You're very close to that Pouya/Ghostmane sound with some 90s/00s rock at the chorus. Very nice!

Only thing I can think, beside what was already recommended - if you're using a drum/guitar/amp vsti, try using a different one. The tones from one plugin might be better than another. I had to test several ample sound guitars, amplitude amps, ezbass packs, sd3 drums, and kontakt libraries before I found tones that mixed well together.

If it's a real guitar+amp, try adjusting the amp+mic position or changing guitar strings/pickups to cut down on the brightness. Maybe even try a different microphone for the guitar amp. Something like an off-axis sm58 mounted close to the amp or cabinet might work nicely.

 

Last edited: Jun 7, 2023

George pointed out something very important : what's your guitar signal chain ? Their tone is quite thin indeed, might need another IR or another mic positionning. I'd add some low mids to the bass too, to glue guits and bass together.
The mix itself sounds good, everything has its place. Maybe a bit too good, I'd compress the whole thing in the master bus a bit more to further glue everything together !

 

@George Santos
Thanks man, you've nailed the influences haha. But yeah, I'm using vsti's for everything but guitar, maybe I'll try dabbling into some other basses and drums. One thing I' discovered earlier today when running a spectrum analyzer on various guitar stems from bands with sounds similar to what I am aiming for is that my guitars had a lot more low end build up than anyone else's. Idk if it's how I have my cab mic'd or what, but I'm always trying to brighten my tone and boost mids when i really should have been cutting the low a lot more. But you make a great point, I'm gonna rethink my mic positioning and experiment with that a bit to see if I can get anywhere with that. Thanks for the advice!

 

@MaxSxB
I think you are right, I just realized my guitar tone has way too much low end in it... I have been cutting the bass in that area thinkin that's what was causing the muddiness, but now I'm thinking I need to reintroduce those low mid bass frequencies back in and start scooping the lows of my guitar (or fix the low end build up through better mic placement). I had actually backed off on the compression on the master before this rendition of the mix to see if that would help, but now that I think I know what's going on with the low end mud, bumping the compression back up is worth a try for sure. Thanks for the advice man!

 

Hello. As a guitar player, I would advise for a very good processor instead of a mic'd amp. Helix at 48khz or gt1000 at 96khz, using the digital out of course. With a processor you can try things out until you get what you need. You simply cannot get the perfect guitar sound for a mix by turning buttons on an amp, when digital editing depends sometimes on 0.1% adjustments.
Listening to the song, the guitar tone has way too much lows and highs. And a little too much spacial processing. Rhythm guitar - dry guitar preferably, as much as possible. Chorus for stereo presence, or, even better, separate takes for left / right channel. As a channel plugin for guitar tracks I would recommend Satin, it's pretty flexible.

 

How are you recording? and with what gear? are you using an amp and cab with a mic? or are you hard lined in through a modeler or using a vst sim?

 

ik lotta people alrdy replied but my advice would be get a more mid focused tone(300hz-1k), then try to get the high-mids right
cut any lows anywhere below 140hz is good depending on tuning and such, and any highs aswell as low as around 6k but i wouldnt go too hard on the lowpass
for guitars to "cut" through a mix decently ur area is gonna be around 900hz-2khz, stuff around 2k-5k would be used as attenuation so that the tone isnt fatiguing
you could do multiband or broadband comp depending on the vibe ur going for, i like broadband for when i want guitars to "breathe" a little, multiband only for ducking around the lows and low-mids if its conflicting too much with other elements of the mix
but yea my immedaite first thought on ur mix was how scooped the guitars sounded, however if they sound good to you that should be all that matters!

 

ah yes, the good ol' lars ulrich production advice


was gonna make that joke, glad i read the first answers


edit : i guess we're not here to talk about the snare

 

production on the guitars is just weak to begin with. Another big part of this and situating them in the mix is they should be cohesive with the track. They don't even sound like they belong together in the same environment even though everything else does, which is honestly surprising. It's usually vocals and drums that suffer from this. When this is the case you kind of stick out like a sore thumb so you can't give it the treatment you want without it either being overbearing or buried. For what its worth even when tones are high quality choosing the right tone for the track is very important. Not all tones, even great ones sit nicely in certain mixes. This overall tone regardless of EQ does not fit here.

 

Fantastic books, I refer to them often.. Fundamentals are important.
https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Engin...vft_none_img_sccl_1/137-0223651-4966353?psc=1
https://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Presents/dp/0240815807

this is dry but also amazing. i refer to it all the time.

 

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OP, I just remembered the magic processor for guitar that saved me countless of times. Izotope Ozone Exciter in Mid/Side mode on Guitar Bus. It's way better than EQ to tone shape and imaging. First go to the sister site and look for "Izotope Ozone Exciter with Luca Pretolesi". It's a 15 minutes video and will give you an idea how to use it for tone shaping and imaging. I know most of us quite familiar with how that Ozone module works, but just watch how he chose the bands to make things bigger add perceived loudness etc. Use it with EQ (pre & post Exciter) & M/B Compressor, they can drastically change recorded/amped guitar recording to something else entirely. Just a suggestion.

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2023

I am very serious about this advice.

And Lars didn't decide about this snare tone. It was Bob Rock. And it totally made sense, because the sustain part guitar riff in this st. Anger composition is nothing without this snare.

 

Last edited: Jun 8, 2023

I can definitely hear the problem!

I'm no expert but what I'd suggest is this - find a song that is "sonically similar" to what you're after and that you also have access to either the stems or multitracks. Then go through and A/B everything - something is wrong tonally so listen hard, use SPAN or get a match EQ (not to help with mixing but to show you where the differences between your tracks and your references are).

Also, there are a ton of metal mixing tutorials over on the sister site - Bob Marlette's one is pretty good IMHO.

HTH!

Cheers!

 

hi, im hearing this on a KALI LP1 monitors and i hear them very well.. i think maybe need a few dbs louder with a limiter, not a mastering limiter, a simple one. did u got them compressed? maybe that after the limiter that i mention fits well... what i dont like at all its the snare.. its or too dark or the sample/sound its not for this song... its very dark and weak.. too much for this song for my opinion... its like the snare wires are disconnected.. if u r using a real snare recorded by you.

 

a mix i finished recently

the idea is saturation eq and gentle compression to make the guitars pop up.

 

@ELJUNTADERO2022

Yeah I can hear them on my studio monitors just fine as well, it's everywhere else that seems to be the issue. I have LA-3A comp and an L1 limiter on the bus, someone in the thread mentioned ozone's exciter plugin which I'm experimenting with and it actually seems to add a nice touch, I'm think maybe my bass is the problem at the moment, some serious trial and error going on the past couple days haha. A lot of the modern metal I've been listening to lately has had darker, chunkier snare sounds which is why I gravitated to that on this track I suppose, but yeah I know what you mean, it doesn't have that crack that it would normally call for om a mix like this, maybe I'll reconsider. Thanks for the advice!

 

Finally got a chance to rework the mix a bit, taking note of some of the advice given. Still not "perfect" whatever that even means, but I think it sounds better. Thanks again for the advice from everyone

 

Its not the guitars, its your low end that needs fixing.

Duck your bass against the kick. Make sure your kick is not too long (shorten the tail if needed).

Your bass levels are too much overall. Focus the bass between 100hz to 180hz or so (where the kick ends, and the snare hits). Use headphones and references And something like voxengo Span or ADPTR AB to check levels against other references.

Experiment with separating your bass - treat the bass in 3 broad bands (use 18db filters to separate the bass into 3 copies):
sub 180hz - this should be mono and clean, limited/volume ridden and ducked against the kick. This is your low end and needs to be consistent.
180-1Khz - add distortion to create harmonics that will help it be audible on smaller speakers and create definition on the notes. No need to compress this.
600hz and upwards, add a stereo chorus. No need to compress this either. Add a gain plugin if filtering out sub 600hz removes a lot of the volume.
Blend these 3 tracks to taste and send them to a buss and lightly limit (no more than a few db on the loudest bits). Balance against the drums.

The guitars should ideally start after the snare - so filter/shelf out sub 220hz for drive guitars. While you're at it, filter over 7-8khz to remove any fizz. Pan their reverbs so they dont build up in the center. If your DAW doesnt allow for panning the sends, just add mono reverbs and pan those hard left&right - the right panned guitar should only feed into the reverb panned to the hard right (or left if thats your thing).

If you're quad tracking guitars, record them DI - edit them so they're time aligned, then add your amps/fx. Non aligned sloppy guitars will only achieve a wall of sound but not punchy & separated guitars. Experiment with limiting the guitars before feeding into the amp sim/reamp chain. I find it helps a lot.

Set your tone and then Reduce your gain on your amps. You need less than you realize. Big guitars are achieved by using less gain and more tracks. Experiment with high strung guitar doubles.

Generally your track is a bit dark, I would reach out towards a 3khz broad boost.
Make use of ducking with tools like trackspacer and Duck. Duck your guitars low end against the snare, duck your bass against the kick, duck the mids of your guitars against the vocals.

 

@MrLyannMusic : Those "alternating-panned floor-tom kicks" really threw me off. Kinda irritating once you start thinking about them. Was it a mistake of was it intentional?

Edit: Oh, btw...

 

Last edited: Jun 14, 2023

@Baxter Hmm not sure what you mean by "alternating-panned floor-tom kicks". Nothing pan related is occurring with them, I don't hear anything of the sort in any of my playback devices. Not sure what you're hearing man. Your mix sounds good, for me though, the guitars are a bit too loud and the drums, especially the snare is buried to where I can't really hear it half the time. And the clean vocals sound highly filtered or something almost telephonic, the screams sounds good though. There also seems to be some lead guitar parts that should be taking the spotlight at times and you can barely hear them.