Mix Test attempt 2 (Fans of Fell Silent and Sikth)

[the-emerson]

SoundClick artist: Silhouettes (UK) - We want to achieve a dream soundscape, similar to what bands such as Animals as Leaders, Tesseract,
Just finished round 2 with this song(monuments), looking for criticism on every aspect, from structure to mixing so rip it apart please

 

[iceythe]

Personally, I would try getting most of the low-end of a mix to sit closer to center of field. This will mean cutting away excess fat from your rhythm tone. This cannot be done simply by doing a close pan of tracks, because logically, the whole spectrum follows and drags the field with it. A way to work around this is to use a mono/stereo equalizer that can push certain frequencies around in the stereo field. Ideally you'll want higher frequencies biased outwards and lower frequencies inwards. At least from my rhythm tone point of view.

It's easy to hear the low-end bass on your rhythm tone build up under palm-muting. For this, I recommend using a multiband compressor that lowers the ceiling for the 60-150 Hz area. Simple eq can sometimes work, but since eq'ing is a static change, the low-end of the tone will always be low and make your tone just thinner.

The tone itself is great and fitting to your play style, so props for that!

The bass track seems to be a bit too low, mostly because the rhythm tracks are fighting at the low-end. If you haven't compressed the bass track yet, I suggest you try and experiment.

Kick could maybe use a bit more click and knock off 2-3dB from the bass.

Other than that, I think you're pretty good on your way.

 

[the-emerson]

Awesome thanks for the advice I will get on it and post an updated version over this weekend

 

[the-emerson]

2.1 Mix Test is online now I worked with the eq on the guitars and this is what i got

 

[iceythe]

Rhythm are sounding pretty balanced across the board now! Nice work. Now that bass is audible, it's somewhat apparent that it lacks meat. You can try experimenting with eq on it from 60-150 area on bass track and see what yields best. Just keep in mind that too much 100Hz can kill your mix because it's often a shared area between rhythm, kick and bass.

Sometimes I use a very tiny bit of stereo enhancing on bass to fill an usual empty space (not accounting for kick). I'm not saying that you need it, but it can make your stereo field sound bigger in the sense that it covers more field.

Still, you've done progress already. Keep it up!

 

[the-emerson]

Rhythm are sounding pretty balanced across the board now! Nice work. Now that bass is audible, it's somewhat apparent that it lacks meat. You can try experimenting with eq on it from 60-150 area on bass track and see what yields best. Just keep in mind that too much 100Hz can kill your mix because it's often a shared area between rhythm, kick and bass.

Sometimes I use a very tiny bit of stereo enhancing on bass to fill an usual empty space (not accounting for kick). I'm not saying that you need it, but it can make your stereo field sound bigger in the sense that it covers more field.

Still, you've done progress already. Keep it up!

Thanks buddy I will take another look in a minute I just got in from work so I will have a shower then go back to work. The first tips you gave were really useful I wasn't sure about the initial guitar sound as it was really bassey. The multiband compressor definately helped

 

[the-emerson]

I have spent all morning working on the bass and I am getting no where without ruining the rest of the track may have to just put the stereo enhancer on it and leave it. Rather than risk clashing eq's with kick

 

[iceythe]

I hear you. Bass is a real bugger to meld together in a mix. It needs to be really compressed and maximized to be able to punch through without sounding dominant.

Here's a few of the plug ins and settings I use for my main bass line. Although my bass tone is not entirely clean like a sine wave, but more dirty without sounding too dirty, if you know what I mean. I also use the built-in cab sim in cubase to give it some air.

Don't worry about my compressor shape, the gain never goes above the middle of the slope. I just haven't been arsed to change it.

You can see where in the spectrum that my bass currently resides. This track is sent to my pre-master bus to escape a few compressors but still meld with the pre-master compressor to the rest of the mix.

 

[the-emerson]

sweet, thanks for posting this, I think its going to help when I sit down to sort this beast out. Mixing is so much harder than I thought it was going to be the attention to detail is ridiculous but I suppose the more I do it the better I will become

 

[the-emerson]

Forgot to ask what multiband compressor is that?

 

[iceythe]

Forgot to ask what multiband compressor is that?

That's just a regular compressor from Melda production. I use it cause it's free and does what you tell it to. The image right to it is just an analyzer to see the bass spectrum.

I don't use multiband on the bass track, though it could work as well (but meh, lazy). For other stuff I use the multiband that comes with Cubase.

 

[the-emerson]

I will look into it, I have a week off work and no college work to do its gonna be a week of making music and mixing practice.

 

[AChRush1349]

I just wanted to say I really dig the riffs and tone.

 

[Santuzzo]

I just wanted to say I really dig the riffs and tone.

Same here ! Great riffage, man !

 

[the-emerson]

Thank guys, it means a lot I put a lot of work into this one and its awesome to see you guys digging it, all it needs now is a good set of lyrics to make it a real song. Its in a really odd tuning which never fails to inspire me any guess to what it is?

 

[Radius_Vector]

Nice riffing dude. Guitar tones are pretty cool too!

 

[the-emerson]

Thanks man its really cool to this getting liked, it makes me want to make more music for you to rip apart

 

[Cadavuh]

I feel like this mix in general is really lacking in the upper mids department.

 

[the-emerson]

any particular frequencies to focus on I am a complete noob

 

[the-emerson]

Does anyone know a good free synth to use in a daw with sweeping effects?