Mix and Master of a track - Sounding thin?

spiderjazz

Hey, I have a mix and master of a track here that I recorded, only started recording stuff recently so learning new stuff with everything I record. I'm finding that my mixes sound like they're not fat enough/low end and I'm wondering what improvements I can make. This is my first recording using an actual bass guitar so maybe I need to work on that. Either way, here is the mix, and a quick loudness master on it.

Mix
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15798771/hardcore4.wav

Mastered
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15798771/2legit%281stmaster%292.wav

drum!

If you're using Logic, there are some excellent mastering presets that can be applied on the main output channel and then you can very easily tweak from there. But there's some many presets you'd probably find something you like without even the need for tweaking.

spiderjazz

Thanks. I'm using reaper and I've just started using ozone for mastering. I'm new to the whole recording thing though so concentrating on getting my mixes sounding good first before I start diving into mastering!

Paolo_M

Edit: I'm at work so I can't listen to your tracks, this is just general mixing advise.

Low end's a hard one to master (pardon the pun).
When I was first recording I tending to boost the lows on everything to get a huge sound. I'm a metal guy so I was aiming for Burn My Eyes type sound.

I've found that the trick is "less is more". Identify the instruments that don't need lows and remove it with a high pass. Guitars below 100Hz-ish. Compressing guitar, after high-passing, up to about 300Hz is fairly common. Even snares, vocals etc. can/should be high passed.

If this is not done then the lows in the final mix can sound boomy or wooly if it's pushed. There's just too much crap going on down there.

Low end instruments tend to have fairly wild amounts of power, produce large transient peaks, and so need a decent amount of compression to control them and keep headroom. Electric bass guitar is a good example. It can jump around wildly.

With clever high passing, and compression, you should then be able to bring up the lows, without clipping, and still get a powerful and punchy sound.

spiderjazz

Paolo_M wrote: »

Edit: I'm at work so I can't listen to your tracks, this is just general mixing advise.

Low end's a hard one to master (pardon the pun).
When I was first recording I tending to boost the lows on everything to get a huge sound. I'm a metal guy so I was aiming for Burn My Eyes type sound.

I've found that the trick is "less is more". Identify the instruments that don't need lows and remove it with a high pass. Guitars below 100Hz-ish. Compressing guitar, after high-passing, up to about 300Hz is fairly common. Even snares, vocals etc. can/should be high passed.

If this is not done then the lows in the final mix can sound boomy or wooly if it's pushed. There's just too much crap going on down there.

Low end instruments tend to have fairly wild amounts of power, produce large transient peaks, and so need a decent amount of compression to control them and keep headroom. Electric bass guitar is a good example. It can jump around wildly.

With clever high passing, and compression, you should then be able to bring up the lows, without clipping, and still get a powerful and punchy sound.

Thanks Paulo (Eamonn(with the 5150) here btw)

I've high passed the guitars, and I had the bass high passed at around 80hz, gonna drop that though and maybe boost the low end of it a bit more. I haven't compressed the guitars as of yet, I've done that on previous tracks alright though, the ol Andy Sneap trick of multiband compressing just the low mids.

I have the bass well compressed, and I have it sidechained compressed to the kick as well to let it through a bit more. I think the snare and kick need more body though so I'm gonna give em a bit of tweaking.

eoin5

spiderjazz wrote: »

Thanks Paulo (Eamonn(with the 5150) here btw)

I've high passed the guitars, and I had the bass high passed at around 80hz, gonna drop that though and maybe boost the low end of it a bit more. I haven't compressed the guitars as of yet, I've done that on previous tracks alright though, the ol Andy Sneap trick of multiband compressing just the low mids.

I have the bass well compressed, and I have it sidechained compressed to the kick as well to let it through a bit more. I think the snare and kick need more body though so I'm gonna give em a bit of tweaking.

I've found amp sims seem to do a nicer job at filling out the bottom end of a bass than just eqing. If you havent already you could give the bass settings a try on the free for a year waves thingy: http://www.wavesgtr.com/html/product_gtr_solo.html

spiderjazz

eoin5 wrote: »

I've found amp sims seem to do a nicer job at filling out the bottom end of a bass than just eqing. If you havent already you could give the bass settings a try on the free for a year waves thingy: http://www.wavesgtr.com/html/product_gtr_solo.html

I'm using Ampeg SVX for bass, so maybe I need to add some more bass to that. I'm gonna give a look at the mix again tonight/tomorrow and try and tweak the low end items a bit more and I'll throw up another mix then.

spiderjazz

Right, spent a bit of time on it this evening and tweaked it around.

Major Changes

- I've changed the kick and the snare to samples. Did some eqing on them.
- Took out the high pass on the bass and boosted some frequencies on it.

I've just put some GClip on the master track to boost the volume a bit. Let me know what you think.

New Mix
http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/hardcore7-loud

Old Mix
http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/2legit-1stmaster-2

drumdrum

Sounds good man.

The electric guitar sounds fairly digital to my ears. Its an amp modeller / software simulator yeah?
It just sounds a bit...."over processed" for lack of better words, which some people love, but personally its not my bag of tea on its own.

I've been experimenting with recording distorted guitar lately (as Paolo_M will probably know....seriously listen to him, he really seems to know his stuff! ) and I've tried everything from micing up real amps to DI-ing the guitar and using Amp modellers.

Now from my recent experiences (which will vary from yours given different equipment) I've found that using a combination of BOTH DI and recorded guitars gives a great sound. Software emulation IMO gives a decent note definition but it sounds digital and slightly fake. Recorded can be a real pain to get decent note definition so everything isn't very fizzy. What I find is that is you get a good mix of both and with some clever panning you can get a decent result.
As I said before, I'm still experimenting and chasing that sound I'm after, but I just thought I'd mention it to give some ideas.

As for overall "heaviness", I find that the secret to a great heavy sound is the bass guitar tone! Try overdriving the bass (maybe with a light distortion depending on taste) and lessening the distortion on the guitars a bit....IMHO, the bass is a little low in your mix, but sure to each their own.

best of luck all the same!

spiderjazz

New Mix (again)

http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/hardcore9

Changes

Bass is eq'd to be bassier
Snare Replaced

spiderjazz

drumdrum wrote: »

Sounds good man.

The electric guitar sounds fairly digital to my ears. Its an amp modeller / software simulator yeah?
It just sounds a bit...."over processed" for lack of better words, which some people love, but personally its not my bag of tea on its own.

I've been experimenting with recording distorted guitar lately (as Paolo_M will probably know....seriously listen to him, he really seems to know his stuff! ) and I've tried everything from micing up real amps to DI-ing the guitar and using Amp modellers.

Now from my recent experiences (which will vary from yours given different equipment) I've found that using a combination of BOTH DI and recorded guitars gives a great sound. Software emulation IMO gives a decent note definition but it sounds digital and slightly fake. Recorded can be a real pain to get decent note definition so everything isn't very fizzy. What I find is that is you get a good mix of both and with some clever panning you can get a decent result.
As I said before, I'm still experimenting and chasing that sound I'm after, but I just thought I'd mention it to give some ideas.

As for overall "heaviness", I find that the secret to a great heavy sound is the bass guitar tone! Try overdriving the bass (maybe with a light distortion depending on taste) and lessening the distortion on the guitars a bit....IMHO, the bass is a little low in your mix, but sure to each their own.

best of luck all the same!

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, the guitar amp is digital sim alright. 2 reasons for it:
1. I don't have the ability to record amps at volume at the mo
2. I want to have a set up where I can record/mix my own stuff with just a preamp, guitar and monitors at the moment.

Ideal world I would be using my amps, but for ease of use at the moment I'm gonna be sticking/stuck with amp sims.

I uploaded a new mix above with the bass guitar tweaked around, I hadn't recorded with a real bass before so it's a bit of a learning curve getting it all fitting into the mix.

Have you any of the stuff you have recorded up online?

fitz

drumdrum wrote: »

Now from my recent experiences (which will vary from yours given different equipment) I've found that using a combination of BOTH DI and recorded guitars gives a great sound. Software emulation IMO gives a decent note definition but it sounds digital and slightly fake. Recorded can be a real pain to get decent note definition so everything isn't very fizzy. What I find is that is you get a good mix of both and with some clever panning you can get a decent result.

If you're finding things fizzy and lacking definition it could be down to mic placement, but also most likely you've got too much gain. Lower the gain, record more takes and stack 'em up. In my experience, that's how to go about getting a huge guitar sound.

Our latest track (link in my sig) has plenty of stacking of electric guitars, and sounds massive.

Spiderjazz, if you want to get away from amp sims, check out my posts on this thread: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70704173

ClutchIt

spiderjazz wrote: »

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, the guitar amp is digital sim alright. 2 reasons for it:
1. I don't have the ability to record amps at volume at the mo
2. I want to have a set up where I can record/mix my own stuff with just a preamp, guitar and monitors at the moment.

Ideal world I would be using my amps, but for ease of use at the moment I'm gonna be sticking/stuck with amp sims.

I uploaded a new mix above with the bass guitar tweaked around, I hadn't recorded with a real bass before so it's a bit of a learning curve getting it all fitting into the mix.

Have you any of the stuff you have recorded up online?

Hi man, I think this mix sounds really good tbh. What amp sims package do you use? What DAW? What interface?

I have been using line6 gearbox, but I hate the distorted sounds on it,

Thanks for the info!

spiderjazz

fitz wrote: »

If you're finding things fizzy and lacking definition it could be down to mic placement, but also most likely you've got too much gain. Lower the gain, record more takes and stack 'em up. In my experience, that's how to go about getting a huge guitar sound.

Our latest track (link in my sig) has plenty of stacking of electric guitars, and sounds massive.

Spiderjazz, if you want to get away from amp sims, check out my posts on this thread: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=70704173

To be honest I'm quite happy with the amp sims, having heard some of the stuff that guys have done with them I'd be hard pressed to get any better myself using an amp. I'm happy with the tone I got in the recording, and should improve with more practise. I must check out your recordings when I get home.

spiderjazz

New version again of the mix, I think hardcore11 is my favourite of them, cymbals and bass are slightly tweaked. Some older recordings on the page as well

http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz

spiderjazz

ClutchIt wrote: »

Hi man, I think this mix sounds really good tbh. What amp sims package do you use? What DAW? What interface?

I have been using line6 gearbox, but I hate the distorted sounds on it,

Thanks for the info!

For this I used

Reaper as my Daw

My interface is http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/AudioBuddy.html I bought it years ago and it was sitting in a press until recently. Plugged straight into laptop soundcard.

Guitars: Tubescreamer Plug in, Lepou Lecto (free rectifier amp sim), Keffir to load cab impulses, bit of eq. 2 tracks, one left and right.

Bass: Bass through the same interface, ran it through Ampeg SVX.

The drums were from Drumkit from hell, with the kick and snare replaced.

Have you tried running gearbox through some impulses? You should check out the Andy Sneap forum on ultimate metal, it's great for information.

spiderjazz

Final mix of the song with vocals.

http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/dolph-lundgrens-party-dungeon

Paolo_M

spiderjazz wrote: »

Final mix of the song with vocals.

http://soundcloud.com/spiderjazz/dolph-lundgrens-party-dungeon

Sounds great!
Who's doing the screaming?
That double triplet track sounds good too.

spiderjazz

Paolo_M wrote: »

Sounds great!
Who's doing the screaming?
That double triplet track sounds good too.

Cheers. Got a buddy of mine to do the vocals, he's in a few bands around the city (Slugbait, Ephialtes). I'm gonna keep a track of all my recordings up on my soundcloud, hopefully they will sound better chronologically!