Slipping Away (Attempt 3) - By my band Puppet Cell (Metal)

Here's our second offering on here.

I've struggled to get this one right.  Interested in your thoughts good and bad.

Thanks.

PS.... STRONG LANGUAGE WARNING!!! 

A/B below 

Original  

https://soundcloud.com/pa...pping-away-final-again

Remixed Post Danny's comments

https://soundcloud.com/pa...ipping-away-post-danny 

Attempt 3   

https://soundcloud.com/pa...lipping-away-more-bass


Here's to hoping (crossing everything)... give it to me Danny!

Opps...not sure what happened here. Sorry.

Ah Danni

How right you are, even a quick play this end shows the error of my ways. Way to much low end, which weirdly opens everything else up once removed.
I'll keep playing, then post an A/B.

Thanks so much!

STinGA


Thanks Danni, having followed what you've said on here for years its an opinion I really respect. 

I will go away again and have a head scratch.  I am actually mixing on monitors (genelec 1029's) but in a less than ideal room - although using ARC2.  


You have actually nailed all 3 points I was struggling with, Bass, Vox level and the piercing high end frequency of the gtrs.

I'll have a re-think.

Very much appreciated your comments thank you

You're quite welcome. Some of this stuff as you know, will always remain subjective. I try to stay away from that sort of advice because...well, there are just too many variables and opinions. LOL!
 
But definitely look into the stuff I mentioned as I feel strongly about it and hear it on the 3 monitor systems I've listened on here. A few starting points for you to consider STinGA:
 
1. Guitars: The sizzle in guitars depends on 3 important things.
a. Your monitors
b. The sound itself
c. How sensitive your ears are to high end frequencies.
 
My bassist in my band always tells me he wishes I had more high end in my guitar tone. I've always felt I had enough and anything more would be piercing. He had his hearing checked recently and sure enough, his high end is pretty cooked from all the years of super loud music and lack of hearing protection.
 
That said, curbing the highs on guitars usually starts from about 3k on up depending on the sound. 3k-6k usually give you the piercing high end while 7k and above sort of give you an "air sizzle" or almost the high end resonance you get from a tube amp. So you need to determine where your high end needs to be curbed.
 
One thing you want to do in situations like this is to always cure the problem. Meaning, if you have high end going on, try to curb it first without just pumping up lows to compensate. In your situation, I think eliminating the harsh highs will help your tones quite a lot. Once you balance that, you can determine whether or not you need more beef in the tone itself in the low mids or mid range area. But once you cure the sizzle, you'll be able to make the guitars louder in the mix. From there you should be able to hear them better and make decisions on further sculpting the tone. It;s amazing how much they can change though just by altering that high end sizzle.
 
Bass: Your kick drum seems to be hitting me over here at about 75 Hz or so. I'd place the bass at about 55 Hz and run a high pass at 55 Hz starting with a Q (use the Sonitus just to test this theory) of 0.8. Increase the Q until you get a nice little low end that isn't rumbling all over the place. From there, experiment in the 2k to 3k range for a little percussive "clack" as I like to call it and see how you're doing. Don't worry about any bumps in the 200-300 range on your bass....if anything, you may need to cut a bit in those ranges as they can mud you up pretty fast. Just concentrate on a balanced low end with a little clack/percussivness to hear the notes and then you can tweak the in betweens to further thicken or take away other stuff in the bass.
 
Vox: I like the sound you got on these actually, so I don't think the eq is a problem. You may be able to add a little more low mid, but you don't want to mess with any of that until you get the bass guitar sorted. Just run some automation on the vocal lines so you hear everything at all times. A rule of thumb for me when I first started mixing vocals (especially when they were my own voice) was to always run the fader up +0.5 to +1.0 dB louder than I felt it should be. We seem to be a little cautious of our own voices so we mix them lower.
 
After you get a little feedback and sort of understand where a good vocal level should be, you won't have to do the "+" technique anymore. But it's a good way to at least get yourself in the right ball-park. From there, just automate and you should be fine. Another thing to keep in mind Sting that will help you...
 
Most of the people that hear your song for the first few times will not know what words or parts are coming next. You know everything by heart because you either wrote the tune and or mixed it and heard it 3000 times, right? LOL! So you know everything...which puts you as the engineer, at a slight disadvantage to where you have to compensate. Those hearing things for the first time will struggle to hear things if they aren't blatantly obvious, so always try to keep that in mind. Even with lead guitar solos....when we know the solo, we tend to lay back on the level at times. Any solo instrument needs to be treated in this manner in my humble opinion...so just keep that in your back pocket in the future. By the way....I dug that solo section...meant to compliment you on that before. :)
 
Best of luck on the tune and thanks for the kind words. I hope some of the stuff I've shared here and over the years has helped you out a bit. :)
 
-Danny

Nice retro sound to this song, kinda like those late thrash albums by bands like Metal Church. SInger is good, i like that voice. This mix is clearly better than the original, the bass is nicely audible now, gutars could still have a little more impact, but overall pretty cool!

Thanks Lynn and mgh for you input.

@mgh - the mix is still the same as Danny commented on earlier, I'm still fixing it. I did have an earlier mix up so maybe you heard that one. I do really appreciate the comments. 

Thanks for taking the time to listen, and for the comments foxwolfen.

Kickin. Don't know about the mix. listening on a laptop.
But the song is full of heart.
Love the hook.

StinG: new mix is definitely better than the old one. You removed the sub low in the bass and curbed the guitar high end....good job there. It seems a little bass light now. The first thing I'd do is bring the bass up louder because it sounds like you have a decent curve on it now...it's just too low to hear. Good job with removing that rumble stuff.

Now, depending on what the bass sounds like when it's actually louder in the mix, will depend on what you do with the kick drum. It may be ok as it is...me personally, I'd probably go for a little more low end accentuating the "thump" area. But it's tough to tell because if the bass is more audible and at the right low end frequency, we can leave the kick where it is and allow it to not be as bottomy. The bass seems like is has some low end under the kick drum frequencies...meaning, it's low end is accentuated lower....which is a good thing. I just have to hear more of it to tell you what to do next IF anything needs to be done.

Guitars sound pretty good now. Not as piercing yet they still cut through as they should. You're getting closer...nice job. Vocal seems to be where it should be now as well. :)

-Danny

Just so you know... we're letting Danny do the talkin', but we're all watchin'.. so.. no pressure. In all seriousness, its been an interesting learning experience.

Okidoki.....

Bass turned up.  I've re-sculpted the low end a little to accommodate the bass drum which got a little lost with the level increase.

As always, how did I do? 


Link in Post 1

Thanks for your comments James.  the Vocal already has short verb albeit plate. I'll have a look.

As a matter of interest which mix are you listening to? I thought the Bass was clearer on attempt 3, although as Danny points out above on mix 2 it was very burried. Hmm perplexed now :-( 

Phew, thanks Bristol....I thought I was loosing the plot there.

Thanks for taking the time to listen, I'll pass on your comments to the guitarist! Much appreciated.

OK Thanks James, I'll definitely take another look. 

The challenge here is the low toms are in the same frequency range as the upper bass notes. So, the only way to make that work is musically, which you have done fairly well. I suspect you have a bit more compression room you can use to kick the bass up a db and see how that works. I do not find it too muddy, but that may change when you up the levels a bit. If thats the case you might need to carve a bit out of the low toms so that you get the hit, but let the bass carry the tone. You have a bad drum stumble at 2:20. Check that transition.