Death Metal Mix on Current Project in my studio

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John
Member Since: May 06, 2007

Hey guys,

I am looking for fellow metal heads on this one for some feedback. I have a friend of mine in my studio working on his deathmetal album, and I am still somewhat new to the game of mixing/mastering.

I am running triggered drums with different sorts of drum software (real drums sampled of course), Line 6 UX8 for guitar/bass/mic recording.

This is my first rough mixing pass at the first completed song. It is far from perfect, and I would like some feedback on it as to where I should take my next steps. I added a slight volume boost with a Waves L2 but nothing else. The link is found below:

www.speilsplashstudios.bu...hungerrough.mp3

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http://www.reverbnation.com/2ndg
Member
Since: Nov 27, 2007


Apr 12, 2010 05:33 am

mmm, DthMtl brings to mind, multi layer guitar tracks, and i mean multi, and blistering bass guitar with fuzz or OD.

drums should be clicky and low endy indeed and vox should sit back alot more than in this track, with loads of blending tools such as cavernous verb and or delay in parts.

thing that always strikes you with DM is, everything seems tracked either really hot, or its totally smashed at the mastering stage to give it its electricity.

as far as the music goes though, it doesnt scream death at all. this is not to say it cant be death, im just talking in the traditional sense ya know.

the song seems bitty, so is a good excuse to unload some fx to fill it out. Multi guitar tracks will do this also. just watch out for too much phase cancel. some eeiry keys would work swimmingly.

be good to hear it when youve finished though man for sure.
post up the finished produck.


Member
Since: Sep 30, 2009


Apr 12, 2010 12:02 pm

Quick thing, okay i'm listening on some pretty terrible laptop speakers at the moment. But. the guitar in the beginning was actually painful to listen to. Can't give you an estimate on the freq, but something needs cut there. It was pretty high. Once the range on the guitar is lower, its fine. So just focus on that intro bit. The drums sound pretty good btw! the guitar overall isn't bad either. Not amazing, but its not embarrassing at all. Decent tone.

+1 on just about everything deon said as well. layer the guitars. Drop the vocals back a bit. Keys would keep my interest a bit more here as well ;D but thats more....stylistic preference than anything.

John
Member
Since: May 06, 2007


Apr 12, 2010 02:22 pm

Well thanks a million for the replies guys. I take everything in and do what I can to follow up on.

As far as layering the guitars more, do you mean by tracking the guitars again, or is there something I can do in the mixing portions. I won't be able to get them to record guitars again, as they are all done with those and won't really want to. They are focusing on vocals now.

As far as the keys go, they don't have any in this song, but they did add a lot of them in the other tracks (5 total songs here). This one was just the only one all the vocals where done for.

Fragile, I know what you mean with the higher frequency in the intro. I already tried playing with it earlier. I am not sure how to eliminate the issue, but its like a high pitch sqeal. It was recorded that way with the tone they used on the guitar amp. I'm not real sure how to knock that down a bit.

Shuld I just take the guitar intro and put it on seperate tracks and EQ it a bit? And then leave the rest of the tracks alone?

I personally don't like the style, and would have gone with a different guitar tone and snare, but I am not use to the death genre of any sorts. But I do want to make it the best sounding as I can with what I have here so they are happy with it, and so I maybe able to draw in more paying clients down the road.

Thanks guys for the feedback. Also nice to come here and get it!

Member
Since: Sep 30, 2009


Apr 12, 2010 03:44 pm

Ah, i see what you're saying lol. Yaaa... i don't really dig this kind of music myself either lol. I really like elements from this style used with some more melodic stuff.

If you can, get them to track again. Layering for this style of music is practically a must. Plus it gives a much bigger sound. Its really amazing the subtle differences the human ear can pick up. The difference between a double tracked guitar and just the same part on 2 different tracks panned the same is like night and day. I still don't understand how our ears can do that so well haha.

Hmm. here's an idea. If they're playing well enough in time. And each rhythm guitar part is repeated twice, you could do some splicing and looping. Like, as an example to say what i mean. If you had a typical song structure

Verse A
Chorus
Verse B
Chorus
Bridge
Chorus

Then you could take guitars on Verse A, pan it left. Verse B, pan it right. And then loop that for the second verse (or reverse it, verse B in the left. A in right. that way one guitar track would be untouched while the other is split and looped). Same principle with the chorus. And then the bridge, if it was a 4 bar progression repeated twice, you could split it up half and half.

It'd only take a few minutes. might wanna try it. Pan hard (correct?) left 80, right 80. See if that makes a difference and if they were playing on time enough for it to work.

Also, listening at home on my PA system, the squelching is far from painful. Still should be worked out though if you can. Just dial the Q in as tight as you can, boost the gain to +12 or more, and move it until that frequency is most noticeable. Then do a cut at that freq, and mess with the Q and gain until it sounds good. Thats how i do things at least.

I really need an actual set of monitors :\ graduation party soon! Hopefully i can get enough cash to justify getting a few more "supplies" for my bedroom studio ;D

John
Member
Since: May 06, 2007


Apr 12, 2010 07:03 pm

Thanks fragile. hey played to a click track, but Idk if I wanna go through all that haha. If I where getting paid for this project, then maybe.

All in all, I'll play around more with it. They also asked me to cut back on the vocals a bit. I'm learning as I go I suppose.

I have another project in right now thats more metalcore and not as much death metal. They have 2 really amazing guitar players. I am having them record their tracks twice each for a total of 4 guitar tracks. Wanna see what type of panning I can do on the mix. Try and get a bit fancy... But thats for a later date. They gotta record all the guitars first lol.

http://www.reverbnation.com/2ndg
Member
Since: Nov 27, 2007


Apr 13, 2010 05:39 am

hey Rockwood, yeah man, all you can do is your end of the mixing part.
The only thing making this song death is the vox style, the music not so much ya know.

as far as extra tracking the guitars, ya really need the extra "takes" to get much effect. unless you used POd farm then you can just use the same takes and just change the amp set ups for extra layering.

panning i would go 30, 80, left, right, if you have 4 guitar tracks.
another thing you can try also is,
if for example you have a guitar @30left, you can set up an FX track with a delay of say 20ms, and pan that track hard right or around that area.
this is called fattening. you may well already know this though i thought i would chuck it in there.

John
Member
Since: May 06, 2007


Apr 14, 2010 11:08 am

Thanks again Deon. Unfortunatly, not all guitar players like the Line 6 gearbox/pod farm ordeal. Digital Vs Analog war ontinues on this one. He wanted to use his own cab and tone. I can respect that though. I like the Line 6 stuff for just that reason; the ability to change things on the fly. For this project, he did 2 guitar tracks over all. But played them as if he were 2 different guitar players really. So I don't have much over leeway for double up. They did A LOT of pre production and he nailed a lot of the tunes in one take.

As far as the panning ordeal goes, I know a little about it, but not much as far as making the tracks sound fatter. So keep the tips comin' guys! I am learning as I go along. And I actualy need help on another project I just started for another band.

This is a more direct metal type project. They are into Lamb Of God, Chimaira, and Unearth to name a few. 2 pretty crazy guitar players on this one as well. They are totaly in support of the digital Line 6 setup, and I have the gearbox plugins lined up for them.

So here is their setup. They are using 7 string guitars, but the one guitar player has his 7 string on back order. So they are going to do all their tracking with the 1st guitar players 7 string. I already told them to change the strings on it and get them broken in, as they ones he had on it where kinda old.

I planned on having them track each song with an un-processed track being laid down, so the plugin could do all the processing in post.

So what would you guys suggest to get some killer sounds out of this as far as the mixing goes using panning effects and the multi tracks? I already planned on both guitar players recording their tracks twice for a total of 4 guitar tracks. 2 tracks per player and using 2 different tones...

What kind of panning tricks or any tricks for that matter, can I look into playing around with?

http://www.reverbnation.com/2ndg
Member
Since: Nov 27, 2007


Apr 15, 2010 09:24 am

i would get as much recorded as possible. you dont have to use everyting but if you have an arsenal then you can choose.

i havent done it yet but i want to mix the Pod farm **** with the reall thing and see how it sounds.
should sound fat as. waveforms will be completley different which will be good theoreticaly.

panning. i can only chuck in what i mentioned.
how many tracks of gits?: as many as you can get if they are tight.
drop some out for parts of the song, bring some more in for others.

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