Melodic / Hardcore Rock song for critique

[StepOne]

This is the first time I've recorded an actual band and put Reaper through its paces, I'd love to get feedback on the tune from other ears and systems.

A few notes:

I am aware that there's some minor problems with plosives and guitar noise in the mix.
I "mastered" the tune with radio in mind - the song is loud and VERY compressed.
I'm not sure how well the bass extension is in the mix - My RP5s don't extend very well and my room is untreated - but it sounds heavy in my car.

Oh, and I've never attempted to mix a tune with screaming in it before http://forum.cockos.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Any suggestions are welcome!

*snip*

[StepOne]

:facepalm:

Oops, I had a bit of a "panning" malfunction, reupped a fixed version in first post.

[Alex.W]

Yeah, my advice on mixing screaming is pretty much just like regular vocals, except I usually use less Reeverb to place them out in front. Compress quite heavily too. I find if you use reeverb with screamers it smooths it out too much and ruins the abrasiveness of the screaming. The way you have your screams mixed in this tune is pretty much how I'd mix 'em.

As for this song and your mix, it's really good! Very professional sounding. The only thing that I found kind of strange was that it sounds to me like the vocalist is positioned behind the guitars? I think both the main and screaming vocals need to be turned up a little bit, or guitars and drums down a little bit.

The guitar tone is alright, but it sounds like it could use some doubling to thicken it up, and maybe some reverb to fit it in the same room as the drums. I'm guessing the guitar was recorded through a Pod/D.I'd?

Also I can't really hear the bass guitar at all. I know it's there, but I can't really "hear" it.

That's an amazing first band recording, I bet they're stoked on the quality!

[kindafishy]

It sounds really quite good StepOne, nice job! The things I am noticing probably just come down to preferences and opinions, but I will throw them out there anyway.

The clean guitar and distorted guitar seem out of balance with each other both in terms of EQ and volume. When it comes to clean and distorted guitars, I find it advantageous to use similar EQ settings so the distortion sounds like an extension of the clean channel (like you stepped on a pedal). The clean guitar in this song also sounds either a little louder than the distorted guitar or on par with it. It comes down to a creative choice, but I would have the clean levels far below the distorted levels.

Aside from the stylistic stuff mentioned above, I am finding that I am not hearing much in the way of bass guitar or the kick drum. I'm not getting the sense of power that should be coming from this end of the spectrum. One approach that you can consider is something that has worked really well for me on my last two mixes. I did a mix that consisted of the bass, the drums and the main vocals with nothing else. No guitar, no sweetening, no harmonies, etc. I took this mix and played it on several systems, taking notes and then tweaking it until I was happy with the levels, punch, power and drama that are created by these elements.

The vocals also sound like they are lacking a bit of thickness in the lower range. Perhaps a wide boost around the 200Hz - 250Hz range would help give some bottom end there.

I would lose the mastering for radio strategy in favour of keeping the dynamic range in tact as well. In general terms, I think crushing and squashing a song is doing the mix engineer, the band and the listener a disservice.

I hope it doesn't sound like I am picking it apart too much. I am just offering my thoughts on it because I like the song and I think you have done an outstanding job here.

[Artbay]

The only thing that I found kind of strange was that it sounds to me like the vocalist is positioned behind the guitars? I think both the main and screaming vocals need to be turned up a little bit, or guitars and drums down a little bit.agreed

[StepOne]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, they really help!

I turned up the bass guitar in the mix, increased the vocals a bit, and used slightly less compression, the new version is in the original post, any feedback is very much appreciated!

[pattonfreak1]

Goddamn....
No matter what I try I cant get my mixes to sound like this.
Mine ALWAYS sound like demo's. :(

[StepOne]

Goddamn....
No matter what I try I cant get my mixes to sound like this.
Mine ALWAYS sound like demo's. :(

Well I don't know if I'd call mine professional just yet, but hopefully its in the ballpark!

My biggest issue right now is the guitar in the 1st two choruses - because its on a higher octave, the heavyness of the low chug drops out and leaves an emptiness & slight harshness in the tune when the chorus kicks in (and the hihat switching to crash causes a loss to the crispness in the mix). The rhythm part that is played low on the guitar solo outro sounds fine. For the life of me, I can't mix the low and high parts together to fatten up the first two choruses, they seem to fight each other :(

Anyone have suggestions?

[StepOne]

I think I figured out how to make the choruses sound better - just had to tweak the eq a bit, updated version in original post.

[Smutley]

Wow! Great job - sounds great through my PC speakers so bodes well for radio listening. I'm new to Reaper & the forum and if this is the normal standard I feel duty-bound to put up something half-arsed for critique...

Summary: inspiring

[camerondye]

Very nice job.

[kindafishy]

Newest version is a big improvement. Looking forward to hearing future posts.

[surfsup]

In the beginning, the guitar sounds very good. I would love to know how you got it sounding so nice. The distorted seems a little too distorted and bassy on my Bx8a monitors.

Vocals sound great as well. You've done very good work with this song.

[Artbay]

Very nice job.definitely

[nerdfactormax]

If you're going for 'sounds like radio' you could probably squash a bit harder and look at some sort of limiting (rather than compression) as your next tool. Compression will only get you so far, because of initial transients that are faster than the attack. A little limiting may buy you enough headroom to ease off the compressors a whole lot (I gather you're already self-concious of over-squishing)

Hi-hats panned so hard sound a bit weird when using headphones. Rather than panning it closer to center, you could try dropping the hats channel (along with most of the rest of the kit) into a stereo reverb bus. Sounds like you've already got lots of the kit reverbed.

Someone earlier mentioned avoiding reverb on screams to keep the abrasiveness. I might suggest a reverb with a longer predelay to get a sense of space.

Just thoughts. It sounds pretty good.

[Chris_P_Critter]

where'd it go? :D

[bassderek]

where'd it go? :D

+1 on that.

[shemp]

where'd it go? :D

+2. I finally get to listen to the contributions in this section and this one is gone! That's it, I'm outa here. lol