Peace from my Mind (Rock/pop punk) 3rd Attempt at nailing this mix down

Some of you have heard this one before.  Here is my latest mix.  I left mix 1 & 2 up on my soundclick account so if you are so inclined, you could hear the progression it's taken.   Thanks for listening and any advise.  This song has driven me crazy.
 
My issue has been that while everything was audible in mix 2 it all sounded small, I think I have it sounding bigger and fuller now without just sounding any louder. 
 
http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=11402717&q=hi

This sounds great on my monitors.  I hear the  full range of frequencies, and the balance is just right.  Whether or not to double the guitar tracks is less obvious here.  Sometimes less is more.  The lead vocal and song faintly remind me of a band called Sponge from the 90's.  Very high energy.  Overall, very well done.

Nice job.... It sounds good on this end. 

I like the guitar tone. 

Steve- Thank you man.  This song has 2 tracks of each guitar part in it, they are currently set up 100%L, 60%L - 60%R, 100%R.  I have tried to mingle them together  (90%L 30%R  - 30%L 90%R)  and it ends up sounding mushy to me and hard to tell what each part is doing.  I could try cloning up additional tracks I suppose & I appreciate the tip on the amount of time to try on the delay.  Danny is a great guy and has already given me so much advice.  He's a big asset to have here for sure.

Lynn- Thank you for that.  It's funny you should say so.... for one, when we started this band (covers and originals) I said from the beginning I want this to be high energy!  All up tempo, no ballads at our shows.
and for  two, Yes I am familiar with Sponge, we currently play a rockin version of "Plowed" which is a blast live!

James & Herb - Thank you guys as always,  Your thumbs up is certainly reassuring. 

It's amazing how differently we all hear things. Not that my opinion holds more weight than anyone else's but man...if you listen to all the different comments, it can totally mess you up when you try to fix this stuff in my opinion. I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong....I'm saying that because we all hear things differently on different gear, I'd not ever put too much stock in what you hear feedback wise from people....even those that may be credible sources.

For what it's worth, here's my take. I'm not sure this is the same mix you sent me, but it sounds like it. I dove a little deeper into it and I'm still sticking to my guns with a few additions.

The drums: If you go with bapu's suggestion, your drum tone will become darker than it is already. That's not right or wrong....but on his system he must be hearing a thin snare. I on the other hand, hear a thick snare that makes the sound of the word "clock". That needs more high end crack for a song like this. You already have a warm sound going on...you thicken that up and you're going to lose more crack. This is modern rock...it needs to be mixed and geared towards modern rock with "excitement". These drums are very dull to me and definitely need some work. Most modern stuff uses snares that crack...piccolo's or they hybrid. This "clock" sound needs to sound more like "crack".

The guitars: Kinda thin and sonic sounding in need of more body, depth and fullness...especially on the chorus parts. The trick Steve mentioned that he got from me was good advice, however, I'd not go that clone route in this song as it would add even more sonic stuff and a little phasing. The key here for this tune is proper guitar layering. I'd have at least 4 guitars going on in the chorus part with at least 2 different sounds for impact with panning that fills up the stereo field.....don't just put them on top of each other in the same pan field. So if you do anything here, double track...no cloning or HAAS effects unless you try a reverse HAAS on the other side and maybe utilize a little mid-side stereo trick or two for additional thickness. But even there, when we clone or HAAS, there is a slight phase going on and you will even hear a mismatch in the sides depending on which side hits first unless you mess with mid-side.

Meaning, if you HAAS what you have, the early side hits first and is what your ears hear...so right away you may think the left side is louder than the right. If you double HAAS and reverse the delay on the other side, you off-set and align this delay so that no side sounds dominant. If you use a HAAS delay setting, it has to be 100% wet to get the full effect...no dry in it.

I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. Please excuse this mix...it's from one of my "lab work sessions" where I don't pay too much attention to making things great...I'm experimenting and playing around with different things. This is a really dirty mix purposely. I recorded the bass with distortion which I never do. LOL! Anyway...

But here's what I'd like you to listen for that I think will help with your mix.

The guitars have a nice presence in this in my opinion that cut through, but they are full sounding and girthy so to speak. Also, listen to my snare drum compared to yours. This is just the basic EZD kit that loads up when you load the plug. Hear how I don't have that "clock" sound in my snare? I think something like this would be much better for yours. Not exactly, but along these lines.

Two mixes here. In this first one, it's just two guitars tuned super low panned left and right at about 80%. The thickness is what we're after and this isn't too bad for just two guitars recorded with a little high pass at about 120 Hz, and a little compression.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/DannySuperLowNoHaas.mp3

In this next mix, I take those same two guitars and run a HAAS delay on them but it's not the same delay twice. I reverse it so that one side (due to your ears hearing the short delay side first) does not dominate. So there's a delay of about 30 ms on the right side of the left guitar and now it's panned center. On the right guitar, a 35ms delay goes to the left and it too is panned center. The HAAS spreads it out so you don't have to worry abotu panning it. I put a Sonitus phase plug at in the guitar bus though and set it for 80% just to keep things sane though because you lose your pan fields when you use the HAAS trick. Then, I run a Brainworx V2 on both tracks for some mid side stereo effects and now you have this.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4909348/DannySuperLowDualHaasMidSide.mp3

Hear how much thicker and bigger it got? Something like this on your chorus sections may just add the impact this is lacking in my opinion. Or at least the dual reversed HAAS may be cool. Personally, I'd rather see/hear you double up on the guitars there as that will add more to the stereo field due to human timing inconsistencies as well as having a different tone to further enhance the tones as an entity in the field.

Your bass guitar in this tune is not bad. It could probably stand to have a little more identity if possible, but basses in music like this are not really known for having that "wow, listen to that bass tone" impact.

Vocals sound pretty good and doesn't stick out to me as being wrong anywhere. It's more the core of your instruments that need a little more something in my opinion. This song dude....is fantastic and every bit as good as anything on the radio today in this genre. The hook is great, the arrangement is killer and you have a tune that I think any label looking for this material would be happy with...honest. But it's all in the delivery. I just find the mix being delivered as sort of dull and lacking the impact it COULD have sonically without being sonically too abrasive, know what I mean? Like it just seems a bit too warm and dull missing some good highs that would give it more impact and flair.

I say all this because I believe in the song as well as what you're doing here bro. It's rare I hear tunes like this in this forum that are so right for modern day radio, so that's why I've gone in depth here hoping to get my points across. Again, I'm not trying to say that the advice you've been given on this is wrong....I'm just saying that for this particularl song and what it stands for, I disgree with quite a bit of what you've been told. If I were to just listen to your mix without keeping the genre in mind, I'd say "good demo man!" But because I think this tune really has something special going on, I'd definitely go about it a different way. But that's just me and the producer in me talking. What you have is fine....but if I were to really go all out and make it lash out like it could, I'd definitely at least look into some of the stuff I'm saying here as it will definitely give you more impact for the genre as well as make more of a musical statement. Best of luck brother, hope this helps!

-Danny

Understood Ed, and honest I wasn't trying to have a go at you or anyone else. I guess the issue may be in what *you* consider the definition of "thin". Thin to me is like...lack of depth, paper thin, not robust..small. I don't hear that in his snare at all on all my gear. I hear this snare that sounds like the word "clock" when it hits which tells me it's loaded up with mids to have that sound. It's also very dark...so thickening a sound like that to *me* would make it actually darker as it's not really in need of any thickness in my opinion. It's so dark it lacks crack.

I'd actually rather hear it have more crack than to be thicker. Removing the "clock" sound would actually thin it out a bit and make it have more of a snare strainer sound...which I just feel it needs. From there, if it sounds too thin he could always hybrid it for additional thickness like you mentioned...but in its current state, I don't think thickness is the issue. Timbre and attack is. That's just me though bro and how it's transfering over here on my stuff. :)

-Danny

Thank you Gr.

Danny - You never cease to amaze me with the amount of information you have and are willing to share brother.  I will download these files and check them out.  Thank you a million times over....   I have said before, if and when we meet in person the beers are on me.  At this point I really should just send you a keg now so my indebtedness doesn't get too high to handle.... ;)

Danny and Bapu-
As typical your golden ears are (to quote on of my favorite movies "my cousin vinny") dead-on-balls acurate.   The snare is from the the drummer default (pop) kit, the snare I chose to switch it to the piccolo.  And yes I thought it sounded bright and gave it a boost at about 275-300 to fatten it up...  Although  as I have already explained to Danny via emails, I was using ARC at the time (which has now failed me for what will probably be the last time I'll reach to use it). I was also listening at a low, low volume as I knew when I sat down saturday night and deleted every plug, EQ, automation and set all panning positions to zero and started over that it was going to be a long session.  (went from 8pm to 4 am).  Much to my dismay the mix and 8 hours work was wasted as it did not translate when I checked it sunday afternoon....  Arc is removing so much low end from my system that it's ****ed..  and I had over compensated.  I spent about 2  hours tweaking that remix to what you hear now.   It is very posibble that I left the snare in it's boosted low end state as an ovesight from when I was using arc and everything sounded thin and harsh.  I can fix that. 

Jeff- though I know I did adjust the kick after pulling ARC off the project, Perhaps not enough...  I felt that (In mix 2 ) the drums were entirely too dominant and loud yet small sounding.  I was shooting to fatten them up and have them come across as bigger and then set them into the mix better.  I tend to mix drums hot and it's a personal preference that sometimes is to my own detriment.  I was fighting the urge to do so here and wanted a more balanced sound... Do you guys think they are too far back now?

Hi ChuckC, 

Good work.  I love the energy.  I agree with Danny about the drums needing some sizzle (my words not his).  Also, around 3:05, what about dropping the guitars completely for a number of bars to just drums and vocals?  It would highlight both and then the guitars come back in and lift you up all over again.  Just a thought. 

Rimshot

ChuckC


Danny,
  I can sure hear the differences in those two mixesthough I'll be honest.  I am not so sure I like what using the "haas" effect has done to it.  As it the 3rd, 4th, and 5th chords it sounds fatter but cluttered to me.  I suppose I am hearing the delayed signal and my ear is objecting to the timing differences.  I don't hear it as dominantly in the 2 opening chords of the riff... after that my ear was kinda screaming NOPE! I don't like it!   Your tone in the 1st mix however I find very impressive and something I could aspire to.    I appreciate the examples. 
   Though I may not get to it tonight, I will remix this within a day or to and repost. 

And I agree with you in full...but here's the thing you may be forgetting. What you heard in my HAAS clip was just two guitars. I'm saying, add something like that to the two you already have and don't make it as dominant as you heard in mine. So you'd have 4 guitars total in the chorus part, and two of them would/could have the HAAS effect (one reversed) and you just mix them in lower. They'll fill out the space and give you more punch and power for the chorus. I'd never use them like you heard in that second clip because it's just too much.....but I wanted to show you how it worked in a way in which you could really hear it.
 
For example, if I added two more guitars in that little tune and made them sound the way they do in the first clip by panning them at like 80 a piece, and then added the second clip HAAS guitars in with them with a slightly higher end presence push for some sizzle with a shorter delay to where you can just hear enough of the effected guitars to add some body, it's going to take on an entirely new sound. We keep the two main guitars dominant and add the others in as backing support, understand?
 
I'd also not use the delays that extreme. The longer the delay, the more loose it becomes and you don't want it loose. Anything over 24 ms is going to loosen up. The whole idea Chuck (without you having to record multiple guitar layers with multiple sounds) was to just use this trick along with what you already have in a subtle way. As soon as we go too extreme it can get jumbled.
 
At any rate, good luck with the tune brother. I'm sure you'll get it the way you want it eventually. :)
 
-Danny

Hi ChuckC, 
Much better but the poor guitars might have taken a hit a little.  They are thinner on my system.  I recommend you compare to this Green Day song for sonic values (not song/attitude).  This video has had over 13 million views!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUTGr5t3MoY

I think you are really close.  

Rimshot

Ya that snare is better to my ears.

Guitars did "take a hit" on this version.

Sounds the same as the last one I heard to be honest. Still getting that scoop sound where it's just high end, sub low and no good mids to my ears. Toms have no percussive attack...they just sound like "ooom". Meant to mention that last time. But it still sounds pretty much the same as the last time I posted a response.

-Danny

Well I can't help anymore with the mix. It seems your well in hand here. so I'll just stick to the song.

It is great. I love how the guitars work with each other. Very impressive bit of writing there. I'm not a fan of the vocal style but if it works for you, then my opinion on that doesn't matter. It just reminds me of The Macho Man Rhandy Savage. "Oh yeah! Messin with the Macho Man! I've got the worlds worst case of constapation. That's why I talk this way!" Sorry about that but it's worth a laugh.

It would be nice to hear this on the radio. The song ROCKS HARD!

Very well done!