With your help

[RHEX-7]

nevermind i have 4 bassdrops in this mix. the one at the very end is a single A drop by its self. the others are supposed to sound huge. when i downloaded the mp3 from this site a year ago, it was named HUGE-Bass-drop.wav lol i think it sound alright but ill go in and fix it up

 

[RHEX-7]

any ideas on how to process vocals? ive really only done them once. how do i add alittle distortion and what not to help make them sound more insane, how should i eq gutteral lows and piercing highs? how many takes should i do for safe keepings? and should i double up and far pan? were adding vocals to the above track this friday.

 

[thisiswhywefight]

Double them up if a single track feels weak, do as many takes as you have to to get them to sound rad, EQ to taste but preferably as little as possible, if you're adding distortion try setting the wet mix on the distortion at around 20-30% at first and bump it up if you want even more of an effect, but often fully distorted vocals just don't sit well with me. It depends on how you're distorting them though, if you have a really high quality plugin you might get away with fully distorted vocals without losing clarity.

That's what's worked for me in the past.

 

[RHEX-7]

Double them up if a single track feels weak, do as many takes as you have to to get them to sound rad, EQ to taste but preferably as little as possible, if you're adding distortion try setting the wet mix on the distortion at around 20-30% at first and bump it up if you want even more of an effect, but often fully distorted vocals just don't sit well with me. It depends on how you're distorting them though, if you have a really high quality plugin you might get away with fully distorted vocals without losing clarity.

That's what's worked for me in the past.

ill keep all of that in mind, ive only done vocals a hand full of times and they never sounded good in any way ive mixed.

 

[RHEX-7]

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/2-odium[/SC]

latest mix. sound good?
quick question, what does normalizing do? i normalized the solo parts and the sounded louder.

ill be adding a change log with every upload from now on to explain what i changed.

-normalized solo guitars, and cymbals
-added small compressor to the bass drops
-added a small drum part to the pre chorus
-adjusted levels across all tracks.
-started exporting in .WAV format

 

[sevenstringj]

Woulda been nice if you hadn't deleted all the previous takes, so we could A-B the different mixes and hear how the changes you made affected the sound. For educational purposes.

Sounds pretty brutal though.

 

[RHEX-7]

Woulda been nice if you hadn't deleted all the previous takes, so we could A-B the different mixes and hear how the changes you made affected the sound. For educational purposes.

Sounds pretty brutal though.

im just trying not to have it publicized too much lol my band mates would kill me. ill keep the older recordings up from here until im satisfied with the entire mix so you guys can listen from here on out. thank you for your kind words sir, ive learned alot so far from everyone here and picked up on some listening techniques with my monitors. all i have left to do is vocals.

does the solo seem too cliche? i know that pattern is used alot in the deathcore scene, but when i was going through ideas when playing, it fit so well. im still learning scales and modes. so my selection is limited right now. but that just means in later recordings my progress will show.

 

[RHEX-7]

anyone?

 

[Action]

When you dial back a compressor the channel is naturally going to sound louder... you were squashing it and now you're not (or not as much). after changing or turning off a comp you will want to adjust the fader volume on that channel to compensate. Always try to keep the volume similar when you compare two things A/B, so that you don't automatically select the louder or quieter one, and instead select the one that actually sounds more appropriate.

Normalizing a sample just amplifies it as much as possible without clipping or compression. if you have a sound clip and its loudest part is -20db, normalizing to 0db is going to raise the whole thing by that much. dont necessarily have to do this during mixing, its same as adjusting channel input volume/gain.

If anything is clipping up into the red on the whole mix, then your whole mix is too hot. way too hot for mixing. lower every channel's output volume by exactly the same amount... for example, by 3db. it won't screw anything up if you move them evenly down, until you're getting a nice mix that doesnt clip. then just turn up your monitoring volume to compensate, and everything will appear to be the same, but now you have headroom. when you're all finished is when you can run things through a master limiter and get the track to volume.

Step away, do something different, get fresh ears for an hour, if you suddenly feel like you're getting nowhere with the tweaks, because you're probably right.

And now that I actually listened. If you compress your drums too much before they hit the whole mix, then they won't have the definition they need to cut through. when you give your whole mix more headroom, if drums still hide behind the guitars, you should experiment with raising the thresholds and ratios on your drum comps, until they do little or nothing, to leave some bite on drums, and then tame them the rest of the way once they're part of the whole mix, with a multiband comp on the whole mix. gentle is the key again, use a threshold high enough that the comp is mostly only doing something on percussion hits.

if you don't already... every time you decide to do some major changes, such as the above ideas, first save a new version of the file, and start working off that version, so that you have the older one to fall back to if the new one turns out to be a step backwards.

Some people above already said of what I said. They are right and it was worth repeating. You have to prepare yourself to hear the track as it should sound before it is slammed all to hell to make it hot. it will have more dynamics to it and be overall quieter than you are expecting if you do not compensate by turning up your speakers. Only when it sounds right like this can it have a hope of sounding right loud

 

[RHEX-7]

When you dial back a compressor the channel is naturally going to sound louder... you were squashing it and now you're not (or not as much). after changing or turning off a comp you will want to adjust the fader volume on that channel to compensate. Always try to keep the volume similar when you compare two things A/B, so that you don't automatically select the louder or quieter one, and instead select the one that actually sounds more appropriate.

Normalizing a sample just amplifies it as much as possible without clipping or compression. if you have a sound clip and its loudest part is -20db, normalizing to 0db is going to raise the whole thing by that much. dont necessarily have to do this during mixing, its same as adjusting channel input volume/gain.

If anything is clipping up into the red on the whole mix, then your whole mix is too hot. way too hot for mixing. lower every channel's output volume by exactly the same amount... for example, by 3db. it won't screw anything up if you move them evenly down, until you're getting a nice mix that doesnt clip. then just turn up your monitoring volume to compensate, and everything will appear to be the same, but now you have headroom. when you're all finished is when you can run things through a master limiter and get the track to volume.

Step away, do something different, get fresh ears for an hour, if you suddenly feel like you're getting nowhere with the tweaks, because you're probably right.

And now that I actually listened. If you compress your drums too much before they hit the whole mix, then they won't have the definition they need to cut through. when you give your whole mix more headroom, if drums still hide behind the guitars, you should experiment with raising the thresholds and ratios on your drum comps, until they do little or nothing, to leave some bite on drums, and then tame them the rest of the way once they're part of the whole mix, with a multiband comp on the whole mix. gentle is the key again, use a threshold high enough that the comp is mostly only doing something on percussion hits.

if you don't already... every time you decide to do some major changes, such as the above ideas, first save a new version of the file, and start working off that version, so that you have the older one to fall back to if the new one turns out to be a step backwards.

Some people above already said of what I said. They are right and it was worth repeating. You have to prepare yourself to hear the track as it should sound before it is slammed all to hell to make it hot. it will have more dynamics to it and be overall quieter than you are expecting if you do not compensate by turning up your speakers. Only when it sounds right like this can it have a hope of sounding right loud

so youre saying the drums still need alittle work?

 

[RHEX-7]

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

newest mix with vocals.i know they need work with the Tube modeling EQ aspect but jesus christ my bassist's highs are insane and give me goosebumps every time i listen to them. ill post again when i do some editing on the vocals.

changelog:
-added vocals
Effects are:
Pultronic Tube EQ
equilibre with >300 scooped and 20k<scooped. boosted 1500 by 2db
floorfish gate no preset needed
limiter at -2db

 

[RHEX-7]

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/mix-with-vocals-edited[/SC]

edited the vocals a bit. i had reverb and tube eq on bus for some reason.
any ideas from here on out?

 

[RHEX-7]

i guess ive over stayed my welcome...
lol

 

[TedEH]

My first impression when I play that last upload is that it sounds hollow. Like something somewhere has been scooped out and nothing filled that space. It's not noticeable after you've been listening for a minute or so, so maybe it's a non-issue and just relative to whatever I was listening to before.

 

[RHEX-7]

i noticed it sounded too mid range-y this morning on my car stereo. but my car stereo sucks. not sure as to what happened. ill go in and find out whats up with it.

 

[Action]

My first impression when I play that last upload is that it sounds hollow. Like something somewhere has been scooped out and nothing filled that space. It's not noticeable after you've been listening for a minute or so, so maybe it's a non-issue and just relative to whatever I was listening to before.

I agree, and I know why. I hear all the different things ducking out of the mix, because theres not enough space for everything. Adding the vocals magnified it.

@rhex people told you some things to try, and the samples are showing that you might not have tried half of 'em, or need to take the methods further than you did. When you mix it right, then the rest of the mix seems to duck behind the transient percussion hits, instead of the other way around, and you can actually hear them. When you mix it right, the bass drops don't sap half the volume of the entire mix when they hit. These are dead giveaways that you have a critical problem with your mix levels being way too hot across the board, or that you are using some sort of broadband compressor/limiter at the end with bad settings that is ruining everything by squashing it together indiscriminately. Please don't try to fix the vocals yet, cause the problem compounding everything hasn't seen any improvement in my opinion. Wish I was there in person so I could help you with a few clicks got any buddies IRL who might give you some ideas if they mess with it? Fresh perspective?

p.s. yeah, i lost all the bass and the highs when i listen to music in my car. dont let that throw you off, s'why i used to have subwoofers and extra tweeters in there

 

[RHEX-7]

I agree, and I know why. I hear all the different things ducking out of the mix, because theres not enough space for everything. Adding the vocals magnified it.

@rhex people told you some things to try, and the samples are showing that you might not have tried half of 'em, or need to take the methods further than you did. When you mix it right, then the rest of the mix seems to duck behind the transient percussion hits, instead of the other way around, and you can actually hear them. When you mix it right, the bass drops don't sap half the volume of the entire mix when they hit. These are dead giveaways that you have a critical problem with your mix levels being way too hot across the board, or that you are using some sort of broadband compressor/limiter at the end with bad settings that is ruining everything by squashing it together indiscriminately. Please don't try to fix the vocals yet, cause the problem compounding everything hasn't seen any improvement in my opinion. Wish I was there in person so I could help you with a few clicks got any buddies IRL who might give you some ideas if they mess with it? Fresh perspective?

p.s. yeah, i lost all the bass and the highs when i listen to music in my car. dont let that throw you off, s'why i used to have subwoofers and extra tweeters in there

none sadly. ive tried many things. i dont think mixing is my thing..

 

[RHEX-7]

i deleted all of the effects on every track. im going to start fresh. what do i work on first?

mix with no project FX
[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/mix-with-no-main-mix-fx[/SC]

No FX at all
[SC]https://soundcloud.com/aliveaftersunrise/mix-with-no-fx-at-all[/SC]

 

[TedEH]

The guitar and bass sound good in the no-fx-at-all version. IMO, if they sound good, leave them alone. Don't add compression or effects just to say that you did- just make corrections where needed. I'd say your starting point might be making the drums stand out again. The kick drum in particular is inaudible in my headphones. It's worth noting that your guitar and bass are very loud for a track that's supposedly uncompressed. I'd recommend turning them down while you mix, and turn your speakers/monitors/headphones up to compensate until you're at a point where you can start mastering. It doesn't have to be loud while you mix.

 

[col]

The vocals need de-essing, there's also some noises that need to be edited out. (Plosives, mic handling etc)