I played more with the mic placement on the amp sims, Im using BIAS,when I went back to the recording project to remove the room. I got them hard panned into brainworx shredspread, spread to 150 percent. Every channel in my mixing project has some sort of console and a tape emu as well, even the returns. Dirtied them up with decapitator and then squashed the crap out of them with black 76. For a reverb I used the waves manny plug on a return.

 

Last edited: Mar 29, 2016

Sounds fucking great..

 

I couldnt get renaisance to load, so I picked a random waves verb, the manny one and it had a preset for rhythm gtrs that was using only the reflections. tweaked the eq on it. Fed it from the parallel I used to dirty and squash the rhythm gtrs.
Are the cymbals/OH's too roomy?

 

No just the drum bus needs that top end lift. try it out. You are getting very close to where I am not needed but lets look at the vocals. I liked what you had with the vocals before but lets see what happens now it is all relative. Remember bring the vocals up to where you think they are to loud then give them 1.5db.
Spencer

 

Yeh we should probably talk about the rear bus etc and parallel compression.

 

So parallel compression.
When you compress the crap out of something it takes on a sound of its own. Sometimes its great sometimes it feels a little constricted but you like the attack etc. Feed in direct a little of the original signal till you get the best of both worlds. Thats parallel compression. Simple.

 

Now the rear bus is an Andrew Schweps idea. If something is important and maintains the groove or punches the vocal, feed it to the parallel rear bus. Which is an over compressed peice of shit basically but just adds that punch back into the mix. If Andrew wants to speak up please do it now and set me right.

 

I use a lot of parallel compression and EQing, I have 4 kick tracks and 4 snare tracks including the side triggered gated white noise. Sometimes I'll even duplicate the sample or recording instead of bussing it. One might be the top/sizzle, another one the meat of the sound, and another one the bottom/sub or some dirt or flavor from a compressor, etc.
Track fx are mostly just console/comp and tape emulations and EQs. The sends/aux/returns are where the magic happens.
When I do use any parallel busses/sends, I like to try it both pre and post fx (and/or fader depending on the gain staging) to see what sounds better as well. Then balancing them all properly with each other is where the real mixing comes in.
There's are no real rules to how you send to the returns either. I experiment A LOT.
For example, sending my 4 snares to the drum reverb return, sometimes I'll send a little from each snare track, or make a snare bus and send to the reverb return, or even both. The main thing is to keep an eye on your plugs and don't drive em too hard. I use a volume trim type plugin all over in the chains and project to keep the gain staging right.

 

Last edited: Mar 29, 2016

I think you should explain that in detail for everybody else that is following this..
Spencer

 

I do want you to mix another track without my input and then I will piss all over the mix or not.
Spencer

 

Please remember in this senario it is not me that is fixing the mix, you are making your own decisions and just taking on board my suggestions. You have your hand on the knobs. If you where following me blindly it would be a complete waste of time. You have to walk away from this confident that you can do a great rock mix.

 

Fucking floored. Listening to the first pass and then the last one is just incredible. I just learned so much today.

 

Im cleaning up my posts now, and am going to put more detail into the process and what's going down in my DAW

 

I did use this chain on my Drum Verb return, with my DAWs eqs though. And used the output levels on the eqs to get the proper gain staging.

 

Hey Real
Its great you're getting so much from this thats what I am trying to do.
I am sure subGENRE feels the same way. Knowledge has to be shared.
We dont own knowledge we are care taking.
Spencer

 

Can we get a mix with the vocals in with the 1/8 delay and some more tops on the drum bus. I am hanging to hear it.
Spencer

 

Later tonight, I'll jump back into the mix. This evening, I'm practicing for a band we're starting. I'm playing bass and BG vox. Can't wait to play out again. I really miss that A LOT!

 

I think I have isolated what I don't like about the drums now. 2 things. The cymbals in the overheads are equed to hi. They sound thin. Before you put overall Eq on the drum bus try to get that cheap sound out of the cymbals. The sound like they have been equed at 10 or 12k try maybe put a lopass filter on the overheads and bring it down to where you start to hear some character in the cymbals.

Second I keep trying to hear some note in the toms but all I am hearing is the hit. It sounds like you have equed it around 1.5k. Take all the eq off the toms them put a 10db dip at 400hz stretching from about 100hz to about 1k. The Waves API eq low band is perfect. Then to put in the hit try about 7k. Another technique from the 70s. This is then a balance between the toms and the overheads. In the 60s and 70s we never used overheads we picked up the cymbals on the back of the tom mikes. Negative EQ works better than lots of positive eq. Try and hear where the resonance is and piss it of. No matter what instrument. Just experiment.

 

Last edited: Mar 29, 2016

Tamed the OHs and EQed, lopassed them at 12k then boosted them a bit at 7k. Swept the OH eq and found the toms ringing at 190hz and cut it hard with a narrow q. Found some more resonance at 127hz at killed it as well.
Removed the 1.5k boost on the toms eq. I already had a -10 db cut at 400hz, but with a narrow q. So I spread out the q on the band so its swept from 100hz to 1k. As soon as I did that I could hear my hihat mic again. It was getting lost with the highs in the OHs.
I already had an 8th dual delay on the vox so I cranked it some more.
These are my vocal sends. On 4 separate returns, I have a plate verb on one, an 8th double delay on another, a slap with the classic "beatles" timing on the 3rd, and lastly a spreader chain on the 4th that I use. Its basically a mid/side with all the mid pulled out and spread some more with a stereo hardware emu set to wide. This one gives me a wide vocal sound on a fader. I also have a console and tape emu on every channel as well as a hipass.
The vocals are hot in this render and the fx returns are loud-ish.

Maybe I should add that the lead vox are doubled but tight, and the bg vox are tripled but a little looser.

 

Well to me all the fx on the vocal make it sound dated against the big band sound. Try vocals dry except for the 1/8th delay.
Drums are pretty good but cymbals still a bit tinsel. Try eq lower like 4k.
Toms not loud enough for me. Bringing them up will change the cymbal sound.
Try vocals dry may not work but lets hear it.
Spencer