I've been teaching myself how to mix for a couple months and liked this song enough to make it the first track hosted here to attempt. My personal preferences for Metal are rooted in the 80s and 90s. I am not a fan of the sterile, dry, and limited to death modern mixing styles that have become the norm for almost the last 15 years. It just boggles my mind that people think squashing everything with an L2 is supposed to be the pinnacle of audio quality.
To me Metal was never supposed to sound perfect and clean. It needs to be a tad raw, gritty, dynamic, and with a creative use of reverb so you can escape into the song.
Since I never mixed anything near this big before, I did a lot of trial and error but ended up with a sound I'm about 90% satisfied with. What I was looking for was something that grooved enough to make someone want to headbang, had a commanding drum sound, full guitars, guitar solos that really came alive, and vocals that were exciting and soared without being too squeaky clean. And I wanted things to be pretty balanced too.
Once I came up with an initial mix I kept listening to the bounced files and making little tweaks over a few days. Once I pay for the Waverider and Pro Q2 licenses now that my trials are about over, I will do some more tweaking. Fix some of the automation. Another plugin I've been looking at is the new Excalibur from Exponential. Once that comes out I will try it and hopefully it'll be awesome and I can use it here.
Automating plugins is not something I really know much about so far. On this track I noticed the ride cymbals are very in your face, so I turned them down. I would have definitely liked the crash cymbals to be on their own track because I would have put more of them in the mix.
Concerning presets, sometimes I used them as a starting point, sometimes not. Generally I will make a decent amount of tweaks to a preset. I did reamp I think the first guitar track with CLA guitars. I was looking for a fuller sound and just kinda stumbled onto the idea of re-amping by cycling through presets until I hit one that gave me the fuller sound I was looking for outta the guitars.
There's other stuff I'd do with the vocals too, I think what I did works, but in the future I'll probably try some other ideas. One thing I've considered doing is remixing this with pretty much just Wave rider and Nomad Factory Magma with its very limited plugins. The quality of some Magma stuff is great. The Plate reverb sounds almost identical to Lexicon MPX or PCM Native. But it's settings are a lot less tweakable.
I noticed that after 20 some instances of CLA sig series and probably about 10 instances combined of CLA2A, CLA3A, and CLA76, that when I'd try to load a new instance of a CLA compressors, it'd be blank. So I had to switch to T-Racks. Not sure I prefer one or the other, but they definitely sound different.
Spectrum grab from Pro Q2 is really useful. Just watch the graph when a problem area is playing and pull up or down on a peak and that can be a lot easier than messing with numbers.
I probably did over 50 bounces of the mix and decided after this one it's close enough to where I could post it here.
A list of what I used:
Pro Tools 11 Native
JBL LSR305 monitors
AKG K701 headphones
Chris Lord Alge Signature Series
Chris Lord Alge Classic Compressors
IK Multimedia T-Racks(2A, 76, buss compressor, master eq)
Nomad Factory Magnetic II
Lexicon MPX Reverb
Wave Arts Masterverb
Nomad Factory Stereo Imager
Izotope Ozone 5
Quiet Arts Waverider
Fabfilter Pro Q2
Nomad Factory Cosmos
Thanks to everyone here for making this such a great site and community.
Cheers mate, thx for sharing your mix with us. I know this sounds rude but after reading your text and listening to your mix my first thought was: You should stop writing and thinking about plugins and actually learn the basics of mixing. You don't need Fabfilter ProQ2, you don't need any of the plugins on your list because no shiny new plugin will make your mix better. I know that situation because I was there too, searching for the magic plugin that would give my mixes the pro touch. The thing is: There is no such plugin. An EQ is an EQ and if you don't know how to use your ears while using it every decision you make will make things worse. Same goes for compression, reverb, delay...
I bet you haven't used any kind of reference track, and I´m sure you won't find any professionally mixed track out there that sounds anything like your mix. That alone should make you think.
02-03-2015, 02:18 AM (This post was last modified: 02-03-2015, 02:39 AM by Nos.)
This kind of music is very difficult to mix for many reasons but the biggest one for me is because of the speed with which things move in the bottom end. Getting bass and kick to work well together is difficult at the best of times but when they're firing like machine guns the difficulty is multiplied.
The best way even before you get to EQ in this area is to think about attack, sustain and harmonic content. The kick has no real harmonic content so its sustain in this situation (where you need as much space as possible) is unimportant. All the harmonic content is in the bass. With this in mind, all that matters with the kick is its attack. Its gotta punch with the force of Thor and then get the hell out of the way so the bass has got as much space as possible. The bass is a balancing act.
My approach is to insert 1.EQ, 2.compressor 3.compressor or transient designer plugin 4.EQ. The first EQ is to hi pass anything below 30 or 40 hz. The first compressor is to even the longer term dynamics and bring up quieter passages(this may or may not be needed) . The last two plugins (compressor and EQ) are where you take control of how the bass is going to sound. The compressor or transient plug controls how the bass happens in time (i.e. attack, sustain) the last EQ shapes it in the frequency spectrum (i.e. you might cut a couple of dbs at the fundamental kick frequency or boost the high end).
How you set the controls on these basic plugins is, in the end, what's going to make or break a mix like this. It takes a lot of work and practice to get these things to work. And sometimes when you think you're on top of it a mix can come along and everything seems to vanish in a haze and nothing you do seems to work.
PS. I also regularly mix on AKG 701 headphones (great headphones. My monitors are OK. My room; far from perfect). But i'd be lost without my mono single cone speaker. I have the auratone mixcube but there are other brands. Mike writes a lot about this. It really does give you an entirely new perspective on your mixes and reveals a lot of issues.
My first thoughts on listening (admittedly on HD800s):
For a first mix the levels are solid and the panning decisions good. I also like the vocal effect direction, although its too much. Many of those effects could work better side chained, or with hass delays/through reverb, leaving a dryer less processed vocal in front to anchor the vocals.
> My personal preferences for Metal are rooted in the 80s and 90s.
I’m ok with that! Some of the EQ balance probably stems from this comment. Bass balance and multi-band EQs the big change from the 80’s to the 00s’ onwards.
If you’re monitoring on (good) headphones, but small speakers, you’ll find the low end challenging. Its not right at present, but fixable (mostly with EQ). I’m not sure what you were running on the 2-bus, but if there’s a bunch of Ozone saturation etc on there, may want to back that off a little also.
> Automating plugins is not something I really know much about so far.
You rarely need to — unless you’re playing with soft synth parameters. It’s much more likely that you’ll be automating the basics — volume, send, switching EQs (or plugins) in and out — and riding clip gain and aux send levels.
> I would have definitely liked the crash cymbals to be on their own track
Then mult. them out!
> I did reamp I think the first guitar track with CLA guitars.
The CLA pseudo-channel strips are surprisingly good. However I find them also a bit of a distraction, as one can do the same things with other plugins and it’s worth the journey of figuring out how to put the sounds together from the component effects rather just use the CLA composite.
> One thing I've considered doing is remixing this with pretty much just Wave rider
If you get good results out of Waves Vocal or Bass Rider let me know. I’ve been underwhelmed. They seem to do worse than a compressor, and certainly much worse than automating. Your results may vary!
> I noticed that after 20 some instances of CLA sig series and probably about 10 instances combined of CLA2A, CLA3A, and CLA76, that when I'd try to load a new instance of a CLA compressors, it'd be blank.
As other posters noted, for most things the stock compressor will do fine. The BombFactory (11)76 clone is as good as most of the 1176s, and certainly up there with Waves emulation. For almost all compression duties, the “magic” compressor is not necessary. I’ll make an exception on vocals.
Thanks for the reply, I think we can make some interesting discussion out of it since we are coming from two opposite points of view. And that's why I decided to post here, because I know I'm going against the grain of what's considered popular, professional, etc in modern times and it's a discussion worth having whether you liked what I did or not.
Maybe what I was trying to do here wasn't completely communicated as well as I'd like. Of course I've tried stock plugins, etc. I think that's fine for what any modern minded producer is going for. If you want a dryer, clean mix that has minimal fx, stock plugs will do fine. Certain character sounds cannot be created with stock plugs. Plus if you look at the options available on something like a Lexicon or Wave Arts reverb vs D-verb, it's quite different. It's definitely incorrect to assume I just bought a bunch of plugs looking for a magic bullet. What I actually did was extensively test stock plugs and all kinds of 3rd party ones on my own vocal covers in an attempt to see what could get me certain sounds. I've definitely read lots of articles on mixing, mastering, audio, etc for years. Even as a listener I spent a lot of time doing that.
As for the eq. Of course I listen with my ears. Blending vocal tracks I recorded in an untreated room using an sm7 or RE320 direct into a Zoom R16 is a real pain because often I'm using a stereo instrumental from youtube and have to make sure the frequencies don't start clashing, etc. I also have my own originals I've used to experiment with mastering on. They already sound about 90% close to where I'd like them with the quick mix the engineer threw together. So I'm just making some eq moves and trying to see where maybe I could add a character effect here and there to parts of the track. But I've kinda put the mastering stuff on the back burner.
Sound on sound is a favorite site of mine, but again, I'm not finding I like the mixing style of the guy who does the mix rescue judging by the track I heard. Believe it was from May 2011. The song has what people on the Steve Hoffman forums refer to as a "nuked" waveform. Not that I judge by sight alone. There was a lot I hated about his remix, but no need to type it all in detail here.
I noticed your mix also has a nuked waveform with too much compression and limiting for my tastes, but it is maybe about 80% up to par with the Killswitch track you reference IMO. A lot of SH posters, including audio pros, think that nuking is very bad technique in the first place. There's actually not much I like about that full preview mix. But, when I apply my own tastes, which seem to be total opposite of what's done to the full preview mix, I like the song quite a bit more.
Sometimes I can deal with nuked stuff, most of the time not. A lot of mixes have been ruined by abuse of the L2. Nuked waveforms like Spaghetti Incident or Master of the Rings seem more tolerable to me, but still not really an ideal. Perhaps the L2 enabling people to push things further is a problem. I've heard the L1 was a lot better. Established mastering engineer Barry Diament no longer works for the majors because he refused to get into all this loudness war stuff. He mastered a lot of legendary albums like Appetite for Destruction, South of Heaven, Danzig S/T, GNR Lies, Under Lock and Key, the Uzi Suicide Hanoi Rocks cds, Too Fast For Love, and Back in Black.
I find modern, professional production, mixing, mastering largely unlistenable. Especially modern Metal ala Killswitch Engage. I would take Welcome to Hell, Show No Mercy, Killing Is My Business, Night of the Stormrider, The New Order, Deicide S/T or just about any sort of "bad" production from 30+ years ago over what's become the Andy Sneap inspired standard. Even Andy's work has gotten a lot worse since the days of Dead Heart and The Gathering. Yeah, I have very little interest in sounding modern whether it's Metal or what's popular at the Grammy's. I like CLA's plugs, but I don't like the sound of albums he's been associated with like Shinedown. That was some of the most flat, lifeless, overcompressed rock I ever heard.
Is there really anyone to learn from who teaches classic Metal mixing? Guys like Chris Tsangarides and Neil Kernon haven't produced anything I thought sounded good in almost two decades if I'm getting my dates right. Both seem to have swapped out their individuality in favor of being modern and trendy. Whether they wanted to or were told to produce that way I have no idea. Michael Wagener no longer mixes like he did for Megadeth, Skid Row, Dokken, etc. Not even close. Everywhere I go online that offers mixing tips, it seems that they think the student's end goal is to create mixes and masterings that sound like modern stuff. As if the work done on Lady Gaga or your average Century Media album is some kind of perfect, objective standard. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone when Axl Rose has been pretty much the only major artist to turn down loudness war mastering.
I'm curious about your tastes. Would you prefer a mix like on the modern UDO stuff or Balls to the Wall? Final Frontier or Killers? In the case of extreme bands, like Emperor, I would take Anthems over the sterile Prometheus any day. I'm assuming you've heard some metal classics but let me know about other things if you're not that familiar.
Are multi tracks something you've spent a lot of time listening to? I've done extensive listening to multi tracks from rock band, guitar hero, and all the ones I've bought from jammit.com. What I find is that once you combine the 4 or 5 multis, it basically sounds exactly like the album. To me that suggests there wasn't a whole lot demanded of the mix and mastering engineers in terms of big moves, that a lot of the fx an stuff were printed in the tracking process. I believe there's modern stuff on jammit like Lamb of God and Bullet for my Valentine. Jammit transfers from original sources, but I'm not sure exactly if they treat the audio. They certainly left enough obvious tape damage in Dokken's In My Dreams.
How are you defining professionally mixed? I have thousands of cds and I can find stuff with elements of what I did here. And how many unmastered professional tracks from the last 30 years have you heard? When I hear samples of work done by studios around here, it generally all sounds sterile, thin, and loud. That's a big reason I started doing my own stuff. I hadn't heard samples I liked enough from any local studio, even the ones who claim to have worked with big name clients. And within their samples, I noticed them applying pretty much the same mix ideas across different styles. Everything was very minimal, probably because there wasn't time to tweak a bunch of fx chains.
There's some stuff in your mix that got obscured in mine that I want to bring out in the future. When comparing back to back, they almost sound like two different bands. There's a few parts where I want to change the automation. It would definitely be a lot easier if I did less, but that's not what I was interested in. Ultimately there aren't too many objective standards. There are people who think the original So Far So Good So What sounds horrendous, but it's one of my favorites. When Mustaine remixed it, I thought it sucked the life and soul outta the album. My end goal is to craft styles that can bring back some of the older methods with new additions.
Thanks again for replying Blitzzz, consider me a fan of Dark Ride and I will glady recommend your work to any hard rock or Metal fan.
02-03-2015, 03:25 AM (This post was last modified: 02-03-2015, 04:12 AM by ViciousBliss.)
Thanks for the feedback, Jeff. What do you have your HD800s hooked up to? I've heard them on a lot of different setups at head-fi meets. I've heard lots and lots of phones, amps, dacs, you name it. Have you read Nwavguy's blog? He really nailed down what is and isn't objective with headphones and audio. I should be hooking my K701s up to my saber dac and O2 amp, but usually I just plug them in quick to the computer headphone jack to fine tune even if I'm not getting as objective a picture as if I was using the neutral, 0 impedence saber and O2 combo.
I picked the monitors I did because they measured flat or close to it in various environments as reported on Gearslutz, aside from other reasons. I think I have a good feel for them now. Am I getting the absolute best mixing environment? Maybe not, but I think I can work it. I spent a lot of time listening to all kinds of albums on these and made notes of what sounded like what on them.
"For a first mix the levels are solid and the panning decisions good. I also like the vocal effect direction, although its too much. Many of those effects could work better side chained, or with hass delays/through reverb, leaving a dryer less processed vocal in front to anchor the vocals."
This sounds interesting. Is there a good guide? I don't do much in the way of side chaining.
I didn't do a ton with Ozone. I'm def not slapping presets on indiscriminately. I try something, listen, and adjust. Sometimes I think my ears start hearing things much differently if I've been mixing for hours on end as opposed to fresh ears. Also, mastering engineers correct final balances and such, so I try to keep in mind that I'm not making a mastered track.
"Then mult. them out!"
You mean use a multi band eq to bring them out of the track?
I've done mixes with and without the CLA sig series. I use them for their character more than to cover up an inability to get similar sounds using other stuff.
"If you get good results out of Waves Vocal or Bass Rider let me know. I’ve been underwhelmed. They seem to do worse than a compressor, and certainly much worse than automating. Your results may vary!"
I was actually using Quiet Arts Wave Rider which is far superior to the Waves stuff IMO. Waves ripped QA off.
I've seen threads on Gearslutz where people couldn't tell the BF76 vs a hardware one. A lot preferred the BF in the blind tests. I've done a lot of comparative listening between compressors and just know the CLA ones well. I only got them because pluginboutique had a sale of the sig series and cla comps for $240. I've done mixes of my vocal covers where I swapped Rocket, Softube Fet, BF, CLA, IK, and Nomad Factory and couldn't tell a huge difference on my vox. But, I've heard drum shootouts where I preferred the CLA76 over the others.
02-03-2015, 04:13 AM (This post was last modified: 02-03-2015, 04:13 AM by ViciousBliss.)
(02-03-2015, 04:04 AM)takka360 Wrote: side chaining fx is easy.Just put a comp after say a delay then run you vox to the sidechan,
Reverb or whatever else etc
you mean like putting fx on an aux/bus and then adding a compressor after and sending the vocal track to it? I did that on the backing vocal bus. The CLA3A and I think it helped. Didn't do that for the main vocal bus though. I'll check out your site. Thanks Takka
(02-03-2015, 02:18 AM)Nos Wrote: This kind of music is very difficult to mix for many reasons but the biggest one for me is because of the speed with which things move in the bottom end. Getting bass and kick to work well together is difficult at the best of times but when they're firing like machine guns the difficulty is multiplied.
The best way even before you get to EQ in this area is to think about attack, sustain and harmonic content. The kick has no real harmonic content so its sustain in this situation (where you need as much space as possible) is unimportant. All the harmonic content is in the bass. With this in mind, all that matters with the kick is its attack. Its gotta punch with the force of Thor and then get the hell out of the way so the bass has got as much space as possible. The bass is a balancing act.
My approach is to insert 1.EQ, 2.compressor 3.compressor or transient designer plugin 4.EQ. The first EQ is to hi pass anything below 30 or 40 hz. The first compressor is to even the longer term dynamics and bring up quieter passages(this may or may not be needed) . The last two plugins (compressor and EQ) are where you take control of how the bass is going to sound. The compressor or transient plug controls how the bass happens in time (i.e. attack, sustain) the last EQ shapes it in the frequency spectrum (i.e. you might cut a couple of dbs at the fundamental kick frequency or boost the high end).
How you set the controls on these basic plugins is, in the end, what's going to make or break a mix like this. It takes a lot of work and practice to get these things to work. And sometimes when you think you're on top of it a mix can come along and everything seems to vanish in a haze and nothing you do seems to work.
PS. I also regularly mix on AKG 701 headphones (great headphones. My monitors are OK. My room; far from perfect). But i'd be lost without my mono single cone speaker. I have the auratone mixcube but there are other brands. Mike writes a lot about this. It really does give you an entirely new perspective on your mixes and reveals a lot of issues.
Thanks Nos. I put CLA Drums first, then CLA76, followed by Magnetic II as an insert on the kick. I did a drum bus too, with Masterverb. What I was attempting to do was get the kick and snare tracks to sound big with a lot of punch, but also not crowd out the bass and vocals. Just getting all that stuff to the balance it is there with the other fx going on was pretty tough. And like I said, I'm still fine-tuning it. This is a lot of trial and error for me because I haven't found guides to do this kind of music in a dynamic, old school way.
