rock mix (+ signal chain) - advice needed!

[suiseidl]

heres a mix from a band i just finished. i only recorded the guitars, everything else was recorded by someone else and the process / gear involved is unknown to me. mixed on pro tools le itb with no outboard gear involved. kick and snare are from bfd.

guitar recording chain: mesa dual rectifier / engl invader > mesa cab > sm57/e609/tlm127 > api3124+ > focusrite isa428 AD > digi002

i know about the crackling which is clearly audible at the biginning of the song and on all the stand alone guitar parts, that happened during mastering, im a bit of a n00b when it comes to 2bus compression, so maybe you could give me a bit of advice about that. ;-) the plugin responsible is sonnox oxford limiter, i pushed the input to +9db. damn loudness wars ;-)

mastering chain: psp masterq > waves q10 > waves lin mb > psp vintage warmer 2 > sonnox oxford limiter

please critique!

[forthemusic.com]

Overall nice job. It is encouraging to hear someone make good use of an LE system. Here are a few things that immediately came to mind. Take them for what they're worth...

1. As a drummer my attention was immediately turned to the obviously sampled snare and the less than subtle room verb placed on it. Maybe try eqing the mids of this sample to make it less of a "stock" sound and dial back the decay a bit, especially when the guitar parts cut out.

2. Again as a drummer, I liked the sample chosen on the kick, but felt that it was maybe +3db to much. Try to tuck it into the mix a bit more without losing it's driving presence. Liked it though.

3. Definetly go back and remaster. This should be numero uno. Your nice sounding track is littered with way to many pops and ticks. If it is because of the levels that you mentioned, maybe go back and group all of your tracks and bring them all down together to give them some breathing room. Mastering engineers like when you do this, so it may work for you as well.

4. I can tell you recorded the guitars because that's what I hear as dominating your mix. In my opinion, lower the guitars in the verse and prechorus. The levels during the chorus sounded really good. Use them as a barometer and remember to mix with dynamics. Maybe keeping the intro guitars loud, bring them down in the verse, bring up slightly for prechorus then climax at the chorus. Rinse wash, repeat.

5. Lastly, the vocals were in my opinion done very well, and tastefully to the song; extra bonus points. My only critique on them is that they sat just a little too far back in the mix. One thing to try, would be to "lower" the guitars and kick drum to "bring up" the vocals. Try this before you push your vocal faders to "+13".

I am sure others will give you more detailed feedback, but these were my initial impressions. You asked, and so there you go.

It was nice to hear someone call themselves a "Noob" and present a song that would show that you won't be one for much longer. Keep up the good work!

[suiseidl]

cool, thanx for your fb! initially the guitars were too low in the verse, so i pushed them up, maybe a little bit too much. i lowered them 1.5 db, sounds better now. i also pulled the reverb down on the snare. the band didnt like that either ;-)
any suggestions (guidelines) for compression on the 2-bus? plugins? compressor / limiter settings (thresholds, ratios, attack, release etc...) that somehow always seems to be my biggest problem when mastering. tried a lot but somehow its not really improving anything. disregarding the crackling, sonnox oxford limiter seems to give the best results, makes it loud without eating the punch in the snare. second best imo was izotope ozone, waves L2 is teh_suck! ;-) the pops and cracks dont seem to come from distortion, when i zoom in on the track the peaks dont look cut off at all. havent experienced that with any other limiters, only with the oxford.

ps: about being a noob: the more you learn the more you find out about how much you have yet to learn ;-)

[fuzzyguitars]

your getting better young grasshopper!