Mix Advice needed - Rock Instrumental

Hi Terry,

Ok, I'll be brutally honest with you on this. :) I'm going to try my best to stay away from "subjective opinion" type stuff and only tell you what sticks out as "fix asap" ok? :)

Bass: The first thing that lashes out to me is the reverb on the bass. That definitely has to go and is a no no in my opinion. If by chance you feel the need to place the bass in a small room environment, that can work, but you gotta be careful with verb on bass at all times because it can become disconnected from the kick drum and add mud into the mix as well due to the room ambience/verb tail. My personal opinion, kill it completely.

Drums: They sound pretty cool. Not my cup of tea but nothing sticks out as totally wrong with them other than maybe a bit too room oriented for my particular taste. And trust me...I'm an effects prostitute. :)

Guitars: Lead guitar is fine. Your rhythms, however, are completely buried in the mix with effects and have some mid range congestion going on. They don't cut through the mix at all and just disappear once everything hits full bore.

Piano: The spread on it is so wide, it's walking on the rhythm guitars. Each instrument needs to have its own space. Each time you put a stereo verb on something (or use the same one throughout a mix) it's equal to being hard left/right unless you control the spread of the effect. So each instrument you add it on will have elements of hard L/R which can really congest your mix.

The biggest problem with this mix is it's just way too wet on everything. Like the band is playing in a small airplane hangar. The less effects, the tighter the mix. So curb the verb tails...lessen the effects and if you need rooms, make them more "room oriented" instead of things with longer, wider tail artifacts. The eq on this mix doesn't seem bad, but it's really hard to tell with all the verb swimming around all over.

The only eq thing I think I'd touch would be the rhythm guitars because they just seem non-existent. Moving the piano out of their way in the stereo field while curbing the verbs will help immensely. But it's really hard to comment on a mix that is this wet because so much is getting lost and it's taking away from both the impact and my ability to judge the mix correctly.

Hope some of this helps....I did like the song by the way. :)

-Danny

I always like it when people step out of their comfort zone for a while so good for you as far as that goes.
 
As for the mix...............what Danny says will be more than a good start. At the moment it sounds like I mixed it  - ie could do better . I have trouble shaking off the muddiness too, particularly where guitar sounds are involved, so I will be taking Danny's comments on board with my own mixes next time too.

Don't listen to the reverb haters . The mud is not coming from JUST the bass reverb IMO. It sound like it is due more to the tone on the drums and in particular the piano being too similarly pitched to the lead guitar and bass, and are stepping all over each other. You can test this by simply taking the reverb off and seeing just how much the mix ACTUALLY clears up. If it is not suddenly pristine, then reverb is not your problem.

There is nothing wrong with reverb. It just takes a lot of work to get right. I get the feeling Danny and I will never agree on this point. Where we do agree is how much reverb to use. While I found it fine on the bass, the piano seemed saturated. As a keys guy, I am surprised you did not notice that yourself. Piano already has so much natural reverb and resonance that it becomes the main source of mud in many mixes.

Much like another mix I heard lately, the lead is fuzzy, and in the center it tends to add its fuzz to the rest of the mix.  The lead is the focal point of the mix, so it needs to be very clean (even if effected). It is hitting the center so hard that its narrowing the mix dramatically. I would dial it back, and bring the drum kit more forward and spread out.

If there was a rhythm guitar in this, it is so lost as I missed it completely.

There is nothing wrong with the stereo spread of the piano, as long as its controlled tonewise. As already mentioned, the piano and bass are clashing. I might try some EQ on it more space for the bass. The secondary problem with the piano tone is that it seems to be the only thing going wide other than the reverb, so, think more about the instumentation placement within the mix.

Just my 2C. So much of this is actually subjective.

I also think this is one hell of a killer song and encourage you to polish it up. I love the arpeggio. This song has a wonderful "Muse" (band) vibe. You are a remarkably talanted and versatile individual Terry.

foxwolfen


Don't listen to the reverb haters . The mud is not coming from JUST the bass reverb IMO. It sound like it is due more to the tone on the drums and in particular the piano being too similarly pitched to the lead guitar and bass, and are stepping all over each other. You can test this by simply taking the reverb off and seeing just how much the mix ACTUALLY clears up. If it is not suddenly pristine, then reverb is not your problem.

There is nothing wrong with reverb. It just takes a lot of work to get right. I get the feeling Danny and I will never agree on this point. Where we do agree is how much reverb to use. While I found it fine on the bass, the piano seemed saturated. As a keys guy, I am surprised you did not notice that yourself. Piano already has so much natural reverb and resonance that it becomes the main source of mud in many mixes.

Much like another mix I heard lately, the lead is fuzzy, and in the center it tends to add its fuzz to the rest of the mix.  The lead is the focal point of the mix, so it needs to be very clean (even if effected). It is hitting the center so hard that its narrowing the mix dramatically. I would dial it back, and bring the drum kit more forward and spread out.

If there was a rhythm guitar in this, it is so lost as I missed it completely.

There is nothing wrong with the stereo spread of the piano, as long as its controlled tonewise. As already mentioned, the piano and bass are clashing. I might try some EQ on it more space for the bass. The secondary problem with the piano tone is that it seems to be the only thing going wide other than the reverb, so, think more about the instumentation placement within the mix.

Just my 2C. So much of this is actually subjective.

I also think this is one hell of a killer song and encourage you to polish it up. I love the arpeggio. This song has a wonderful "Muse" (band) vibe. You are a remarkably talanted and versatile individual Terry.

Just to be clear...I love reverb. I just think it can make or break a mix if you use too much decay or use the same verb on several instruments. It's also not a good idea to allow it to run amuck without controlling how far it spreads. You lose your stereo field panning impact as soon as you allow effects to pan wide. It takes the tails of the instruments and throws them out of their designated pan fields.
 
As for the bass, I never said the verb in it made anything muddy. What I said was, the verb disconnects the bass from the kick drum. When this happens, there are no start/stop points for your core "low end" instruments. The tails of each just run into each other like a run-on sentence.
 
The piano isn't pitched anywhere near the guitars. The problem is, the space the piano is taking up due to spread of the instrument (which can be due to the verb/room sound) is walking right on top of the guitars in the pan field. When you have two mid range instruments occupying the same pan field, even if their pitches are different, pan field masking can occur. The piano cuts through and walks right over top of the guitars because it is brighter and more dominant. The guitars are more dull/boxy and mid range sounding...so when the piano comes in, it just obliterates the guitars.
 
There's definitely some eq issues that need care, but it's hard to tell what they are when the tails of the verb run into the instruments with each bar of music. There are no breathing points with a mix this wet. You and I will never agree on reverb because your music is more electronic and from what I've heard, doesn't use real instrumentation nor does it have various vocals, real guitars or the need to cut into effects and eq curves quite the same way. That's not a dig as I admire what you do and think you come up with great stuff. I've just never heard anything by you that had a more acoustic drum kit, real bass, real guitars, real lead guitar solo etc. Totally different mixing skills need to be incorporated which is my reason for mentioning this. Not because I think what you do is less complex....it's just different and needs to be handled differently.
 
When instrumentation sort of like this is the focus of discussion, this is why we'll never agree on things. For YOUR stuff, your advice is acceptable...for instrumental type stuff where more realististic sounds are in the mix, the sonic elements are a different breed. Electronic drum kits are quick, dead samples with just about zero sustain. Acoustic drums/samples resonate and need special eq curves. Add verb to acoustic drums that already have "overheads" in the samples, and the drums sustain even longer.
 
Add verb to electronic kits, it makes them less dead but they don't have "ring" in them like an A-kit. So you'd be able to get away with more verb on an E-kit than you would an A-kit or an A-kit module/simulation. There are just way more elements involved. You don't have room mics with E-kits most times or when you use an 808 kit etc...it's just different. Real guitars add a different element...real played bass is different than midi bass...the list goes on and on.
 
The lead guitar didn't sound fuzzy to me. It sounded like a lead guitar up the center acting as a vocal line with over-drive...which is what it's supposed to sound like in this style of music. Fuzzy = distortion? If so, yep, that's how it's supposed to sound. It didn't have excessive, harsh, high end and seemed to be low passed perfectly for the sound. Making it "clean" would ruin the impact of the song. It's supposed to be over-driven. Not trying to be facetious, but are you familiar with instrumental rock guitar music? The sound of the lead guitar here is common and right in the ballpark in my opinion.
 
Piano and bass clashing? I'll have to disagree with that one. The bass is down the center, the piano is spread to the sides. They don't even share the same frequencies. The only likeness they share is a verb and maybe a few left hand bass notes, but they are far enough away from each other in tonality and spread to be out of each others way. In music of this nature, 9 out of 10 times, you will NOT hear a reverb to that extent on a bass guitar. That's really not a subjective opinion, it's pretty much fact. The bass needs to work with the kick drum, not go against it.
 
So though we'll have to agree to disagree, I wanted to at least point out why I disagree. Having recorded this style of music many times in my life, I like to think I know a little something about it...but I could be mistaken. ;)
 
-Danny

  Well that is the first thing that struck me...reverb on the bass just doesn't work for me here. In fact sounds like some layered reverbs are battling it out here. Possibly you used all the default reverbs on the softsynths and added another reverb buss?  What I can make out of the content, I like a lot, but I think Danny is spot on, if you want this to sound like a live performed piece; more work is needed to get them all in the same room.

foxwolfen


Danny, you are judging my input based on assumptions derived only from the limited exposure you have had to my own music. Let us not get personal and attempt to ascribe differing philosophies to experience (as you are very wrong) or knowledge , or to nit pick over semantic use of words like fuzzy. Terry got the right idea, and that is all that matters.

Ok, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the above. But you can't blame me. I've never heard anything of this nature from you, hear how you have a limited budget and limited gear, so I don't know the extent of what you've done or what you're capable of. My apologies for that. What I do see is, you comment really tough to people, so I'll take the tough (sometimes arrogant) talk as "you're in the know." from here on out, ok?
 
Just so you know, the term "fuzzy" in a distorted guitar situation, IS something that is worth nit-picking. A driven guitar sound can be called many things. Fuzzy, driven, over-drive, distorted etc. If a comment like that is made to me in one of my songs, the first thing I question is "hmmm...did I use too much over-drive?" Followed by "hmmm...fuzzy....maybe I didn't low pass enough and some high end frequencies are passing through making it sound fuzzy and unclear?"
 
Thus why I questioned if you were familiar with instrumental rock music because if you were, I would think you would know the proper terminology to use or at least explain what fuzzy meant to you. "It needs to be very clean" goes against the grain of having a distorted guitar sound. If he wanted clean, he wouldn't have used a sound with distortion, right? It wasn't a dig at you, I was honestly asking a question because your answer made no sense to me in THIS situation. "That's not what I meant Danny!" Well what did you mean? See my point? Speaking of "clean"...
 
There's another word that can have various meanings. Not played "cleanly"? Is that what you meant? This isn't nit-picking, it's the way you have to analyze a tune with distortion. If those words mean something else to you, it helps if you explain what they mean to you so the OP has a clue on what you're trying to tell him. I like to think I have a bit of experience in this field...yet I have no idea what you were talking about. 
 
As you can see, it's important to explain things a bit better when there are so many different variables going on. The difference is, most times you choose brevity with a slightly sarcastic tone and opinion....I choose wordy explanations to where I try my best to make sure people know what my terminology means and no stone is left unturned. And I do this without attitude or bias while accepting someone that is 1960 sounding or 1990 sounding without making them feel they need to keep up with the times or I will annihilate their tune because I can and this is 2013. I'm still blown away everytime I see you post that "get with the times" comment. And you tell me I nit-pick? LOL! :) You didn't say that here, so I'll bite my tongue this time.
 
-Danny

That's fine and I respect the above. Maybe it is me that needs to be a bit more silent...which I will try to do also. There are no laws/rules that state how someone should listen to something or comment. I just have always felt that sometimes that "now sound" isn't for everyone, so I try to accept what they deliver. If I was a record label A&R guy, that would be different. Then again, with the way this music business changes from day to day...no one really knows what will be acceptable next. If something is a done well, I just accept it for what it is instead of what I feel it shoudl/could be...that's just me though and I don't expect anyone else to feel that way. Don't change a thing man....do what you feel is best. I just take this stuff way too seriously.

I liked this.  I keep seeing cowboys riding fast out in the desert.  Some kind of theme for a spacey western.  All good.  You were given good advice already.  I hear this as movie soundtrack material.  

Rimshot