Hey, check out my mixes!

[Dakota]

I'm kind of a new person to this, so give me all the critique you can!

www.soundcloud.com/dakotak

Newest song is: "Lobotomy Party" Tuning: (Low to High) CADGBE

Thanks.

All done with a POD X3, EZ Drummer and Cubase 5

 

[Dakota]

I updated Lobotomy Party, remixed it. What are my flaws mixing wise?

 

[KingAenarion]

You drums sound odd. Your kick doesn't have nearly enough bass in it I feel. Actually the whole mix feels like it's lacking bass end.

Also your kick and snare sound way too alike. I can barely tell the difference.

 

[Dakota]

In the updated version?

 

[KingAenarion]

Both... but it's worse in the updated version. In the updated version it sounds like every time your kick drum hits there's a roto tom being hit at the same time.

 

[The Distortionist]

The riff at 1:09 is fuckin awesome haha. What's the EQ look like on your kick drum? Sounds like the kick and the bass are sorta smashing together in the mix. What did you use for bass and how is it EQ'ed? Also what kind of mastering techniques are you applying? The mix itself sounds too loud to me. I'm impressed with the playing on these tracks!

 

[pitbulltodd]

the riff from 8 seconds to 28 seconds is very cool

 

[Dakota]

I believe I made the kick too compressed. So it's clipping and I just added it to another bus and it's quieter or something, not sure. I'm not gonna remix it again, but thank you for the advice!

 

[Dakota]

The bass has a waves compressor, sonic maximizer, Waves Q10, and a limiter to keep it at a constant volume.

 

[danieluber1337]

The song is AMAZING. Especially at 0:28.

Weird tuning... I've experiment with it before, but haven't really done much with it.

The bass has a waves compressor, sonic maximizer, Waves Q10, and a limiter to keep it at a constant volume.

Why a sonic maximizer? Are you using the BBE one?

And just make sure that the limiter only takes out small peaks. Don't "compress" your kick drum with a limiter. The kick drum needs less high end. Maybe it needs more plastic? (boost 3.5kHz-4.0kHz)

 

[MF_Kitten]

the drums are overprocessed really.

Go listen to the drum sound on some of your favourite albums, and try to get close to that when going back and forth between that and your own mix.

other than that, the songwriting is awesome, i like the vibe you have going on, and your playing is awesome!

also, i think you could afford to have less high mids and treble in your guitars, and more low end. and more low end in general in the entire mix, i guess.

 

[MF_Kitten]

i hope you don't mind, but i just thought i'd show you what i mean by applying some EQ on your song: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3782113/my_suggestion.mp3

i probably overdid it in some places, but the general balance of lows and highs is closer to accurate now.

I think you've probably done the mix right, but you're listening through speakers or something that have a strong voicing. So when it sounds good through those it'll sound wrong through other speakers. i had this SAME EXACT problem for ages, until i got me some studio monitors. I suggest you do this: in your DAW, load a song from your favourite sounding album. on the master track, apply an EQ, and eq it until it sounds perfect to you. You have now counteracted the voicing of the speakers as well as you can. now mix the entire song while this EQ stays on. When you're done, you turn off this EQ and render it as an mp3, and voilá! you now have a more balanced mix!

 

[KingAenarion]

The bass has a waves compressor, sonic maximizer, Waves Q10, and a limiter to keep it at a constant volume.

See I saw that was was like "Uhhhhhhh what? Sonic Maximizer on a kick drum?"

Gate (if it's a real kick drum) Compressor, EQ. That should be all you need.

A limiter is an odd choice. You can get the same effect with a compressor using a really high ratio almost, because that is essentially what a limiter is.

One little trick you might want to try is using a compressor with a REALLY short release time (like under a millisecond) which will increase the 'plastic' or beater smack or click, whatever you like to call it, without having to adjust EQ with too much boosts and sonic maximisers.

Sometimes less is more.

 

[The Distortionist]

Well said, KingAenarion. I agree.

Less is absolutely more when it comes to achieving a rich, full-bodied mix. But are you talking about the bass or the kick drum?

Either way, it seems as though you're doing a bit too much and crushing some of the natural sound out of the instrument. Compression should really be all you need to keep something at a fairly constant volume, especially with bass guitar.

If that's not working out, then maybe its the dynamics of the player that are the problem. Or perhaps the tone/mic placement that you worked out for the instrument.

Your initial, raw sound is very important to be able to get it sitting in the mix correctly.

 

[Dakota]

My kick saved settings are extremely overprocessed, I agree.

The bass I'm talking bass guitar. I use a limiter rather than a compressor, it seems to work pretty well for me. I just have been mixing on $40 logitech speakers + the sub that came with and DT770 Pro headphones (80 OHM). So I'm a bit limited.

Thank you all so much for the time you took to check out my stuff!