Tips on improving this mix

[tvboy123]

Hopefully I'll have attached the song properly to this so it can be streamed from this page, if not hopefully it'll be downloadable.

Anyways, could someone give me a few pointers. I've been trying to follow the internal mixing book and dvd's, but my mixes still sound very bad in comparison to most people's here. I'll tell you some of the stuff I did so maybe you can pick out what I did wrong:

Guitars - recorded with bc rich mockingbird st (neck pickup for main gtr parts) -> OCD -> tiny terror -> orange 4x12 -> sm57 and sm7b into neve 1073dpd -> bypasses duet's preamps, recording at 32 bit floating point. Just eq on these as I thought it didn't need compression, no effects or reverb (maybe i shud've put a teeny amount of reverb on). Level bouncing around -14/16 db (same with vox). Eq was normally low cut to around 80-120 hz (makes room for bass and bass drum), slight notch with high q at 350hz to take out some roominess and open it up, +2/3db at around 7-8 khz with a low q so it's more broad and doesn't get any of that filter shiz and to add some crispyness. Guitars panned hard left and right in most circumstances. They were close mic'd. Sm57 with the sm7b blended in (maybe 7db quieter than the 57). Next time I record I'm gonna use a ribbon mic a little way backed away (maybe 8-12 inches back) and then blend the sm57 in to add some crispyness.

Bass - DI, amplitube 3, eq and compression. Can't remember what I did for eq there lol. Panned down the middle.

Vox - sm7b into neve 1073dpd into duet. Mic held probably about 3/4 inches from mouth. All vox were double tracked. Occasionally on the 2nd recording I'd put a little distortion on there. I put delays on the lead vox occasionally rather than reverbs so it doesn't put the vox into the background of the track. Lead vox panned down the middle. Used an SSL EQ for the vox, main thing was a low cut at around 80hz, boost of 1/2 db at around 2/3hz with a low q, boost at around 8/9 hz (i think) with about 8db to make it crispy. Possibly a deesser to take out some of the s' caused by that. Compression 4:1 with a waves cla 76 bluey.

Orchestral stuff - had some eq on the cello's, for male choir I just left them. Used miroslav philharmonik for this.

Drums - Steven Slate Drums for snare, bass and toms. Addictive Drums for overheads, cymbals etc. - nothing really done to either of them them. Snares were a combination of 2 different ones, as were the kicks.

All tracks had a low cut filter of at least 25hz. On the 2 bus the levels are bouncing at around -6db.

I use KRK RP5 G2's. And i'm sitting close to my speakers, definitely near field, within a metre of both of them, they're both angled to me so when i face them they're pointing directly at me. I dunno, i didn't mean to write an essay lol, but I thought the more info I write the more people can pick out what's going wrong. I try to mix whilst not looking at my screen so I don't round numbers up or pick things that look visually pleasing. I didn't do any automation, but on different parts of say vocals or guitars, they would have different tracks which would be at different levels e.g. verse vox and chorus vox are on different tracks. Thank you for checking this out

[once a roadie]

sounds good overall...

• low end / drums a tad loud
• vocals too low

[tvboy123]

Hey! Thank you for the advice, I tried to implement ur suggestions into this mix =] I made the vocals a bit louder, probably by 3-5db, and lowered the bass and the kick drums (they actually sound more the same level as the snares now which is good). I then put a massey tapehead medium onto the 2 bus and a L2 just to make it sound more finished. Thanks again for the pointers

P.S. I uploaded a hamster version just for fun haha.

[Jazznfunk]

I like guitar sound! Bass and kick is too loud for me in first mix.

[tvboy123]

Originally Posted by Jazznfunk

I like guitar sound! Bass and kick is too loud for me in first mix.

Thanks Jazznfunk! I'm always a bit worried about duffing up the guitar sound actually lol, but with each recording I'm slowly beginning to trust what I hear and not worry whether I'm doing things wrong all the time. I'm looking forward to recording my next song, getting some noise cancelling headphones so I'll be able to hear exactly what the mics are picking up as I move them around the cab YAY

And you said the bass and kick are too loud in the first mix, the mix in the first comment or the latest comment? Thanks for the input! I seriously love getting any info and thoughts from people here, it's helping me. I still suck, but I'll get better

[ohmicide]

theres something about that kick i don't like..

it might be that it's too clicky and doesn't fit the song or maybe it's that the dynamics of it are a little sloppy (it sounds like it's fading in and out a bit)

i guess i would either try a different kick or try compressing that one more or just turning down the dynamics on SSD

[tvboy123]

Originally Posted by alehoe

theres something about that kick i don't like..

it might be that it's too clicky and doesn't fit the song or maybe it's that the dynamics of it are a little sloppy (it sounds like it's fading in and out a bit)

i guess i would either try a different kick or try compressing that one more or just turning down the dynamics on SSD

Hey alehoe! Thanks for the input, always love your mixes. Yeah it probably is too clicky, it's cos I'd been listening a lot to this band called a skylit drive lately and their bass drum is mega clicky on this one track. I was using the black kick (i cant remember, but it's like supposed to be metallica's kick which sounds reverby and also very clicky) mixed in with i think kick 10 or something. I think it was probably too metal for this sort of song. It's not as if I have lightning speed guitar pieces that are precise and stuff. Next time I'll probably stick with kick 10, but I'll have a listen to different pieces. The next song I'm gonna do is gonna be more simple, more taking back sunday/new found glory sort of thing, so I can work on getting the sounds right, rather than worrying about overlapping frequencies and fitting in too many guitar pieces etc. Less is more and all that :P gonna try to keep it around the 3 minute mark so people don't get bored too lol. Thanks again alehoe!