A new one I'm working on. critique the mix

[FastRedPonyCar]

Song's called Res Ipsa (latin)... new song our band is working on..well... one I wrote that everyone now has to learn. The empty spots in the song (as well as the beginning) is supposed to have the bassist chugging the main riff by himself before the guitars come in.

I layered 2 rythem tracks panned 100% left and the other right and 2 lead tracks that mimic most of the rythem until a couple of parts where it strays away and during the chorus, the lead tracks do octave chords.

Biggest hurdle is teaching our drummer to do the insane fills that EZ drummer lets me do

I'm mainly focused on the actual mix of how the instruments and drums are blending, etc. I spent pretty much all day on it and I'm still learning as I go. I know it clips here and there. I'm having trouble keeping that under control...heck, the guitar tracks are all sitting at -15dB being mixed back up with the Waves SSLEQ/Comp.

Again, the silence at the beginning will eventually have a bassist doing his thing.

I sent this and the lyrics to our singer to start working on the vocal pattern/structure and making whatever changes he sees fit as the drummer actually was the one that wrote the words before there was much of a song to go with it.

http://www.drewlankford.com/Music/ResIpsa3.mp3

Let me know what you guys think and what can be improved upon or changed and if any of you play drums, I'd be interested in hearing if the drums are ok or if they need changing as well. I know zero about drum arrangements.

 

[mrd]

Not a bad track. Too repetitive for my tastes, I prefer more progressive stuff, but that's fine. Your guitaring seems out of time in places too, but maybe it's just a weird up-beat.

Anyway, about the mix. To me, the compression sounds way too apparent. You can't quite hear it breathing, but it's sucking all the character out of everything. The guitars just sound dry and cliched, they have no voice. The drums, frankly, sound horrible. I know EZDrummer is hard to make sound good. Do you use Cubase?

The first thing you wanna do is open up EZDrummer, click the mixer button, then instead of running the entire mix into a stereo channel, click it into multichannel, and each drum will have its own track within the EZDrummer VST. Track 1 should be kick, track 2 snare, track 3 is hihats, 4,5,6 should be toms, (maybe 6 is some sort of overhead/room mic) and 7 and 8 should be overheads and room mics as well. From here you can EQ each drum. One thing I like to do is give the bass some power. Start by adding some low-end boost. I usually do a boost of 3-6dB, 50-70hz on the low shelf (shelf means Cubase brings everything under [or over for a high shelf] the frequency you choose to an equal level then applies the gain from there). Also, cut out some mid-range to get rid of that ugly banging sound that the EZDrums make. I usually just cut 6dB from 700-800hz. Also, a small cut at around 3500hz to take a bit of the edge off of it. With this you should have a really powerful kick that will make your sub move. Fiddle with the values a bit, these are just starting points. A tip for EQing: you shouldn't need, except in rare or special cases, to ever have to cut or boost anything more than 6dB. If you're changing it that much then you might want to consider recording it with the right sound at the source, if possible.

On to snare. I usually cut off some low end to get rid of any boominess it has. At a project I've done that I'm looking at now, I cut -6db at 120hz low shelf. Also, a bit of compression on the snare can help bring its image out. You might want to try boosting the mid-range or high end to bring out a snappy sound and more clarity in the high end. As always, apply small boosts and cuts and use your ears!

I don't usually EQ the hi-hat track, I think it sounds fine on its own. You might want to fiddle with the volume to make a nice match between the overhead mic and the hihat mic, or maybe just completely remove the hihat mic altogether and rely only on the overheads. You could also add some boosts to very high frequencies to bring out the air. Around 8-12khz, somewhere in there.

As for your guitars, I think they could use some EQing too. Cut down the low end a bit. Low end is for bass guitars and kick drums. Keep in mind the low E string on your guitar is 82hz, so really, any sounds coming from your amp that are below 80hz, you don't want, cuz your guitar is not making them. Obviously if you're tuned lower, this goes down. You can look up a chart of note frequencies so you know where to draw the line. Don't apply a drastic huge cut, just roll off the low end for a smooth reduction in bass.

You might wanna consider running a multiband compressor over the entire mix (in Cubase push F3 for mixer, then apply effects to the main out). This can really bring everything together, but multiband compressors are tricky animals to work with.. do a bit of experimenting, see what you can come up with.

Hope it helps.

 

[FastRedPonyCar]

yeah man sounds like you've given me a good 3 or 4 days worth of work hahaha! I'll definately go back and see what all changes you're pointing me towards I can take care of. I'm sure I'll discover a lot of new stuff during the process.

 

[Spirithunter]

I dig the track and see where your going with it FastRedPonyCar.
I do agree with mrd with his post. Over all pretty cool. 8)

 

[FastRedPonyCar]

I brought acid pro and the project files with me to work. I'll try and play around with it during my free time.

I do have a question though MRD about separating the EZ drummer grooves into individual components. I opened the mixer and clicked the track number setting to per track or whatever it's called and it started at the kick assigning it to track 1, snare top to track 2, snare bottom to track 3, etc.

when I go back to the grooves and play one, all I hear is the kick drum.

If I drag a groove into the project time line and play it, all I hear is the kick. I see the actual little midi markers in the track that represent the other mic's of the kit but I don't hear any of them.

There's something I'm not doing and although I do have a copy of cubase, I'm more familiar with acid pro so if there's some setting that I should look for to get the grooves to either sound properly or what, what would I look for?

Or is it a matter of converting them all to individual tracks AFTER I've dragged all the grooves into the composition? Like... I've got all the grooves all perfectly placed in the composition window. Is there any way I can click something and have them all magically transform into individual tracks without having to start over?

 

[CudBucket]

I dig that Drew. Is that the Studio and T100? Very heavy. I have to get off my *** and record my ****. And I mean, ****.

 

[FastRedPonyCar]

yup that it is... recorded using a vintage 30 and the 57.

 

[FastRedPonyCar]

Round 2.

I can't figure out how to get the drum tracks separated by themselves yet. I think i've got an idea how but it'll take forever.

For the time being, I applied those eq settings you reccomended MRC for the drums and tweaking them around a hair, killed all the compression on the guitar tracks and just applied minimal compression on the overall mix.

In the ezdrummer mixer, the last slider "Comp mix" am I correct in assuming this is the level of compression EZ drummer can apply? If so I lowerd it all the way down and used the SSL comp instead.

I pulled the Maxxbass plugin off all the guitar tracks and applied it only to the master output. I brought up the high end range for the guitar tracks and lowered their low end as well and tightened up a few timing problems. The small lead chugging part is still a little off but my hands weren't working right the day I recorded this stuff.

www.drewlankford.com/music/resipsa4.mp3


Edit: Nevermind..I forgot to raise up the overall master volume on the mix

Edit 2: Updated the link above.. should work fine.

 

[sir riff a lot]

mrd,
those were some good tips, well done.
you can hear the difference in the mix already.
Red pony, not a bad track man, cant wait to hear it with bass and vocals.

 

[petrucci111]

awesome song, tones and everything i would say kill the bass a little from the rythms and leave them for the bass player i think :?:

 

[FastRedPonyCar]

awesome song, tones and everything i would say kill the bass a little from the rythms and leave them for the bass player i think :?:

yeah one of these days I'll have him come over with his Sansamp RBI and schecter bass and try to lay down something nice. I've got an SX bass from rondo but nothing worthy of an input device. I've tried running into my mic preamp but the dynamics are all over. It's either inaudible or clipping. The compressor in my gmajor doesn't do jack squat for it either. :?