Old track, new work...check my mix eh?

[Repetition Compulsion]

edit: Updated links

Old:
https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/duality-1

New:
https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/pestilent-conquest

Newest:
https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/pestilent-conquest2

Other track with similar work done (basically the same mix but with a different guitar with better tone)
https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/our-powers-combined-6

I posted this one up a while back but its gone through some changes since. I've been tweaking the drum parts here and there, my drummer still hasn't gotten around to getting in and doing it himself so I'm doing the best I can in the meantime. There are definitely still a few parts where the drums don't sound right to me, but I think they're getting there.

The bulk of the mixing work I've done has also been on getting the drums to sound right. I think I've finally gotten my kick & toms to sound nice and big but also very sharp and defined. Eventually I'm going to re-record the guitars and work on some better tones for them, same with the bass. I just don't know what the hell to do with the bass...doesn't help that the recording is pretty sloppy and in too many parts of the song its just following along on the root notes. Every time I try splitting it off into separate tracks and using distortion with HPF/LPF on a track and all that madness that everyone talks about...it just winds up sounding even more like crap :/

So all my negativity aside...hows it sound? I'm particularly fond of the drums towards the end right after the pause with the kick/tom followed by the bell hit and then into a heavy thing...

[Repetition Compulsion]

No love?

Soundcloud links so its easier to listen to than dropbox, with the older mix posted for reference.

Old:
https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/duality-1

New:
https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/pestilent-conquest


Some key points of interest for me right now:
Do the toms sound like toms & sound good? I've always had the most trouble with getting them right out of anything in the drum kit.

Same question for the snare.

Is the kick overpowering? Sitting in the low-end well? Is it big & ballsy while still staying tight & defined, or have I pulled the wool over my own eyes again?

Are the guitars loud enough? I'm always back & forth between them being a bit too far under the drums, and vastly out-doing the drums.

Anybody want to throw down some vocals? Always looking for someone to drop some vocals in (for fun)

(also renamed the track...still trying to rename the whole project, haven't been a fan of "Separation Theory" since the day I came up with it.)

[MonoKulture]

No love?

Soundcloud links so its easier to listen to than dropbox, with the older mix posted for reference.

Old:
https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/duality-1

New:
https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/pestilent-conquest


Some key points of interest for me right now:
Do the toms sound like toms & sound good? I've always had the most trouble with getting them right out of anything in the drum kit.

Same question for the snare.

Is the kick overpowering? Sitting in the low-end well? Is it big & ballsy while still staying tight & defined, or have I pulled the wool over my own eyes again?

Are the guitars loud enough? I'm always back & forth between them being a bit too far under the drums, and vastly out-doing the drums.

Anybody want to throw down some vocals? Always looking for someone to drop some vocals in (for fun)

(also renamed the track...still trying to rename the whole project, haven't been a fan of "Separation Theory" since the day I came up with it.)

It sounds fine to me. I don't hear a massive difference between the 2 mixes on earbuds, the snare is a bit punchier in the new one though.

The balance guitar to drums seems good to me. As long as its not way out then you are ok. Our ears hear differently day to day and you can get super-critical, but I reckon you're good.

I'd say I'd like to hear a wider variation in guitar sounds over the course of the piece. You are varying it, but maybe not enough. Of course if you add interest with vocals that may not be needed so much. I think vocals or something else is needed to sustain my interest a bit more.

I think your cymbals are a bit polite-sounding at the 3 minute mark.. need to be a bit more explosive sounding.

But I'd leave all that until you have vocals, because that will change everything!

Great work anyway!!!

[Repetition Compulsion]

Thanks man. I'm more and more resigned lately to just doing this up as an instrumental thing. I have a friend back home who is supposed to do vocals for me but I doubt if he'll ever come through without me showing up at his house and setting up a booth for him. I'd still want it to be mostly riffs like it is though, as opposed to more typical instrumental metal that has a guitar solo across the entire track.

I do definitely want to make the guitars (and bass) more interesting throughout the track. Its a bit of a challenge for me as I've always just been the low-down riffing type. But I've got some books on theory in the mail so hopefully I'll start learning how to put more complex ideas together. I travel quite a bit so trying to get new things written can be difficult sometimes.

I'll see what I can do with that segment around 3 minutes...that little spot has been the most difficult for me when it comes to putting drums on it.

[Repetition Compulsion]

Alright I realize I'm probably at the point that I need to stop messing around with this mix, but I'm traveling and I have absolutely nothing else to do.

I did a relatively large re-work of the kick drum...disabled one of the mic's and disabled one of the samples as well (I had tripled up the kick sample...heh.) I also put a tube power-amp VST, Ignite Amps TPA-1, on the kick, toms & bass. I feel like it added just a tiiiiny bit of grit and gave things a little more life. My kick finally has that super-tightness that I've been after and it doesn't get so boomy during the faster double bass areas.

Other than I messed with the panning of the toms, reversed the stereo field of the drum kit to try the 'audience perspective' thing, re-eq'd the guitar tracks, did a bunch of work to the bass and adjusted a few levels on the cymbals. After all that I touched up the mix between the kick/snare/guitar/bass and here are.

Hopefully somebody agrees, but I think I'm starting to get a little more clarity and tightness into the mix which in turn is letting each piece of it be heard a little easier.

https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/pestilent-conquest2

edit: One more track for good measure, the other one I've been working on recently.

https://soundcloud.com/wisdomcomes/our-powers-combined-4-001

[g4greg]

IMHO, the newest mix sounds much better...

Massive drums, and the guitar processing is much more smooth and ear pleasing.

Amazing whata little EQ, delay and reverb can do eh?

And yeh, you need a growler who can also sing clear notes....

That song is begging for rough vocals.

Very good song, BTW :)

[Repetition Compulsion]

Thanks man! Yeah I've been really struggling with keeping the guitars nice and bright but without making them harsh. At some point I'll get the time to re-record them (they are SLOPPY. AS. HELL. in a lot of places) and use some better tones for them...I know what I have now is not the best I can pull out of the equipment I have.

I think on the other one I posted (Our Powers Combined) its actually a bit too bright over-all? Sounded fine through my headphones but in the car it was super bright and a little thin. I'm finally going back to my apartment tomorrow so I can reference everything on my monitors again.


If I could find someone to do vocals I would :( I've never been successful at learning how to growl/scream and I have no good place to record my own vocals anyways. I've thought about just speaking some lyrics and then using a bunch of FX to make them interesting, but I'm pretty sure that would turn out lame.

I think one thing bugging me now is that the toms don't seem to have a lot of 'body' to them, but when I try and correct that they just start to sound funny. There's a rather large & wide cut around 500hz on all of them. Ah well, at least those floor toms bring the low-end thunder like I enjoy :P More work to be done but I think this last iteration is leaps & bounds closer to where I want it to be than anything I've done with these in the past year.

[cookiecookiesunda]

Great sound. Everything is clear and distinct, as many kicks as there are haha.

Personally, I would make the guitars a bit grittier somehow, but that's probably just how you want it. Right now they're a bit too polished for my taste.

But everything is coming through nicely, not too overpowering. I'm impressed by the drum processing.

[Repetition Compulsion]

Awesome thanks man.

I'm not satisfied with the guitar tones, but I think they're as good as they're going to until I A) Put more effort into tweaking my pod, C) Upgrade the pickups in my guitar and/or D) Buy myself an AxeFXII. I do tend to like the smooth/shimmering guitar tone found in a lot of modern productions, but I also know that it doesn't work as well for the music I write...that type of thing works a lot better for big ringing chords and whatnot.

Thanks for the good words on the drums. SD has some outstanding sounds in it once you start figuring out how to process them. These are my first tracks with it after a couple years of using Slate drums, those are pretty much pre-processed so its been quite an adjustment figuring out how to work with the incredibly dry samples that SD offers. I think I'm finally getting there though. Now if I could just figure out how to write better drum parts :p

[mschuster]

listened to the 'newest mix'. here's my .02.

i think the drums, as a whole, need to be balanced a little better. on my system here all i'm hearing is kick and snare - and occasionally a cymbal here and there. would have been nicer to hear the hi-hat defined a little more with the kick/snare during simple comping times. might play with the OHs/amb mics a little more too.

no major complaints with bass/guitars. good sep in the mix as a whole, but just sounds like it might benefit from a little more "glue". maybe experiment with a comp/sat plug on your master buss. sometimes helps.

[Repetition Compulsion]

Cool thanks. I used to get a lot of comments that my cymbals were always too loud so now I may be too careful with them. The hats are only used in the first slow part, I'll take a closer listen to them.

I've got reacomp on the master track but I'm pretty conservative with it, haven't delved very far yet into compressors so I haven't really wanted to screw things up with it. Guess that can be my next step in the learning process...figure out why and how exactly a comp acts as glue.

Much appreciate the comments.