Christian Rock Mix

[jkasko]

We just finished tracking and mixing a local Christian church group and I thought I share on of the mixes with everyone and get their thoughts.

[Matt Grondin]

There's a bit of harshness in the cymbals that seems to be more apparent from overcompression, possibly on the mixbus. However, that seems to be the radio sound, although I have no idea what the CCM radio sound is. Overall, though it sounds really good. The bass might be a bit out front on some parts, but mastering ought to help.

[RainbowStorm]

Ahhh... It's so wonderful to hear som Christian rock for a change, exactly what I wanted to hear right now! It grooves, nice!!

Here are my thoughts about it. I didn't have my best speakers available so I cannot comment on some things, but generally I think this mix is pretty balanced. It is quite even on the whole frequency range. The vocals are a bit low in my taste, this singer sings so well and having him singing slightly louder would improve the mix a lot since the other instruments are focusing on the groove. The guitars are slightly muddy in the high end and since they consume the stereo field quite heavily it makes the whole mix slightly muddy due to what it does to the high end, at least on my speaker system. Try boosting some highs on the guitar, you might have used some pass filter on it which causes this effect, in that case just remove it. If the guitar now turns out much clearer but it makes the vocals slightly muddy, simply apply track gain reduction on it. This is because the guitar seems to be playing rather high on the neck where the vocals are rather dominant, so EQ cutting is less effective than track volume reduction in that case. By doing this you might notice that the vocals/background vocals become much more clear as well. So do these things before you increase the volume on the vocals, so that it's easier to know how much to boost the vocals. A general rule is that tracks that take up a lot of mix signal should be very clear in the high end, but when you need to compromise you let the least important instrument suffer, in this case the guitar and from volume reduction. So this is one thing I think you should focus on, it will result in a more clear mix overall due to the presence of important high frequencies.

I think the drums are good, so good that you could actually make them slightly louder. Before you do this (important!) try pan them differently, because it seems like they are too far on the side, try move them to the center a little. In this case you might not even have to increase the volume since that could take away some clearity from the other instruments in the center. So try pan them more towards the center (or to the opposite direction) and when this is not enough to make them loud enough, boost a little track volume.

I had a hard time hearing the acoustic guitar in this mix on my speakers. This means it should either be muted or it should be used differently. However, always mute a track after a number of smaller steps towards that big decision. I personally like the high frequencies that acoustic guitars generate. Currently I can't really hear where this guitar is panned, but it seems like it is panned slightly to one side or in the center. If you were adding highs on the electric guitar earlier as I mentioned, set the acoustic guitar on the opposite side, because they both occupy high frequencies and quite a lot of mix signal together and for that reason should not be left in the same area in the sound field to make the treble unpleasantly focused. Try boosting some high frequencies on it but do this together with the track volume fader to make that side as heavy as the electric guitar on the other side. Once this is done, set the guitars/mix balance so that the center is still really clear, also pay some extra attention to the mix treble. If this approach doesn't work, just try one more thing, remove the electric guitar in the verses and only use the acoustic guitar. When the chorus comes, use automation for temporarily cutting out the acoustic guitar when the electric guitar/background vocals come in. I think this could make a big difference since the song is kind of "constant" in the sound. If none of these approaches work I think it's best to simply mute the acoustic guitar, because it doesn't fit in the mix. You could try another instrument instead, for instance an organ. I think there is some more room in the lows. An organ could even out the mix really well on the parts where the electric guitars are not playing.

One last thing, the rhythm element. I really miss some percussion in this song, the song would come alive really well with some percussion, especially in these more "airy" parts of the song. Besides this I think there is some room for a solo as well, maybe both an organ solo followed by an electric guitar solo? I think that would create a really good attention point and I think that is important since the arrangement in itself is rather "constant" both when it comes to the sound and the song parts. I will not comment on the stereo imaging too much since my speakers are so bad.

Anyway, this song has a steady groove and that's a really good thing! I'm glad that the drummer is not too dominant, BUT it would mean a lot if he would do something more complicated later in the song, maybe just adding some additional cymbal and hi-hat hits would make a big difference to kind of mess up the good groove for a while before it turns boring. Overall the mix was well balanced and I saw a certain mix pattern that shows you have done a good job in trying to figure out what this song needs. I think it is mostly just a matter of final cleaning up to make the mix more detailed in the high end and to get a better overall instrument separation. The production of the song is I think what needs the most attention.

Good luck and keep up the good job!