, I'm not sure if this was a problem with the multi-track, or if you may have gone too far with the de-esser. In the latter case, the fix is simple - just ease up on the de-esser. In the former, it's almost impossible to restore "baked-in" over-de-essing.
Additionally, the vocal kind of "comes and goes" in level. Some phrases and words get a little submerged under the music. I'm thinking the performance may have been overly dynamic. With a big loud rock song like this, you can afford to be pretty brutal with compression on the vocals - sometimes multiple stages of compression and/or fairly detailed volume automation is needed.
As a personal taste thing, I think you could afford to go a little "dirtier" with the mix - adding a bit of grit and saturation would give the track a bit more excitement IMO. I've always liked Forrester Savells mixes with Karnivool as a reference for this type of stuff. Very powerful, but characterful too.
Great to hear your take on this!
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