Is this getting to professional quality?

[Najka]

I'm trying real hard for a really professional polished sound. I know that the riffing might be a little rough but does the mix sound professionally done?

if you think there is anything that would improve the mix let me know

https://soundcloud.com/dan-schuch/najka-atom-smasher

Feedback is much appreciated!

 

[xeonblade]

Am I going deaf or is that guitar too loud on right side?

 

[sear]

Am I going deaf or is that guitar too loud on right side?

No, they're just EQ'd differently so one sounds louder.

This doesn't sound "pro quality" at all to me. Guitar tone is boxy and a bit weird, like they were recorded with out of phase mics. Drums are very weak sounding and are getting buried by the guitars. The bass sits okay though.

 

[Najka]

^ should I just turn the guitars down or do the drums need to be eq'ed differently?
Good ear though! The guitars are at the same volume it is different EQ'ing, I though I might be able to get away with it..guess not!

 

[KingAenarion]

To make that kind of commentary in this case I need to know more about your process, what sort of parallel compression are you using. What sort of sidechaining are you doing?

Your guitars are competing with your bass/drums in the low end. That is the most obvious problem.

 

[Señor Voorhees]

Guitars are way loud comparatively and the tone is boxy. As far as mix goes, you want to mix quietly maybe using the drums as reference/the loudest point. Get everything sounding even/exactly how you want it, just needing to crank the volume knob to hear it loudly, then you raise the overall volume in mastering. (I tend to leave my tracks comparatively quiet to "pro" tracks.) What drum samples are you using by the way? They're sounding pretty weak. Maybe too dry, are they processed at all?

I really like the ideas I hear musically, it's a neat song for sure, but it needs a lot of re-recording and tweaking to sound "professional." The lead/solo guitar sounds nice to me.

Just my .02 on something I have little skill in myself. Not intended as ass holeish, but critique.

 

[Najka]

The mix is very simple, mixing process was like this- (Studio One Pro)

1. Adjusted Levels

2. Put EQ on a bunch of the tracks, Guitars, some drum pieces (snare and cymbols), Bass, a little on the kick, I initally only used the EQ at this point as a high pass filter to help clean up rumble.

2. Re-adjusted levels, poked some holes in the guitar with the EQ ( i only took away certain frequencies) Added compression to Kick, Snare, Bass, some De-essers on cymbols.

3. I sent all the pieces of the drum kit to one bus and put a tape emulator on them
(no particular reason, Just experimenting)

4. Added to final master track-

-Compressor set very subtle
-Limiter
-Stereo widener
-BBE sonic maxizer, played around witht the knobs until it sounded alright (experiementing)

There is no sidechaining, All I did was record, edit, Level adjust, EQ with some compression, and attempt to master the whole track

PS, Thanks a ton to everyone throwing me some advice!

 

[KingAenarion]

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/recording-studio/236729-starting-point-mix.html

Read this thread.


A few tips.

1) Play with your low end some more. Find where the mud is coming from (I'm guessing guitar) by rolling off everything above say 500Hz on the master bus.

2) Give your guitars more bite. More upper mids around the 5k area I'd say.

3) Sidechain your kick to the bass guitar so that it ducks a few dB every time the kick hits.

4) Parallel compression is your friend. Lots of it and lots of different ones with different settings. I like to use a multiband, a TLA style, a distortion, a 1174 style and an SSL master bus style. You get one to pump, one to smash etc etc depending on what you want to do.

 

[Konfyouzd]

When people say that guitars sound boxy... Can someone explain what that means? I apologize for the hijack, but I'm trying to learn a lot of the same things as OP...

 

[lelahel]

boxy means that the guitars aren't clear, and have mudiness
i think that you should work on drums compression
and also improve your playing the solo sounds really strange and not pro at all
(sorry man )

 

[WarMachine]

When i think of boxy i think of the way mids were referred to as "honky", defined but not in a good way.

 

[oddcam]

Your hi-hat is killing me. The cymbals in general are a bit much, but that hi-hat needs to come down for sure. Snare could use more low end too. Great mix though, I mean that.

 

[bhakan]

When people say that guitars sound boxy... Can someone explain what that means? I apologize for the hijack, but I'm trying to learn a lot of the same things as OP...

I've always interpreted it as having a distinct weird frequency in the midrange. I think the frequency is around 700Hz if I remember correctly, so to hear it try boosting it to accent the boxiness, if something is too boxy, try a cut there.*


*I don't actually know what I'm talking about, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

Boxiness in guitars often seems to refer to that certain "sounds like coming from a tiny box" sound. Usually that's caused by too hard compression or boosting too much in mid range (people tend to boost the midrange if they're mixing with low quality speakers where the mids are scooped). It's more like that vocal "o" and vocal "a" sounding stuff that you're wanting to scoop when that happens. That'd be around 500hz if my memory serves me (I tend to use visual -> eye ques in mixing rather than remembering numbers).

E: To get more detailed on that compression thing I mentioned, I'll just say that people often go too wild on their master bus compressors, which leads to high energy stuff (low end) being HAMMERED and the stuff that doesn't exceed the threshold (usually the stuff after 400hz) being attenuated so much that it starts sounding awkward.

 

[Floppystrings]

The guitars are a bit loud, and bright. The gating is also over the top.

I would try avoiding using different EQed guitars on the left and right, it makes the volume seem different, even if it has been adjusted for a long time.

Also the lead tone with delay might sound better in the middle.

Sounds good though, don't get too frustrated, adjusting recordings has drained many people and it is a pain. Good luck, nice track otherwise.

 

[Najka]

Hey, a little late on my end but thanks for all the replays. I made a new little song and mixed using the tweaks suggested here and man it really made a difference. It sounds pretty good on the monitors I mixed on but "iffy" on car stereos.. I'm not expert by any means this is a trial and error.

-Side chained kick to bass, Bass ducks out of the kicks way.

-Minimal Eq'ing on drums
-Quad track guitars, (guitars sent to one bus and eq'ed there this time lol)
-Bass is 2 tracks, one with a clean, the other with a little distortion
-I put a stereo widener on it, to try and make it sound more around the listener, I may have over done it. I was keeping a vocalist in mind for the future. w/e..
-Take a listen and thanks for the useful tips, there is a huge difference in the quality of this track compared to the one in the original post. Thanks guys!!

https://soundcloud.com/dan-schuch/najka-void

Edit: the whole track
Is overdriven the db's are too high I'll fix it when in home.

 

[Vinny554]

Dude both mixes sound awesome, I'm truly ....ing jealous. First one, is awesome, but so many improvements made in the second one.

May I ask what you recorded guitars with? And are the drums programmed or recorded?