What "mix problems" do you see in the majority of metal today?

[pushpull7]

I liked that, but I'm not sure about "laziness"

More like "inexperience" imho.

 

[MemphisHawk]

I hate that bands with drummers are increasingly turning to fake drums for their studio recordings.

If you can't lay it down like you want it in the studio where you have every trick in the world, then why do I want to come see you play live with your drummer that wasn't good enough.

I undertand the average bedroom guitarist wanting some drums on his home recording, but the big names should be ashamed of this in my opinion. Also Flame Suit on, but using triggers so that you can play faster on the bass drums and get the same attack as if you were hitting them hard, yeah, hate that too.

 

[TheManWhoWalksAlone]

As heard in the recent BoO album TWDA, low-tuned guitars with the low-end cut out. The tone is 99% pick-noise, and it's up to the bass guitar and your own imagination to figure out what low note is being played half the time. Oh, and the tuning is too low for you to hear the bass guitar.

That album gives me a headache.

Prime example of Over Production, and over Layered, Sibilant vocals. On that note, I miss the The New Reign days with that band.

 

[Drew]

I liked that, but I'm not sure about "laziness"

More like "inexperience" imho.

...which is fine, if you're a songwriter and just aren't that interested in production. Throw together a bunch of presets that work together, maybe get a buddy to lend a hand, and get to the point where you can churn out decent sounding demos without having to worry about the mix.

But, all the "check out my mixtest!" threads where people are trying a new preset and then specifically asking people for comments on the mix, and presenting themselves as mix engineers? I mean, stating the obvious (or maybe not, or we wouldn't be here) but a song where the riff is in G# below the low B is going to have a different fundamental and different harmonic content than one in, say, drop-D, for both the bass and the guitars. Different harmonic content = different amp settings, EQ curves, and in turn ways of getting things to "gel" in the mix. If you want to churn out serviceable demos, then sure, fire up EzMix and get to work. But if you really want to learn to mix, and if you really want to get a reputation as a guy who does great mixes, you are absolutely shooting yourself in the foot if your mixes are all template and preset based. Even if they sound "good" that doesn't mean you "know how to mix," and you're going to struggle if you ever try to mix someone else's project.

If mixing interests you, why wouldn't you take the time to learn to do it right?


EDIT - and I'm just wrapping up an album that I'll be posting here, and I'm SURE there will be no shortage of people telling me I don't know how to mix either, so whatever.

 

[Drew]

As heard in the recent BoO album TWDA, low-tuned guitars with the low-end cut out. The tone is 99% pick-noise, and it's up to the bass guitar and your own imagination to figure out what low note is being played half the time. Oh, and the tuning is too low for you to hear the bass guitar.

That album gives me a headache.

Just guessing, as I haven't even heard the album, but that's a CLASSIC symptom of brickwall limiting the mix during the master.

 

[Oblivion]

Personally I really like the new mixes and productions,they are right up on my sound wave!!!
I didn't like the old mixes,they felt like they were not done with close enough attention (mostly in the '80s, '90s).
Especially in the "djent" scene Tesseract,skyharbor etc the sound is awesome!

 

[JohnIce]

^Good point from Drew about being a songwriter and not a producer/mixer. Trying to get great at both at the same time is probably not a great idea. It's like trying to learn spanish and french at the same time, it's just gonna take longer to get any good at either.

On the subject of mixing, although it's really an arrangement issue a lot of the time: Overly transient-enhanced drums (snare drums in particular). If your mix is so dense that your snare drum has to sound like a ping-pong ball served by Thor, then you probably have something left to learn about either mixing or about arranging. With hard-limiting you lose dynamics period, so quad-tracking the verse and octo-tracking the chorus AND tracking 5 layers of synth pads still isn't gonna help one bit. It's only gonna make everything else (for example drums) disappear. Many people try to fix that with transient designers and it just sounds bad to my ears. Kill your darlings and start muting shit and that snare is gonna start filling out into a proper drum again

 

[Leveebreaks]

If your mix is so dense that your snare drum has to sound like a ping-pong ball served by Thor, then you probably have something left to learn about either mixing or about arranging.

^^



So much this, great description of a trend that hurts my ears.

 

[Oblivion]

^Good point from Drew about being a songwriter and not a producer/mixer. Trying to get great at both at the same time is probably not a great idea. It's like trying to learn spanish and french at the same time, it's just gonna take longer to get any good at either.

Ι believe that for some years now,songwritters kinda have to learn the basics of mixing and producing (even more), home studios and home releases are more common and due the way the record companies are now it is,most of the times, a one way street for most musicians in order to get their music heard.

 

[tedtan]

^Good point from Drew about being a songwriter and not a producer/mixer. Trying to get great at both at the same time is probably not a great idea. It's like trying to learn spanish and french at the same time, it's just gonna take longer to get any good at either.

On the subject of mixing, although it's really an arrangement issue a lot of the time: Overly transient-enhanced drums (snare drums in particular). If your mix is so dense that your snare drum has to sound like a ping-pong ball served by Thor, then you probably have something left to learn about either mixing or about arranging. With hard-limiting you lose dynamics period, so quad-tracking the verse and octo-tracking the chorus AND tracking 5 layers of synth pads still isn't gonna help one bit. It's only gonna make everything else (for example drums) disappear. Many people try to fix that with transient designers and it just sounds bad to my ears. Kill your darlings and start muting shit and that snare is gonna start filling out into a proper drum again

Part of this is having everything edited to the grid these days.

In older recordings, the snare wasn't exactly on the grid and the guitars and bass didn't hit at exactly the same time the snare did. These slight timing differences between the players spread the transient of the different instruments out over a few milliseconds so they weren't fighting for the same space. And that's not saying anything about how drummers will play the snare slightly ahead of the beat to increase the aggression or slightly behind the beat to achieve a more laid back feel, etc.

Too much editing strictly to the grid (and too much editing in general) these days takes a lot of the players' personality away.

 

[JohnIce]

Ι believe that for some years now,songwritters kinda have to learn the basics of mixing and producing (even more), home studios and home releases are more common and due the way the record companies are now it is,most of the times, a one way street for most musicians in order to get their music heard.

Absolutely But songwriting demos and commercial releases are different beasts, and my opinion is that if you can spend $5000 on guitar gear, but not be willing to pay a cent to get help to make a great sounding record, you might be shooting yourself in the foot. Especially if, like I said, you're new to both songwriting AND mixing.

Moreover, I think it takes immense natural multi-talent to become a successful DIY musician. Anyone can become a decent jack-of-all-trades but if you think about it, most of the truly great songwriters (Freddie Mercury, Bob Dylan, Mozart, you name it) were allowed to focus on writing great songs. I think that's something to keep in mind in this DIY-hubris age, personally. Good songs and good artistry always win over budget-mindedness

 

[Drew]

Absolutely But songwriting demos and commercial releases are different beasts, and my opinion is that if you can spend $5000 on guitar gear, but not be willing to pay a cent to get help to make a great sounding record, you might be shooting yourself in the foot. Especially if, like I said, you're new to both songwriting AND mixing.

Moreover, I think it takes immense natural multi-talent to become a successful DIY musician. Anyone can become a decent jack-of-all-trades but if you think about it, most of the truly great songwriters (Freddie Mercury, Bob Dylan, Mozart, you name it) were allowed to focus on writing great songs. I think that's something to keep in mind in this DIY-hubris age, personally. Good songs and good artistry always win over budget-mindedness

My thoughts, being fairly blunt here, are that too many people either think they CAN do it all on their own when realistically they can't so they cut corners (preset-driven mixes using tools like other people's amp sim patches, EzMix and Garageband, etc; "mastering" by throwing a few Waves plugins at a track to make it louder, and then tossing it up on YouTube), or people who want to be successful but don't want to have to pay money to produce music (in other words, they know they're not a competent mix engineer, but who cares if you can just use other people's presets).

I enjoy mixing and while I'm not exceptional, I'm passable. I also enjoy playing guitar. I don't know a ....ing thing about mastering an album however so I hired someone for that, and I'll be relying on a whole assortment of friends for the packaging component because I don't know anything about that either.

Oblivion, I think a large part of the problem isn't the record companies - it's the hundreds of thousands of other people producing similar stuff in their home studios ALSO wanting to get heard, and when it's all done with S2.0/BKP/AxeFXII/EzMix, well, it all tends to sound pretty same-y.

 

[Alphanumeric]

Wow some people just don't get it. Modern metal without sample replaced drums if like most drummers the kit sucks, super tight editing and lots of stages of compression would sound absolutely hilarious.

 

[JohnIce]

Wow some people just don't get it. Modern metal without sample replaced drums if like most drummers the kit sucks, super tight editing and lots of stages of compression would sound absolutely hilarious.

...You mean like they do live?

 

[Necris]

Wow some people just don't get it. Modern metal without sample replaced drums if like most drummers the kit sucks, super tight editing and lots of stages of compression would sound absolutely hilarious.

An easy way to fix the need for "super tight editing" would be for bands to rehearse more and stop writing shit that they can't play; I'll be the first to concede that probably won't happen any time soon.

A skilled engineer can get great results from a less than optimal source as long as the performance is up to par, be it drums, various pieces of guitar and bass gear, other string instruments etc. So ultimately it comes back to rehearsal again, if you can't walk in to the studio and lay down a performance that is at least serviceable without needing to stop every other riff then you aren't ready to record. Period.

Sample replacement should be an option, a tool, not something that is compulsory.

All massive amounts of compression combined with heavy limiting serves to do is make the parts that are supposed to hit hard equally as loud as the lighter parts of a song.

A band building up a song to a huge heavy riff only to have it only to have it be completely neutered because it hits no harder and is effectively no louder than the clean guitars in the intro is actually hilarious, embarrassing even.


An interesting graphic:

 

[JohnIce]

An easy way to fix the need for "super tight editing" would be for bands to rehearse more and stop writing shit that they can't play; I'll be the first to concede that probably won't happen any time soon.

A skilled engineer can get great results from a less than optimal source as long as the performance is up to par, be it drums, various pieces of guitar and bass gear, other string instruments etc. So ultimately it comes back to rehearsal again, if you can't walk in to the studio and lay down a performance that is at least serviceable without needing to stop every other riff then you aren't ready to record. Period.

Sample replacement should be an option, a tool, not something that is compulsory.

All massive amounts of compression does is make the parts that are supposed to hit hard equally as loud as the lighter parts of a song.

A band building up a song to a huge heavy riff only to have it only to have it be completely neutered because it hits no harder and is effectively no louder than the clean guitars in the intro is actually hilarious, embarrassing even.

Amen!

The problem is musicians/hobby mixers overestimate themselves and underestimate their superiors. Instead of striving to be as good as they are, you deny that they are that good and convince yourself that they use the same crutches that you do. It's an unhealthy but very common mindset among internet-generation kids, unfortunately.

This performance was posted in the "tightest live band thread" and it hits the nail on the head here, I think This is not sample replaced nor edited, it's just practice.

 

[Daybreak]

...which is fine, if you're a songwriter and just aren't that interested in production. Throw together a bunch of presets that work together, maybe get a buddy to lend a hand, and get to the point where you can churn out decent sounding demos without having to worry about the mix.

But, all the "check out my mixtest!" threads where people are trying a new preset and then specifically asking people for comments on the mix, and presenting themselves as mix engineers? I mean, stating the obvious (or maybe not, or we wouldn't be here) but a song where the riff is in G# below the low B is going to have a different fundamental and different harmonic content than one in, say, drop-D, for both the bass and the guitars. Different harmonic content = different amp settings, EQ curves, and in turn ways of getting things to "gel" in the mix. If you want to churn out serviceable demos, then sure, fire up EzMix and get to work. But if you really want to learn to mix, and if you really want to get a reputation as a guy who does great mixes, you are absolutely shooting yourself in the foot if your mixes are all template and preset based. Even if they sound "good" that doesn't mean you "know how to mix," and you're going to struggle if you ever try to mix someone else's project.

If mixing interests you, why wouldn't you take the time to learn to do it right?


EDIT - and I'm just wrapping up an album that I'll be posting here, and I'm SURE there will be no shortage of people telling me I don't know how to mix either, so whatever.

THIS. Over and over again. If you're at least half serious about becoming an engineer, you'll stay away from everything that resembles a preset. Learn to build a mix from the ground up, its the only way you actually learn how everything is supposed to sound, and why it needs to sound that way to work in a mix. Of course, presets can serve a purpose. I often have a look at presets, patches, stems from others, I even EQ-matched drums and basses to my own, but all in the purpose of showing how I might improve. In a real mix I always try to build everything from the ground up.

Also, I might anger some here saying this, but I'm just gonna do it anyway: I actually like that... Super-edited/produced sound. Like, when everything's super-tight, almost 100% to the grid.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think any kind of studio magic would mean you don't have to practice your songs - On the contrary, I still feel every musician should know their songs in and out prior to recording them. All I'm saying is, I like when everything's really tight, it brings a lot more clarity to the overall instrumentation. You hear a lot more of what's going on. For me, actually hearing what all of the members of the band is playing needs to be prioritzed higher than to be able to hear any of the players "personality".

Which kind of brings me to my next point... I hate mixes where you don't hear a thing of what's going on.

But I also hate mixes where everything is too seperated. It has to be just right. ):

 

[Drew]

Wow some people just don't get it. Modern metal without sample replaced drums if like most drummers the kit sucks, super tight editing and lots of stages of compression would sound absolutely hilarious.

...you mean, to compensate for the fact that the average "modern metal" band's drummer these days can't hit solidly enough, cleanly enough, and accurately enough to perform their parts at tempo?

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

I disagree with this, unless you are qualifying it by only referencing the djent movement because the majority of bands I listen to use plenty of gain.

Mostly djent though some other stuff is guilty of it too, sorry I wasn't specific.

I'm all for low-end clarity but there gets to be a point where I'm not sure whether or not people are serious.

This

 

[Djentinator]

Vocals are hardly ever mixed properly and equally with the rest of the tracks.