This track for me was really easy to get frustrated with and give up on, after setting it aside for awhile and hearing Blitzzz's mix I redownloaded the multis and went to work. As the title of the thread suggests this is an instrumental mix, I'm working on getting the vocals sorted and ready to put into my mix, obviously the levels are going to change when this happens. I'm open for suggestions and critiques on where the mix needs work besides the obvious lack of vocals .
Cheers,
Doug
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer
Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
The kick and bass conflict somewhat throughout the mix in some areas.
I personally don't think the flanger fx makes the mix interesting it sounds too weird for me. It takes the impact and the badassness off a lit. but that's a taste thing.
Levels are good here.
I like the tones you got on the lead guitar solos.
all in all it's getting there though I agree once you put the vocals in many things in eq and faders are gonna change.
The kick and bass conflict somewhat throughout the mix in some areas.
I personally don't think the flanger fx makes the mix interesting it sounds too weird for me. It takes the impact and the badassness off a lit. but that's a taste thing.
Levels are good here.
I like the tones you got on the lead guitar solos.
all in all it's getting there though I agree once you put the vocals in many things in eq and faders are gonna change.
Thanks Shul I'e gotta say the Phaser really isn't my cup of tea either, I was feeling that the riffs got pretty monotonous over the track and needed something to spice things up, looks like I went abit overboard (could work for a Floyd track though ). Gotta say I'm not big into these Joey Sturgis post hardcore type bands (moreso a Metalcore and Melodic Death Metal guy), this track is pretty great though and it reminds me of a cross between Periphery and oddly enough Dream Theater (that intro riff seems something like John Petrucci would play ). I'm working on my vocal mix now and I'm finding the limitations of CPU power in my Laptop (I'm forced to print some of my effects and processing on the vocals to conserve CPU) so needless to say this is a tricky one.
Cheers,
Dcp
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer
Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
This is the second mix I've done with Vocals, the first was pretty much just my instrumental mix with the lead vocals added in which I scrapped early on. This mix here has everything but the backup vocals in a ground up mix, I've been working on this track since my last response to Shul and it needs fresh ears. This track has honestly been the most challenging of all the mixes I've done on the forum and yet it was quite fun (there's potential for these guys in the melodic metalcore/post hardcore scene and you can tell that they had fun while tracking the song).
Anyway, that's my rambling over with and I should have a final mix coming sooner than later!
Cheers,
Doug
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer
Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
Big improvement over the first one with the instrumental.
Here are my observations
*Love what you did with the vocal.. the reverb you used makes them sound creamy. Good job here
*The kick and bass have a resonating freq. which makes a buildup. I'm not sure if it's at around 200hz.. could be 140 you should check it out.
*I believe you used too much reverb overall in the master buss maybe? but it's making your mix loose definition. In other words it's making it sound too soft for me. Though I really like the space you have achieved with it. sounds very "dreamy"
I think you got the hang of this song but I would say imo the downside for it is the reverb being a bit too much.
Other than that good mix
13-12-2016, 11:01 AM (This post was last modified: 13-12-2016, 11:03 AM by Blitzzz.)
there is a "uhd - uhd - uhd - uhd"-fretnoise in the intro from the tapping melody that you need to get rid off. it's very distracting when you first hear it and one of the things that cannot be unheard once you noticed it
You should bring down the volume of the drums before the bridge (at 2:50) because it sounds superweird when the drummer plays with full power / cymbals crashing without any guitars in the background. You could also make the bass & synths louder to counter that "emptiness". Right now there is a hole in your mix that sounds strange and something HAS to fill that gap sonically. I compared your mix with mine and noticed that I turned down the cymbals and brought up the bass and synths to counter the fact that there are no guitars.
The Snare sounds kinda weird in the bridge at 3:20, I would change the verb only for that part. And I think there are too many snare hits - did you use trigger to replace the snare? maybe you have to check that part again (from 3:20 onward) because all those full volume snare hits kill the mood of that part. some of them should be ghost notes, not full hits.
Big improvement over the first one with the instrumental.
Here are my observations
*Love what you did with the vocal.. the reverb you used makes them sound creamy. Good job here
*The kick and bass have a resonating freq. which makes a buildup. I'm not sure if it's at around 200hz.. could be 140 you should check it out.
*I believe you used too much reverb overall in the master buss maybe? but it's making your mix loose definition. In other words it's making it sound too soft for me. Though I really like the space you have achieved with it. sounds very "dreamy"
I think you got the hang of this song but I would say imo the downside for it is the reverb being a bit too much.
Other than that good mix
The only verb I used is on the snare and vocals and the snare verb is gated, I think it's the low end build up that's making the mix loose. I probably used too much on the snare but I think the synth are also exaggerating the sustain in the mix and giving the impression of reverb.
Glad you liked the vocals, the trick to use a plate reverb with a long pre delay (156 ms in this case) and decay. Mix that with a 1/4 note delay, mono tape slap back delay (166 ms), lots of compression (optical compressors are a must for this to sound natural), and a dynamic eq (TDR Nova is what I used ) to tame the resonances while keeping the brightness of the vocal.
I really wouldn't say any of the post hardcore bands that I heard sound "hard" (the again my standard of hardness is Converge, Danza 3, and Hatebreed ), pushing this into a more dreamy sound seemed like a good idea considering the lyrics and the more epic sound the band seems to be going for.
Cheers and thanks for the critique,
Doug
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer
Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
.
). I'm working on my vocal mix now and I'm finding the limitations of CPU power in my Laptop (I'm forced to print some of my effects and processing on the vocals to conserve CPU) so needless to say this is a tricky one.
