Some mixes for your ears

Room 201

Hi folks,

I'm a live engineer/musician from cork who's been having a stab at studio recording in the last year or so, pulling in a few different bands to my project studio.

I'd really like to get some opinions on a few tracks i've done.

Here's Mox Mox, a hardcore-ish 4 piece who did 6 tracks with me.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/mox-mox-todays-the-day


This one is the David Nelligan Thing, with a recording for a live video in the pavilion.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/david-nelligan-thing-responsibilities


Another live one, Gabriel Shirley in Án Crubín, formerly the lobby.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/gabriel-shirley-kingfisher


An orchestral piece, recorded in Cork School of Music for the soundtrack to a play.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/latch-dark-tension-music


And finally, Iweriú, a doom-y, sludgy metal group who did a 3 song demo with me last year and have just come back in for a 4th tune.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/iweriu-ghost-in-the-machine

Room 201

Hmmm... quite a few views but no responses. I hope this isn't a situation of 'if you haven't anything good to say, say nothing'!

It doesn't help having to link instead of being able to imbed the soundcloud player. I tried that when originally posting but it just wasn't working. A lot of other forums have a button specifically for soundcloud, seems strange to me that boards lacks that functionality.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

Here's Mox Mox, a hardcore-ish 4 piece who did 6 tracks with me.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/mox-mox-todays-the-day

<< sounds small , aprt form the big harsh guitars no punch, little drums , no bass, just no balls and all harsh guitars.

This one is the David Nelligan Thing, with a recording for a live video in the pavilion.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/david-nelligan-thing-responsibilities

<<< sounds good enough to me


Another live one, Gabriel Shirley in Án Crubín, formerly the lobby.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/gabriel-shirley-kingfisher

<< bit thin, but not bad

An orchestral piece, recorded in Cork School of Music for the soundtrack to a play.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/latch-dark-tension-music

<< pretty good as well


And finally, Iweriú, a doom-y, sludgy metal group who did a 3 song demo with me last year and have just come back in for a 4th tune.
http://soundcloud.com/room201/iweriu...in-the-machine


like the other rocky one , a bit better but sounds small and no punch / clarity



hope that helps in some way !

Room 201

Nice one DaDumTish, really appreciate the input.

Sounds like a specific issue to me if you've the same complaint with two tracks of a similar(ish) style, something for me to consider.
I can understand what your saying about them and it's a real shame if I haven't done the rock songs justice in the impact dept, particularly with the mox mox drumming which i particularly liked, both for the sound of the kit and the performance. Wondering now if it's over/under processing or the general mix.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

my approach - and i stress im an ammie - still alot to learn.
is to create a beefy drum and bass mix first thats kicking along

this means generally

1/ creating a drum group and adding the dry drum mix ( where each drum has bee pre procssed with eq / compression IF NEEDED) and adding in a heavily squashed / compressed of the drum mix to this group .

2/ Create a bass group with a channell fed from the di take and from the cab mic . or if no cab mic then duplicate the di take and send it to a bass sim like MARK Studio , or even a guitar sim to get a bass / room cab effect
both are eqd and copressed as required if any.


then put the vocal in and see how it sounds

3/ then do the guitars , eqing to allow the drums and bass / or the guitars low end to fill the low end .


panning and automation do alot of the work with some hi pass filtering on all channels bar kick and bass mainly my mix attempts.

i also do alot of it in mono on NS10'S - if it sounds clear seperated and punchy on these at low volume then it tends to sound big and fullon the main montors in stereo.

dont under estimate the fact that the bass and drums need to sound hyper real , not like they really sound - for rock stuff.

Room 201

Interestingly enough I followed a similar approach on these.
Drums grouped then sent for seriously squashed parallel compression. I'm generally aiming for a realistic sounding kit though, kinda out of habit from live mixing, perhaps it's time push it a bit there.

I'm also curious to find you think the Iweriú track had a bit more impact than the Mox Mox track. With the Iweriú one we struggled with a cobbled together kit, that I probably hadn't mic'd particularly well, while the Mox Mox kit was well tuned and meticulously mic'd. Could be that the poorer recording made me work a bit harder.

As for Bass, mixing it is still my weakest point. Disappointingly so being a Bass player. I find the toughest aspect of mixing at the moment is getting the Kick and Bass working well together while also keeping the balance with the guitars.
In the initial Iweriú recordings I had a lot of trouble keeping the Bass and one of the Guitars seperated, a combination of low tuning and both having quite a bit of distortion made them merge. With the new song they're doing with me now we played with the sounds more before recording to try to avoid it.

I also prefer to build a pretty full instrumental mix before adding the vocal, again probably a habit from live mixing. I'm gonna try your mix building approach on the first mix of my current project to see if I find any difference.