Hit a plateau, what can I improve in this mix? (Prog-ish Metalcore (?))

[kamello]

Hi everyone! I began to develop this song for the SSO Weekly Songwritting thread and thought it was a fun idea to fully flesh out. I like it's current state regarding the mix but IMO it's lacking that final 10% to be done with it, im already a bit fatigated working on this so I would love to hear your opinions on it <3

 

[c7spheres]

Not very helpful but my opinion is that it sounds good. If I had to pick out somethign I'd say lower the snare about 2db. Great job!

 

[kamello]

If I had to pick out somethign I'd say lower the snare about 2db. Great job!

that's my TesseracT fanboy-ism showing in but thanks! I'll tone it down a bit.

Not very helpful but my opinion is that it sounds good.

Even stuff like this help, maybe I just need to stop chickening out and release my shit

 

[kamello]

(small bump, u//////u)

 

[Sacha]

Nice job! You've got a very solid balance. Things I'm hearing at a quick listen:
- Rhythm guitars are a bit fizzy / fatiguing in upper frequencies 4-8K
- Leads could use a little more 'sauce' like delay or modulation or something to keep the interest
- Overall the mix isn't 'moving' very much, dynamically; this is harder to quantify but could be kick / bass relationship or maybe overall mix bus compression.

 

[Romeo Knight]

I think the bass range is a bit boomy and the mix is a little chaotic there sonically.
Do you have a lowpass on the bass sound? That could help.

 

[crushingpetal]

Currently listening on laptop speakers (I do this often, so I know them well):

Sounds great. The kick and snare are probably too loud (though the "quiet section" sounds good). Maybe add a bit more compression on the drums?

On these speakers I'm mostly cool with guitar tone, but as from above, I can imagine you may want to reduce some highs.

Can't hear the bass (but I'm on laptop speakers).

Takeaway: very cool song! Great work!

 

[kamello]

I think the bass range is a bit boomy and the mix is a little chaotic there sonically.
Do you have a lowpass on the bass sound? That could help.

I do have it, decided to bump it up a bit from 30hz to 50hz. It's hard to picture what it could be because the kick/bass has a lot of sustractive EQ going on. I have two kick samples here, one from GGD that sounds middy and natural, and a more "artificial" sounding one that I took from my drummer and it makes the bulk of the lows and highs (click and bottom of the kick) I took that one down a few db's. It sounds killer, but played it through a FRFR Speaker and the kick was just ridiculous

Currently listening on laptop speakers (I do this often, so I know them well):

Sounds great. The kick and snare are probably too loud (though the "quiet section" sounds good). Maybe add a bit more compression on the drums?

On these speakers I'm mostly cool with guitar tone, but as from above, I can imagine you may want to reduce some highs.

Can't hear the bass (but I'm on laptop speakers).

Takeaway: very cool song! Great work!

thanks a lot! I've got the snare and kick volume comment many times before so I'll lower it a bit. Laptops speakers definitely emphasize the "smack" of both elements while hiding the bass, so it sounds even louder there

Nice job! You've got a very solid balance. Things I'm hearing at a quick listen:
- Rhythm guitars are a bit fizzy / fatiguing in upper frequencies 4-8K
- Leads could use a little more 'sauce' like delay or modulation or something to keep the interest
- Overall the mix isn't 'moving' very much, dynamically; this is harder to quantify but could be kick / bass relationship or maybe overall mix bus compression.

Thanks a lot Sacha! means a lot considering the killer work you have in EHK
Regarding the Rhythm guitars, a lot of it comes down to the IR im using, it's the only one that have the lows and mid response that I like (in the ballpark of Andy Sneap tones) But it's a bit fizz heavy, I already substract a shit-ton of high-mids and highs, took a few more out. I suspect a bit of the fatiguing freqs can also come from the cymbals



Noted about the leads, I'll discuss it a bit with my other guitarist and experiment a bit more. Only issue I can think of is that anything over 25% on the mix of a delay/reverb pedal sounds very noticeable to me, and I prefer my spatial FX to be more of a "felt but not heard" vibe.

Regarding the dynamics of the mix; agreed, I think a lot of it has to do with the composition though, even though there are "softer" parts, the other musical elements don't stop anywhere so the song doesn't have a true "rest" like in a Plini or David Maxim Micic song, that's something that I really want to look up in newer compositions. Aside from that; it's the mix bus compression, im aiming at -6 LUFS which is a bit overkill
My master chain is Ozone 10 (for EQ and multiband comp) Submission Audio Flatline (Limiter) Fab Pro L (Limiter). I'll decrease the levels a bit on Flatline and experiment a bit there

 

[gunch]

Sounds good but agree that the drums need brought down just a little bit and the leads could use some swauce

 

[The Pierce Paradox]

I love the track and the mix! Working on getting my skills up to this level. My only comment is drums should go down 1-2db as compared to guitars.

 

[kamello]

thanks a lot to everyone

got to know a pretty good vocalist a few weeks ago so now we are working on getting vocals done for this and improving the mix <3