[Heavy Metal]Some feedback for the mixes please

[Kiview]

I'm currently mixing our EP and have so far finished with this two songs.
We now the singing is sloppy, but the people like it this way :D
Sound should be 80s Metal like, so no modern big size metal production.

Do think it would make sense to give the tracks to real studio for mastering?
Or isn't the quality good enough?

http://www.redkev.de/Songs/Divine%20Wind.mp3

http://www.redkev.de/Songs/Heavy%20Metal%20Generation.mp3
(fade out still to come)

Thanks in advance

[Chris Martins]

Not bad...

Without making it too drastic, the drums and guitars would defintely benefit from lowering the vocals a bit, I'd say try a couple of dbs at least. I understand the vocals are meant to sound "sloppy", but "sloppy" and "in your face" seldom go hand in hand... Other than that, if your levels are close to 0db, why bother mastering for this style ?

[jax]

I think it sounds good and you should to give it to sound engineer for mastering.
I've tried to do some pseudo-mastering with one of your songs. Here's the result. You'll probably not like it because it's compressed and maximised too much (80's productions never were like this ;-))

But anyway here it is:
http://www.box.net/shared/ja5p69nhdm

Cheers!

[jax]

In Divine Wind there is a problem at about 1:02

Opened Hihat is cut off instantly when ride starts playing.

[moio]

There are some timing issues in the 2nd song, especially with the bass drum. you can hear it very clearly at 0:06 and 0:13 ...Maybe you can correct that in Reaper?
cheers,
m

[Kiview]

In Divine Wind there is a problem at about 1:02

Opened Hihat is cut off instantly when ride starts playing.

Yeah your right (you too moio).
I didn't do the drum recording I just got the tracks and at some points you can hear the punch ins (a fucking mess with our drummer).
Same problem with the tightness (and BD and SD are already sampled, so I might give it a try to correct it a bit).

I gonna listen to your master later on my monitors, thanks for your help.

So I just listened to it. You're right, it's a bit to hot for me. But after all i really like it.
What do you use for mastering? Software only?

[jax]

So I just listened to it. You're right, it's a bit to hot for me. But after all i really like it.
What do you use for mastering? Software only?

Software only and all free

1> DensitymkII (http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/)
2> Antress Modern Deep Purple (http://antress.er-webs.com/)
3> Rescue (http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/)
4> Aradaz Maximizer (http://aradaz.blogspot.com/)

I really don't know too much about mastering so there may be some errors in my signal chain ;-)

I think that some tweaking in #1 and #4 could make this master more acceptable for you (less hot).
You can try mastering it yourself, even if you'll finally have it mastered by professional. You can give him/her your version as a reference what you want to achieve.

[Kiview]

Yes I thinks that's an good idea.
I've got the T-Racks3 Singles, should be finde for a first premastering.

Thanks for your advice.

[chrisharris]

Fun tunes.

I gotta' agree on the mix side that they would benefit from more...ummm..."ass?" More 50-70Hz in the kick, and SOME lowmids in the bass, maybe. They're articulated ok, just no thump, which makes the mixes pretty 2 dimensional.

Love the tunes.

[Kiview]

You might be right.
I'm still not 100% comfortable with my new monitor setup including a subwoofer.
So at the moment I'm doing a quite defensive bass mix.

Thx for your words.

[op76]

First song was like "hit the lights" by metallica...solos and everything =) Nice piece of music I would say. It sounded quite in balance (compared to kill'em all), except, that I personally would bring those vocals down a bit, and put more gain (as in kill'em all) on guitars. You also need to bring up bottom end.

One thing that bothers me as a player (not even drum player), that drums are panned from auditors view, not drummers. I know this is "the right way", but everyone who has played drums even a little bit will disagree that rule, and no-one else cares, so I think drums should be panned as drummers view.

[chrisharris]

One thing that bothers me as a player (not even drum player), that drums are panned from auditors view, not drummers. I know this is "the right way", but everyone who has played drums even a little bit will disagree that rule, and no-one else cares, so I think drums should be panned as drummers view.

lol...that's a great way of thinking about it. From now on, I'm going to mix drums from the drummer's perspective. And if anybody ever complains (doubtful) then he's left handed from now on.

[Kiview]

First song was like "hit the lights" by metallica...solos and everything =) Nice piece of music I would say. It sounded quite in balance (compared to kill'em all), except, that I personally would bring those vocals down a bit, and put more gain (as in kill'em all) on guitars. You also need to bring up bottom end.

Thx for your advice.
Would you add bottom end by bass, bass drum, or just overall?

I allready put the vocals down a bit and did it already on the last mixes I'm currently finishing.

[op76]

You just need to listen it track by track. You can try to lift bottom end from your master EQ or multiband compressor, but usually it's better to go "deeper". I would try to boost BD from 60-70Hz, and bass from 70-100Hz. If it still sounds, that it lacks fullness, I would try to add bottom and low-mids to guitars around 100-400Hz. Be careful with low-mids, because they tend to make things muddy.

[shemp]

same comments as above pretty much. Cool vibe man.

[chrisharris]

I listened again. I think just turning the actual bass up a few db would help even out a lot of it.

[Kiview]

Yeah you're all right, the bass drum as well as the bass frequencies in the toms were not very satisfiying. For the bass guitar I really like this a bit percussive sound without much lowend.

A friend of mine from university is going to master the stuff now. He already got really great results with the mix above (including some tweaks like putting the vox a bit down, that really was it!) and I think he has a better view for the sound I'm aiming at than many professional studios.

Thx to everyone for your advices. This really is the forum where I got the most helpful feedback :)