Deny Control - Frequently Asked Questions and info from the band

[Blitzzz]

tl;dr:

• The drums were recorded in one take by one of the best metal drummers in the world. It's your job to make sure that the listener can hear the intensity and level of detail 
  
• Try to find a way to integrate the bass solo at 2:50 in the mix without losing all the low end or ending up with too much bass mumble
  
• Treat the short vocal line at 2:18 exactly like a guitar solo by adding distortion, delay and reverb
  
• Beware of the bass buildup in the blast beat / doublebass parts
  
• Keep the tone of the guitars and don't try to give us a different sound / style. We have chosen the guitar sound for a reason. 
  

Long Version:

Deny Control from the album Weight of the World is one of Darkrides faster tracks, if not the fastest. The song has no keyboards or other sound gimmicks and resembles Pantera songs like The Great Southern Trendkill or F***ing Hostile in its straightforwardness and riffing. However, you should not make the mistake of giving us a Pantera-like sound. Like with all our songs on this platform, stick to Killswitch Engage in the As daylight dies-phase rather than Pantera, Machine Head or other similar bands. You can always check the reference mix if you are not sure what to aim for. 

Reference Mix (WAV): https://previews.cambridge-mt.com/DenyCo...redWAV.wav
Mixed Stems for reference: https://multitracks.cambridge-mt.com/Dar..._Stems.zip

 
Interesting facts and tips:
 

1. The tempo of the song is 124 bpm.
   
2. The drums were recorded live by Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth / Soilwork) on his recording e-kit and then used as midi in Superior Drummer. If you listen to the drum tracks, you'll notice that the drums don't sit perfectly on the grid. Dirk's request to me was not to change anything in terms of timing and leave it as "human" as it is. Meeting this request was very easy because he played the song very tight and almost perfect. Thanks to Dirk's fantastic talent, Deny Control has become a song where the drums are the center of attention. It's your job as a mixer to give all the ghost notes and other subtleties and nuances of his drum playing a place in the mix. With only two guitars, bass and vocals, there's definitely enough room for that.
   
3. Deny Control has two singers: the shouts were done by Nico from Defy the Laws of Tradition, while our singer Carsten does the normal vocals. Both voices go well together, and the only challenge in the mix is not to let one or the other voice dominate.
   
4. Because of the many fast double bass and blastbeat passages, you need to keep an eye on the kick drums in the mix. Together with the bass and the lower tuned guitars, too much energy quickly builds up in the bass range as soon as both kick drums are played during a double bass passage. The easiest way to deal with such situations is to use a low shelf filter to reduce the bass content of the kick drums by 1-3db during double bass parts in the mix via automation. As soon as the kick is played normally again, set the low shelf back to 0. Works 100% of the time. 
   
5. Deny Control has a bass solo at minute 2:50, and it is probably the biggest challenge to integrate this solo appropriately in the song, without losing all power in the bass range. In the mix, it quickly became apparent that while the solo is cool, it tears a big hole in the rhythm section when the bass suddenly plays mostly high notes. Without the power of a rhythm bass line, the mix sounded thin, even though the song needed to be thick and wide at this point.
   The normal bass line and the bass solo naturally fight for the same frequencies, and using both without any adjustments ends up in an undifferentiated sound mush. My solution for the bass solo part was to completely cut out the bass frequencies of the bass solo track, and conversely, completely remove the highs and mids of the bass rhythm track. The best and easiest way to do this is by using a low cut filter on the bass solo (somewhere around 500 hz) and a high cut filter on the regular bass track cutting everything above 120-150hz. Put distortion on the bass solo track and it will "float" above the rhythm section like a guitar solo, while the rhythm guitars provide the punch along with the leftover bass below. I'm not 100% happy with it, but it was the best I could come up with at the time. You can listen to the result in the reference mix - I'm curious how you solve this problem.
   
6. Deny Control has a short but funny vocal solo at 2:18. Our singer wanted a special guitar effect at one point in the song, so he took the mic and mimicked the desired effect with his voice. Just for fun, we routed it through a guitar amp and lo and behold - it sounded exactly like the guitar effect he had imagined. As a result, we kept his short vocal solo in the song
   

Have fun while mixing!

[js32shred]

Wow, you managed to get Dirk on this record. Excellent choice I must say, having fun practicing mixing with these stems. Really great song!