here's what I've been working on (among other tracks),
friends' band, I provided own drum kit, did recording, mixing, and quick master

any feedback, ideas and opinions welcome, cheers

 

Nice! Perhaps a little less reverb on the drums, and also drums bit more back in the mix? Or Guitar and Vocals bit louder? Some more fx on the vocals? reverb? Maybe the bass bit more clear and some side-chain compression from the drums? Overall it sounds rather clean for the genre, maybe some saturation on the master bus?

Disclaimer: i only came up with it since you asked for feeback, so maybe it's all just my imagination.

 

Wow amazing track!
I agree with more guitar loudness compared to the drums. But man, the drums sound naaasty. Good job!

 

Not my brand, but it is well done.

The drums are a bit too froward, but that is human nature, the drummer was in charge of the sound.

Aside from the bass drum, I would necessarily turn down anything though, the guitars will move forward if you make some space for them by cutting some of the box body(250-650cps) and a bit of bite (1800-2700) of the snare out of the mix. Personally, I like a bit of box and ring in my snares but the mix is a little too busy for that, if this was jazz or even minimal blues/rock it might be workable. There is a reason most metal snares only splat & sting, don't buzz and don't bite unless there is a breakdown or a solo.

Try to carve out a little space with EQ for the guitars, if that doesn't work well enough try a bit of transient sharper to turn down the sustain on the snare, I personally would leave the attack alone as it sounds quite nice as it is and the whole point is to do as little as possible as not to upset the balance of what you have now, which is quite good.


The vocal panning jumps are a bit, well jumpy. Maybe try an LCR triple track and fade your pans in with volume automation rather than with actual panning or maybe you have something else in mind.

Good job and thank you for sharing,

 

Very cool song! Well performed... vocals could be a little more forward... great work!

 

some nice riffin'! like to see you guys live..

 

hmm interesting points,
I admit I'm more of a drummer than mixing engineer, so I always kinda prioritize drums over everything else....a bit,
I like clarity in mixes, and the recording room does great job retaining that,
speaking of reverbs, that's very tricky for me always, because I have rather dead recording studio to begin with, and I always tend to put too much reverb on everything - less than year ago when I redone my mixing room, I purposedly made it fairly live, so there's enough natural reverbation in mixing process in my ears, which forces me to back up reverb a little bit, so far very handy
there's a modest sidechained compression on bass in lows to make space for kick, but believe me making the bass sound was crazy to begin with - it was probably first time bass had so much clarity yet plenty distortion and lack of lows and low mid mud I had to make it messy and boomy to fit in the mix

thanks, I love playing drums and all the stuff around them, so even when someone else is playing, I enjoy mixing the performance and sound usually, there's kevlar Evans Hybrid head on snare, which makes short punchy sound yet rather dark even with drumhead tight tuned - aaand I prefer no samples at all if possible (as in this track)

I've been experimenting with various sorts of multiband compression,
especially on guitars, I got dialed -6dB reduction under 400-500Hz on guitars, carving it out with EQ felt kinda thin to me (but I do carve guitars completely below 100Hz or so),
and also I did the sidechain trick feeding vocals into roughly 1100-4600Hz -6dB guitars making vocals pop out in front harsh guitars when needed,

you point right the thing about busy mix, it's something I'm always struggling with, trying to fit everything into dense mix is particularly tough, especially when I hate doing automation, which would probably help carve out certain parts of the song better,
about snare particularly, I'm still in the "learning phase", because as a drummer I don't feel I have the idea in my ears yet for the mixing process (barely any records keep snare as it is in live room, there's always some heavier processing involved, at least as it seems to me), I still haven't found a reference snare sound I'd love to get close to (I like all sorts of music, but often the snare sound just really needs to fit the song)

hmm you think vocal panning is harsh? actually I hate to use headphones, which probably make it more obvious, will try to focus on that next time when doing a mix on monitors to jump into headphones more often

hmm I wanted to make it even more "pop sounding" with vocals more pronounced, but band insisted on leaving vocals bit away from guitars, so that's compromise result

maybe some day you will - it's friends' band, relatively new (few years only) they're actually even younger than me, despite those vocals sounding like aged 30-45 at least

 

Yes, when listening to the bass itself it sounds very good, you're right. Perhaps when the mix is adjusted (drums bit less loud, or maybe the rest a bit harder, can't judge which is better since i don't see the levels) it will come more forward. Again, great track, and much better than the other tracks on Soundcloud.

 

Reminds me a bit like Sepultura - Roots Bloody Roots -

- I can`t understand what he is singing...The "lead" is mixed up with the "base"

- the drums should be more constant in tone and timing ( If I may )
- some drum fills leave kind of a vacuum in some parts

IMHO - looking forward for the next mix

 

Last edited: Apr 17, 2021

Great track man. I won't say what all the others said as I agree that drums were up front. I also liked the dynamic changes in the orchestration, pauses and differences. But I do believe you could do something more with your timing . You could 've rehearsed a bit more with the band. At some point a decade ago we were trying to produce an album for a band that literally come to practice every time we were about to record. It was a hell of work later to fine tune their timing (and I don't mean robotise them. just make them not sound off beat) . As for the drum part , I think this could be saved just by changing the room. I don't find it has too much reverb or not. I would just change the room and then play with reverb time , early reflections etc. But in my ears , snare sounds like is in a different room than the other drums. On the other hand, it's tight and I like it.

edit: I forgot to say bout the bass. That's a nice distortion there. Love it

 

ah maybe I wrote it a bit unclear, I did provide the drum kit, but I was not playing the drums myself
speaking of timing, I suggested using metronome (click track) but after few attempts the idea was scratched completely
- that said though, recording process was drums + DI bass + DI guitar (removed and re-recorded) so there's some sort of coherency at least

thanks for the heads up anyway, the whole recording was a great experience for band and me too, they learned how their songs actually sound clear while recording through headphones and they are definitely having a better idea on what they should focus on at further development and new songs

 

you mean other tracks I have on my SoundCloud profile? almost all of those are live jams, which I'm struggling to mix properly at all, in those "jams" it's actually me playing the drums though

 

so, here's the final released version (very subtle changes):

and, here's another track released before:

(ps I hope it's not against the rules, felt it would make more sense to keep within one thread)