Quote:
Originally Posted by D Becks  Hi All,
Had to mix a form of metal track here.
Recorded each guitar part twice to pan it hard with two or three mics.
Then [in mix stage] actualy only cut with digi rack 8 band EQ to form my sound. To make the signals blend as a whole.
As further mixed to busses I used higher grade EQ plugins and even did some boosting.
Well, the idea worked and I liked the results but I could help getting smeary phasing allalong. I Noticed but it didnt face me much though it was the only critic I'd gotten for the piece. My guess is this is something one has to get used to like determining how hard and even if a signal has expirienced any compression.
Being able to source this issue so cleary I have to say, it even feels kinda natural. This is just what you get from stacking sounds that way but this is what the post is about! Anybody inside on this method?  |
Mixing distorted guitars well begins with arranging the parts well and then tracking the parts well and finally not screwing it up in the mix.
I'm not certain what you're really saying but I think you're saying that you have tracked each part twice (using two or three different mics for each part?), panned them hard left and right and then have used an EQ to get them to fit together. Then you have bussed them to effects sends and further signal processed them with additional EQ. After all you hear phase distortion artifacts. Is that what you're saying?
If so I'd say the problem is in the ENTIRE process, starting with your guitar part arrangement. The first question should be, while you're tracking; Do the parts fit together naturally? When you overdub and play things back with no signal processing happening does the part arrangement step all over itself or do things pretty much sit together nicely? I'm willing to bet that if you're mixing mics on single takes and overdubbing parts and then panning them all hard left and right that what you really have with the raw tracks is a mess. Mic choices and specific placement, chord voicing, guitar and amp settings and overdub part arrangement have to ALL work together to get guitar parts to sit right. You can't just track a bunch of parts twice and pan them and expect it to all work out with EQ or other signal processing. You'll have a mess and often times a mess that you can't honestly fix in the mix.
On top of that if you're using multiple mics on single parts then you have to go through pains to make certain that the mics (or the resultant wave forms in your sequencer) are close enough in phase that they don't sound terrible. That too is a big part of getting the tracks to sit well. If you add all the potential things that you're not getting covered together you end up with poor sounding guitar mixes. Not having heard your work I can't say for certain what's going on. But based on what I think you're saying I suspect I'm aiming somewhere near the root of your problems.