Newbie's first real groove metal mix - looking for feedback

[Nyrrth]

Hi guys,

I've been dabbling with writing and producing my own stuff after being heavily inspired by the new wave of DIY musicians. Here's my first proper composition and mix. I'd love your feedback!

https://soundcloud.com/xxporcupinextreexx/sir-alexander-platypus-2-0

Cheers!

 

[Jacksonluvr636]

Sounds great! I'm wondering how the hell you got it so big and loud? Lol

The only issue I had with it was the guitars.

Everything else sounded so big and punchy but the guitars sounded thin or didn't match up.

I'd say either get the guitars up to match or turn some of the other stuff down.

But damn that sounded good. Show me the way lol.

 

[Nyrrth]

Ah, thanks dude! That's nice to hear, and a good confidence booster. I'll keep plugging away. Fair play regarding the guitars. I've listened to this stuff ad nauseum, so I probably don't hear it, which is exactly why I'm looking for this kind of feedback from fresh ears. I'll see if anyone else chimes in with any feedback and tweak my mix accordingly.

Regarding "big and loud" - I can't say I used a special formula or anything. I split my mix into various EQ buses and then played around with each bus. I will say this - I used four different tracks as "reference masters". I ran the EQ analyzer on each of those to see the kind of frequency spectrum they were spitting out. Then I ran it on mine, and fiddled about with the EQs until they looked similar to my reference masters (and sounded good to my ears, of course). That was basically how I went about it. But I didn't use any special plugins or anything. Just the stock ones that come with Logic Express 9, and a couple of free ones floating around.

 

[Nyrrth]

Oh, and I guess I should mention that I compressed the 0-150Hz range to tighten it up, and ran some stereo widener plugins on the higher frequency buses (like 4k+ or so).

 

[Jacksonluvr636]

I used four different tracks as "reference masters". .

So you mean like Master stems from another project?

 

[Nyrrth]

So you mean like Master stems from another project?

Oh no, no! Sorry, I should have explained better. I meant masters of other bands that I enjoy. I just burned the songs from their CDs onto my hard drive and imported them into my mastering session in Logic. The four tracks I used were: "Blackest Eyes" by Porcupine Tree, "Check My Brain" by Alice In Chains, and "Trayus" and "Celestial" by Skyharbor. Hope that clarifies it! I just wanted to analyze those tracks to emulate the frequency spectrum.

 

[Jacksonluvr636]

Oh no, no! Sorry, I should have explained better. I meant masters of other bands that I enjoy. I just burned the songs from their CDs onto my hard drive and imported them into my mastering session in Logic. The four tracks I used were: "Blackest Eyes" by Porcupine Tree, "Check My Brain" by Alice In Chains, and "Trayus" and "Celestial" by Skyharbor. Hope that clarifies it! I just wanted to analyze those tracks to emulate the frequency spectrum.

Yes very cool!!! Thanks....That's a good tip for a noob like myself.

 

[Nyrrth]

^bump. Anyone else? Composition/mix feedback? Fairly new to this, so your comments are much appreciated. I'll make a new mix based on the feedback I receive. Thanks in advance!