With your help

[RHEX-7]

with your guys help, ive come this far with my first track that i will be putting on a cd for my bands ep. if theres anything you guys can hear thats out of line or doesnt sound right, let me know. i feel okay with the mix. just wish the guitars would sound better. i feel like im going to have to rerecord them which is going to suck.

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/mix-help[/SC]

 

[atoragon]

the guitar sound is good, but it's all a bit too compressed, especially the snare, which seems to have lost a big chunk of the transient. maybe guitars are a bit too high too.
tight guitar playing!

 

[RHEX-7]

the guitar sound is good, but it's all a bit too compressed, especially the snare, which seems to have lost a big chunk of the transient. maybe guitars are a bit too high too.
tight guitar playing!

welp back to square one lol i have eq and compressors on everything in the mix.

the guitars are high passed at 100 with a -2 shelf at 200. a low pass starting at 12k and a lo shelf at 10k. ive added a -4 around 2000 to let the snare "sit"/vocals. and on top of all of that i scooped out some annoying frequencies.
theres 2 main guitar tracks panned 100% left and right.
then theres a center track for the opening riff and all of that riff throughout the song.
then theres 2 tracks panned L/R at 50% for the ending part of the song.
and last but not least, i have a center track of the solo parts.

all have the same EQ setting.

i have compressors on the 2 main tracks with the following settings.
thresh hold: -40
ratio 5:1
soft knee
0.500 attack (lowest it will go)
2.50s release

i didnt put those settings on. i just used a preset because i still cant grasp the compressor lol.

i put a multiband compressor on the solo track because i cant get the solo to "cut through" if the MBC isnt on this track you cant hear the solos at all.
all of these tracks are on one single submix.

now for the bass i recorded directly into my Scarlet 6i6. did a simple eq with scooping the lo and high filters and scooping the mids.
another track holds my bass drops. no eq or anything done to these.
these tracks are in another submix.

next i have the drums. the drums are programmed using ezdrummer 1 with metalheads expansion.

i have the cymbals, toms, kick and snare all on 4 seperate tracks each having their own eq/comp.

the cymbals have everything cut off from 800 and below. ive cut everything at 15k because we cant really hear any of it anyways. the compressor uses the following...
thresh hold: -2
ratio 2:1
medium knee
500ms attack (highest it will go)
10s release

the toms are eq'd. their eq is in the attachment below. along with the rest of the drums.

the toms compressor is set to these
thresh hold: 0
ratio 4:1
hard knee
10ms attack (highest it will go)
.4s release


the snare is compressed with these settings
thresh hold: -12
ratio 2:1
medium knee
30ms attack (highest it will go)
.2s release

and the kicks compressor
thresh hold: -2
ratio 5:1
hard knee
3.000ms attack (highest it will go)
.20s release


the entire project has an eq to get rid of frequencies below 80khz and above 15k as well as a master limiter set to -2 threshold.



can you guys help me from there?

 

[TedEH]

ive cut everything at 15k because we cant really hear any of it anyways [...] the entire project has an eq to get rid of frequencies below 80khz and above 15k

People can hear outside of those ranges. The usual stated range of human hearing is supposed to be from 20hz to 20khz. There's some very usable range below 80hz, especially for the bass.

 

[RHEX-7]

People can hear outside of those ranges. The usual stated range of human hearing is supposed to be from 20hz to 20khz. There's some very usable range below 80hz, especially for the bass.

done, removed the EQ on overall track

 

[col]

i have compressors on the 2 main tracks with the following settings.
thresh hold: -40
ratio 5:1
soft knee
0.500 attack (lowest it will go)
2.50s release

i didnt put those settings on. i just used a preset because i still cant grasp the compressor lol.

Well there's your problem.

You need to adjust the threshold so that you get max 3-4dB attenuation on the meter. If you just leave it where it's on the preset it could be doing anything between from squashing everything to crap, to not doing anything at all. The track needs to be playing while you do this. I'd also change the ratio to 4:1, 5:1 is a bit too hard.

Also your attack time is too fast for drums, it'll kill the transients completely.

Easiest way to learn how a compressor works is listen to something like a snare drum track soloed and tweak the settings and listen how it affects the sound.

 

[RHEX-7]

Well there's your problem.

You need to adjust the threshold so that you get max 3-4dB attenuation on the meter. If you just leave it where it's on the preset it could be doing anything between from squashing everything to crap, to not doing anything at all. The track needs to be playing while you do this. I'd also change the ratio to 4:1, 5:1 is a bit too hard.

Also your attack time is too fast for drums, it'll kill the transients completely.

Easiest way to learn how a compressor works is listen to something like a snare drum track soloed and tweak the settings and listen how it affects the sound.

i ended up just removing the compressors all together and using multiband compressors on the drum submix. i just feel like too much is going on with the song. im doing vocals today which should add even more pain to my ass when trying to get this to sound decent later tonight.

 

[RHEX-7]

i ended up just removing the compressors all together and using multiband compressors on the drum submix. i just feel like too much is going on with the song. im doing vocals today which should add even more pain to my ass when trying to get this to sound decent later tonight.

tried those settings for the guitars, they sound like trash now lol sound like the tracks volume is turned all the way up

 

[TedEH]

using multiband compressors on the drum submix

My suggestion would be not to use multiband at all unless you have to, especially if you don't really "get" how to use compression. Keep it simple. If you're using multiband on the drums so that you can handle the kick/snare/overheads as different bands, then just compress those elements individually instead of the submix.

 

[RHEX-7]

My suggestion would be not to use multiband at all unless you have to, especially if you don't really "get" how to use compression. Keep it simple. If you're using multiband on the drums so that you can handle the kick/snare/overheads as different bands, then just compress those elements individually instead of the submix.

im about to just delete the project lol im tired of listening to it over and over

 

[Carcaridon]

I'd take the leads down a touch. They seem to float outside the rest of the music and really standout above it. JMO.

 

[RHEX-7]

I'd take the leads down a touch. They seem to float outside the rest of the music and really standout above it. JMO.

yup, ive done that to the newest mix. the newest mix doesnt sound half bad, im going to upload it now.

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/odium[/SC]

this is the latest mix

 

[col]

Pretty good. I'd turn the cymbals down just a hair (or those china hits from the midi) and turn the snare up 3dB.

Best way to figure out if your snare is loud enough is to turn your volume down to zero, then slowly raise it. The snare drum should be the first thing that's audible.

 

[RHEX-7]

Pretty good. I'd turn the cymbals down just a hair (or those china hits from the midi) and turn the snare up 3dB.

Best way to figure out if your snare is loud enough is to turn your volume down to zero, then slowly raise it. The snare drum should be the first thing that's audible.

well the issue with the snare is that it clips on certain hits, so if i turn it up, it will be in the red every hit. ill go in and see what i can do

 

[atoragon]

it still makes the "pump" effect (just listen to the volume difference between when there is only the guitar playing and when all the other instruments kicks in. the perceived volume should NOT drop), leave that compression to the mastering phase. take out all comps from stereo out, and lower or carve the guitars, they are covering the drums, especially the snare is so compressed that is barely intelligible.

 

[RHEX-7]

it still makes the "pump" effect (just listen to the volume difference between when there is only the guitar playing and when all the other instruments kicks in. the perceived volume should NOT drop), leave that compression to the mastering phase. take out all comps from stereo out, and lower or carve the guitars, they are covering the drums, especially the snare is so compressed that is barely intelligible.

this is the newest mix.
[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/mix-help[/SC]

compared to this mix below, it sounds like garbage..i just dont know anymore

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/broken-homes[/SC]


well maybe not garbage. i think its the amp honestly. i want a 6505+ again.


was the wrong mix. uploaded the latest one

 

[RHEX-7]

question, should bass drops be eq/compressed in the mix or are they add and forget type deals?

 

[jasonsansburn]

Whenever I've done bass drops I've hardly compressed it, but then again I just downloaded it from youtube. Your bass drops tend to overpower the rest of the mix except for the one at the end, but that's because the bass drop hits, and the guitar doesn't come in till a second later. So, I'd say bring the threshold up and just experiment with it really. You are asking a lot of questions which is fvcking great but you should also be focusing more on what you want to hear not other people. Just keep dinkin around and it'll come

 

[Kurkkuviipale]

this is the newest mix.
[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/mix-help[/SC]

compared to this mix below, it sounds like garbage..i just dont know anymore

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/broken-homes[/SC]


well maybe not garbage. i think its the amp honestly. i want a 6505+ again.


was the wrong mix. uploaded the latest one

The above mix sounds loads better dude. You're on the right track. Just rinse and repeat!

 

[RHEX-7]

Whenever I've done bass drops I've hardly compressed it, but then again I just downloaded it from youtube. Your bass drops tend to overpower the rest of the mix except for the one at the end, but that's because the bass drop hits, and the guitar doesn't come in till a second later. So, I'd say bring the threshold up and just experiment with it really. You are asking a lot of questions which is fvcking great but you should also be focusing more on what you want to hear not other people. Just keep dinkin around and it'll come

i have a total of 3 bass drops in this mix. 2 of them are stacked with 2 different drop sounds. the first is in the beginning during the solo part, the next is after the chorus and the last is during the ending breakdown/outro. but all of them have guitars playing with them