Here is a mix of mine I worked on today, I think personally my mixes are improving due to feedback from different sources, this maybe being one of them, when the critiques are constructive and directional that is and not just critical and crapping on the mix without providing any solutions, recommendations or suggestion to the the critiques. In other words, if you're just gonna crap on my mix without being helpful or providing guidance, don't bother please. Would love to hear what some of the humbly helpful people on here think of this track, thanks in advance!

 

Hello RVL, first of all, congratulations on having come up with something creative again. The song is very interesting.
You have a pleasant singing voice and the tempo of the song is also right.

I think mixing/mastering is the hardest part.I would approach the desired end result via reference tracks. I would take a lot of time and I would know that I still have to learn something. You need more experience and know how. It's a long way but it's worth it if you can create an audible product for eternity.

12 Great Reference Mixes for Rock in the Modern Age
www.izotope.com/en/learn/12-great-reference-mixes-for-rock.html
Best Reference Track For All Genres
www.masteringthemix.com/blogs/learn/best-reference-track-for-all-genres

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

Pearl Jam - Alive

Fоо Fightеrs ln Yоur Hоnоr (Full Album) Sounds pretty bad

 

drums are too distorted imo. bass guitar is buried in the mix . guitars has too much bass. vocal is out of tune here and there.
all in all good mix 8/10.

 

More reference videos

Black Sabbath - Children of the Sea

HIM - Right Here In My Arms (Official Video)

Yngwie Malmsteen - Rising Force

 

@BEAT16

Thanks a lot. Yeah mixing/mastering is definitely the hardest part for me anyhow. Especially when I'm writing and recording the guitars, vocals, and bass, + drums, mixing and mastering the song in the same time scope as one usually just spends mixing haha. I think I need to take a little more time on mixing. As for the references; those are great songs, though I tend to use references that are more modern and in the same genre that I would place my music in, such as Shinedown, Skillet, Stone Sour, Linkin Parks Hunting Party album, Breaking Benjamin, Seether. Those are some of the bands whose songs I use as references while mixing.

 

@vuldegger

Thanks for listening and providing me with some feedback. I will take all of this into consideration and dive back in to the mix and see what I can do to attend to these problems.

 

Hey @RLV, thank you to give us the opportunity to discover your creation, here is my humble advice:

1. I do like this post-Metal / melodic composition, very interesting arpeggios, just that in itself makes the difference between a banal, forgettable rock composition and one that unveil a great potential.

You know the problem: some chords' progression are so, so used and infinitely repeated that in fact we sort of "expect" some chords suites, for example: after an Am we often expect an F, a G or a C, because there is an incredible, infinite number of songs that use this kind of "system", often by convenience, lazyness, or for whatever reason.

I think that for this song you have worked out your arpeggios (especially during the verses) to introduce some dissonances to really express an uncomfortable, desperate, dark ambiance who suits very well with your amazing voice and your words (though I have some difficulties to fully understand spoken or song English, so I can never say I "understood" your song's lyrics completely, this is just feelings).

Speaking of feelings, this is also what really makes the difference between a banal song without any relief and your song: a total sincerity. If your really put your guts on the table, you'll always find echoes from people touched by your sincerity and freshness. Your song teaches a lesson: never make pale, banal, thousands-times-heard music. Always try to push the things elsewhere, to create particular moments, colors and feelings that we'll do memorize for sure, and for long time.

2. It's here that I would express some doubts about working with reference tracks: I don't know if, in your special case, it can really helps you.
The only thing I can tell here, it is by connecting your song with my (far too, according to some ) long experience as a live, rock bands' guitarist. I really think that your ultimate goal should be to recreate the atmosphere of a post-Metal band on stage or on rehearsal.

For that, I think you have to work more precisely with the reverbs and delays, to really develop your special atmosphere but avoid muddiness, I suggest to use high quality reverbs like Overloud, PSP, Softube, TC Electronic...

3.Your drums IMHO lacks presence and resonance. I mean that they should really have more impact, not by touching the volume (the drums' level as it is seems OK to my ears), but by EQuing the lows (especially on the kick) the mids (especially on the toms and snare) and use a transient designer to really sculpt the attack of each drum separately.

IMHO the error commonly made on the drums in general is to lower the mids and favor the extremities of the spectrum, personally I never agreed to that. When you hear a tom played live, you realize that the maximum of the sound' energy is concentrated on the mediums/low mid, the higher harmonics are only heard during the short attack of the note.

This is really a delicate balance: if your drums' sound is too dark, there is a risk to miss some interesting harmonics and to lower the attacks. If your drums' sound is too "shiny" the risk is to lose what makes the essence of a percussion instrument: its resonance. Even if the resonance of your instruments is voluntary short, it deserves to be heard.

Speaking of drums' resonance, I would recommend you to listen to some MAGMA/Christian Vander's performance on YT, this guy had an incredible drum sound and a really wild presence that punch you in the guts. One of his basic trick: he never-ever muffle his drums, all his skins resonate freely... for example listen here, starting at 1:00.

Even if at a moment you use samples instead of real drums, you have to discover the just balance between the precision of your notes and the length of the resonance of your drums. Perhaps it could be interesting to "un-muffle" your kit a little, sometimes a "long" (relatively) drum sound can add a very dramatic effect to your compositions. In other words: sometimes, too much muffling can kill all harmonics and prevents you to discover your own, special, personal sound.

A special trick: to avoid exaggerating / saturates the highest frequencies with your drum kit recording (I include cymbals here), you could try to use a vocal de-esser, the goal should be that everything seems as natural as possible, the best test is to compare your recording with the natural sound of your drums. The highs must never, ever sound harsh / overloaded.

All of that doesn't prevent you to use a - subtle - dose of distortion / overdrive / tape saturation to render your drums more aggressive, but also warm.

4. Around 2:32, you perform a break, followed by a reprise of your main melody, at this moment (in synchro with your voice's first note) it could be interesting to raise a little the level of the rythm guitar's saturated (long) power chords, to reinforce the dramatic effect.

...

A last possibility: you let your song as it is for now, and let it mature in your head. Sometimes a musician have to let some time pass between the first recording of a song and its final, (near) definitive mix. A little rest for your ears.

Know that: as it is, your song have already reached its goal. Anyone can already understand where you go, your style and what you express, and experience / feel the special atmosphere that you have build around it. Your mix is perhaps not exactly "perfect" (who is?), but it already means something.

 

Last edited: Apr 20, 2022

Heaven and Hell is a great album, but mix reference... yeah, I dunno

Aaaaaaaaaaaanyhoo, a few thoughts... 1st of all I only listened on headphones at home, so take that into account.

The good- Cool song, love your vocals. You're a good metal singer!

The meh- the drums are an issue for sure. I don't quite know where to start... the snare sounds separated from the rest of the kit, it all sounds almost like it's going through a fuzz box, I assume from the compression or some other saturation. The cymbals are pumping like crazy, you can hear them suck away and come back. I just kind of think they might need a real re-think. Is that a single drum kit from something, or did you franken-kit a bunch of different elements together? Because that's what I'm hearing, different stuff with different ambiance treated different ways. If the latter, I'd consider trying the former.

The guitars are good- love the Leslie guitar- but I would scoop them pretty hard in the low-mids to allow for the drums (like Amore, I don't like to scoop the drums very much although it's a tightrope to walk between "boxy" and "thin". And I want to hear something extra hit hard when the chorus hits. There's times when the mix is close to mono as well until the stacked guitars come in so *maybe* pan the other guitars even a little off of center? The only things I put dead in the middle are kick, snare, lead vocal, bass. Everything else gotsta go somewhere else, even a tiny bit, and have some kind of stereo ambiance, even if it's almost imperceptible.

I don't know if it helps, but my process (since 4 times out of 5 I'm gonna use programmed drums) is to lay down something as a guide, then do the drums, and I get them sounding JUST the way I think they should in my head. Then I dub all the stuff until it's ready for a "real" mix. I'll be close usually because I tweak as I add- but that awesome drum sound, it goes out the window because now I have a context for it. I bring up the guitars and start adding the drums to THEM, not vice versa. And then get the bass in there and figure out what all has to give in terms of eq. I usually compress NOTHING- repeat, nothing until I'm close to a mix and can see what actually needs it, unless I know I need an obvious effect from adding it.

Cheers, it's a cool song and it deserves time spent on it. Hope maybe that helps and if not no worries, all just an opinion!

 

Last edited: Apr 21, 2022

@Amore_de_la_Vida

Thanks a lot! Such kind words and so motivating.

Awesome advice, awesome that you mentioned raising the level of the rhythm guitar when they comeback in after the bridge, because I continued to work on the track even after I shared it here and that's exactly what I did, that really gives me confidence that I'm on the right track.

I tend to get all the parts of the song together, even the effects and so forth and then I'll goto my reference track late in the process, when I really start mixing.

Again thanks a lot for the advice and the motivating words! Cheers!

 

@Trurl

Thanks so much for the advice and compliment! For the drums, I'm so glad you pointed that out, when I went back in for revilement, I noticed I had accidently put TWO parallel compressors on the kit, creating the terrible pumping of the cymbals and the fuzziness. The drums are all from one kit (they are programmed drums) (I can play bass and guitar and sing, but a drummer I am not haha)), I'm not sure why the snare sounds so alien to the rest of the sound, definitely can't have that, thanks for pointing that out, I will have to tend to that for sure and see what's going on there.

Since I am the engineer, the artist, the mixer, and the master.. my process may be a little unorthodox. I usually come up with and record the guitar parts first, then bass, then vocals, then drums, semi-mixing them as I add them together and later doing a full mixing on all of the parts I have created.

Great advice that I will definitely utilize, thanks a lot! Cheers!