What a ripper thread. Thank you very much to all who contributed.

If I might make an observation or two.

There was plenty of discussion on technique using the various processors at our disposal whether for mixing or mastering but what was missing to me was the actual instrument sound. Let me explain.

My background began as a young kid playing brass instruments, specializing on the trombone but playing pretty much all of them at some time or other. The thing is that the instrument defined the sound added to that of course was the venue where the instrument was played.

All the instruments fitted together as they do in an band/orchestra, each cutting out a portion of the sonic palette for themselves. Combined with an arrangement that gives each instrument/sound a space

With all the electronics at our disposal I think, sometimes we don't have a clear 'vision' of the sound we are trying to record. The result is that we try to modify it with fx and dynamics processors. That's why I think it's important to stand back from our recordings without processing to isolate the individual instruments/sounds. When they're correctly defined it's surprising how little is left to fiddle with and muddy up the mix. I wonder if this isn't what gives rise to over mixing.

Just some thoughts.

+1
 
I think that is also my real question, as giving each instrument its own "sonic space" is where I have little experience/most interest. Sharke posted a thread in techniques (The Art of Mixing by Dave Gibson), which I found to be good timing with this thread.
 
One particular thing that got a brief mention in that video caught me (since I am a former submariner), and it hit directly on the Signal/Noise ratio ((Signal - Transmission loss)/(Noise - Directivity Index))... specifically "Directivity Index"... which is recognizing a sound so that it can be heard "cleanly" even when not the loudest. The mixing application mentioned was something I had heard of, but never used; whereby the introduction of a new element is often more distinct at first, but then can be "absorbed" by the mix, yet still "distinct" because the listener has been trained to identify it easily.
 
Of course, there is no "one size fits all" anywhere in music, so gaining the knowledge of what applies best where, how, and why is the bigger learning curve. Book smarts only goes so far... and at some point you just need to do.
 
 
 

Okay, guys. Spent the afternoon tweaking a bunch of stuff in the mix based on all the fine advice I got here. Still a couple things I could have done but this'll be the final update. Thanks for all the AWESOME advice from EVERYONE and or course a special thank you to Danny for taking so much time to impart his wisdom here for all to learn from. Absolutely great thread.
 
https://soundcloud.com/user432042324/beeps-creep-remix-revisit
 
Cheers!
 
I'll provide some more detail but right now I'm starving and it's getting to be ole beepster's pumpkin hour. ;-)
 
Edit: I may have gone a little overboard on the bass guitar but some people wanted to hear more of it. Might be a little too much but ya'll can decide.
 
Edit: See this post for a run down of what I changed...
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/2946561

I like the extra low end and the guitars are great! Nice playing man!

mudgel
What a ripper thread. Thank you very much to all who contributed.

If I might make an observation or two.

There was plenty of discussion on technique using the various processors at our disposal whether for mixing or mastering but what was missing to me was the actual instrument sound. Let me explain.

My background began as a young kid playing brass instruments, specializing on the trombone but playing pretty much all of them at some time or other. The thing is that the instrument defined the sound added to that of course was the venue where the instrument was played.

All the instruments fitted together as they do in an band/orchestra, each cutting out a portion of the sonic palette for themselves. Combined with an arrangement that gives each instrument/sound a space

With all the electronics at our disposal I think, sometimes we don't have a clear 'vision' of the sound we are trying to record. The result is that we try to modify it with fx and dynamics processors. That's why I think it's important to stand back from our recordings without processing to isolate the individual instruments/sounds. When they're correctly defined it's surprising how little is left to fiddle with and muddy up the mix. I wonder if this isn't what gives rise to over mixing.

Just some thoughts.

I think a lot of people forget that mixing isn't entirely separate from arranging. People get too obsessed with trying to "carve out" space for clashing instruments using EQ boosts and cuts, when really they should start thinking about choosing sounds that go together well even without EQ. This could mean anything from choosing a different patch to transposing a part up or down an octave to stop it clashing with something else. You can be as creative as you like - recently I had a problem where a synth line and a guitar part were masking each other, so I entirely reworked the synth line so that most of the notes were sounding during the short rests in the guitar part. The result was different melodically and rhythmically than what I'd originally planned, but each part was much clearer in the mix because of the way they entwined around each other. Of course this is a lot easier if you're doing it with two MIDI parts that you can have open in the PRV together. It's probably going to jar with people who refuse to let their composition be influenced by technical considerations, but in my case I compose and arrange on the fly anyway so whatever works...

Thanks again, clint. Believe it or not I actually didn't touch the guitars at all. All that bottom end is coming from the bass and the EQ tweaks to the overall mix in the premaster and master.
 
I think I may have made it a little boomy though but I have a tendency to strip out lows it seems so I figured I'd go against my nature and give it a shot. I'll have to rely on everyone elses ears to let me know if I borked it. Hope you've been well, man. Cheers.

Beepster
Okay, guys. Spent the afternoon tweaking a bunch of stuff in the mix based on all the fine advice I got here. Still a couple things I could have done but this'll be the final update. Thanks for all the AWESOME advice from EVERYONE and or course a special thank you to Danny for taking so much time to impart his wisdom here for all to learn from. Absolutely great thread.
 
https://soundcloud.com/user432042324/beeps-creep-remix-revisit
 
Cheers!
 
I'll provide some more detail but right now I'm starving and it's getting to be ole beepster's pumpkin hour. ;-)
 
Edit: I may have gone a little overboard on the bass guitar but some people wanted to hear more of it. Might be a little too much but ya'll can decide.

 
The cymbals are definitely more palatable now, but you have gone a little overboard on the bass. It's starting to get into reggae territory  Perhaps I'm alone in thinking it wasn't too low before - I always think of the bass in this kind of music as there primarily to add a little more low end weight to the rhythm guitar parts rather than being heard as a part in itself. I just had a quick listen to Divine Intervention because I know you've been using this era of Slayer as a reference, and the bass on that album is definitely a little more low key. Most of their low end seems to come from the kick, if you listen to a song like Circle of Beliefs the kick really is the driving force. In fact I think the bass guitar on that whole album really takes a back seat compared to the kick. I love the flange on the rhythm guitar in that song btw...great sounding album.  

Hi, sharke. Yeah, listening to it this morning on my crummy headphones I think I definitely cranked up the bass guitar just a little too much. I got excited by the fact I could finally hear and most importantly FEEL the bass on a track I had produced. I actually like a lot more bass in my metal than Slayer usually has in their mixes and it does seem to be how the more modern bands are doing things (even on Slayer's newer stuff the bass is much more present... too bad the music is kind of, meh IMO). Overnight I was considering what Jeff said in the Blue Tubes thread about trying out new EQ's on full mixes to get the hang of them. Maybe after I deal with all my phone calls and other boring monday morning type things I'll go back in to the mix and just turn the bass track down a bit, export/import to my mastering session and export using the same minimal effects I did with this.
 
The funny thing is in this version I wasn't even TRYING to get my -3db oct curve but it just went there on it's own EXCEPT for where the bass was sitting which had a bit of a spike. Very interesting.
 
I'm gonna wake up a bit and try to remember all the stuff I did and post them so everyone can see how some of the suggestions here applied to the mix.
 
Need tea. Thanks for listening, dude.
 
And of course the BLEEPING forum refuses to post my comment. BLERN!!!

Finally! Man, that's annoying.
 

Anyway... this is what I changed:
 
- Took ALL the compressors of the cymbals at the track level and MAN were they ever smashed. I guess I figured it was making them all nice and bright and that was a good thing but was terribly wrong. The only thing going on at track level on the cymbals now is a hi pass and very modest hi shelves to either bring things up or down on a case by case basis. The unfortunately thing is that the hi hat is STILL a little too present for me but it is coming from the room mic mostly. Since I had printed the synth track to audio I couldn't do much about it but will adjust BFD in the future so that the hats aren't so prominent in the room/overheads. I also had some saturation on some of those tracks so I remove that as well. It's pretty much just the raw samples and I think it's a lot better. There was a reason I bought that pack and it certainly wasn't to have to process the hell out of them... but now I know.
 
-Created a cymbals bus. I wanted to control them all at once and after removing the compressors on the tracks I find they were a little flat and wild so again I did a low pass, a touch of high shelf boost and put the PC2A on so it was JUST barely compressing the peaks. Then I made sure the track levels were more even and turn them down at the buss to JUST before the point I felt they were getting buried. It's just that bleeping hi hat that's a problem which I will definitely pay more attention to from the start in the future.
 
-Tweaked the bass tracks. I turned down some of the saturation/drive on my fuzz bass track so I could turn things up a bit more. I also reworked the levels between the four bass tracks so there was more of softer fat bass track in the mix to round out the bottom end a bit more. Then it all got turned up at the bus (probably too much but I'll fix that). Overall it's not quite as gritty but I think it "feels" more like a bass track and now the mix isn't that typical 80s metal demo sound.
 
-Adjusted guitar levels. I didn't do anything to the guitars except try to balance the levels to fit into the new mix. There is one solo snippet that REFUSED to increase in volume (the second passage in the fast solo). Not sure what's up with that but there is some fancy cloning and routing I used to get some spread and that back and forth effect without dropping out of the center. Another thing I'll have to keep an eye on in the future.
 
-Kick/Snare. I probably could have gone over the processing for both a little more and was going to actually create a bus for each and tweak them there but after screwing around a bit I didn't think it was really necessary. The kick was cloned with on track set to get the attack and the other the body and the snare had top and bottom mic's tracks that I stripped out by fiddling with the controls in BFD and double bouncing. I turned up the fatter kick a little which rounded out a bit more and seemed to play well with the bass. On the snare I turned up the bottom mic quite a bit which seemed to make it crack a lot better (I think the old snare was a little dead with more of than PWONG type feel to it which I like but I think this is better and more traditional). Both the kick and snare then got turned up as much as I could get them without clipping or being obnoxious. I think I still have a lot to learn about kick/snare processing but I'm pretty happy with this for now.
 
-Turn up the drum bus/turned down the toms. This just felt right and the toms were kind of sitting weird before I think. It also got the kick and snare up a bit more.
 
-Bandpass on the Drum and Instrument reverb busses. I was looking over my notes and found a tidbit about this. I actually hadn't done ANY processing to my reverb busses and had forgotten this trick. Basically get the ultra highs and lows out of the reverb so they don't build up and make a bunch of unnecessary noise. It immediately got rid of a good deal of the not so apparent abrasiveness. I'm glad I remembered about that. I adjust the reverb bus levels a bit too but other than that I left them as is.
 
-Premaster bus. I put a bus before the master that everything gets sent to and that's where I tweak the overall mix EQ and add some light "glue" compression and leave the Master bus free of all processing. Here I turned down the compressor a bit (again the PC2A... I just love that thing) and used the Quad Curve to boost the bass a bit more and brought down the highs a little bit from where they were (both shelves). My little mid scoop seemed to be fine where it was so I left that as is. I didn't want this to be the "Master" even though this is kind of master processing I guess but I wanted to follow Danny's advice of getting the mix to sound right so as little as possible needed to be done in the actual master phase. Having the really light compression here was kind of meant as the first stage of a two stage compression process the second which I did in the actual mastering project. Everything I did in this step was indeed very light but I think when I go back into the mix I may turn down the low shelf just a bit and replace it in the mastering session because I think I might get a less boomy bottom end out of the Pultech thingy. I would have uploaded this premastered version for everyone to hear but I guess soundcloud doesn't like 96khz waves. D'oh!
 
-Master. I did VERY little here because as I mixed I kept hearing Danny's voice over my shoulder yelling "DON'T LEAN ON THE MASTER!! MIX IT SO IT SOUNDS GOOD FIRST!!" and I think it helped a lot. Instead of using X2 again I wanted to try out some of the new plugs in X3... specifically the Blue Tubes Pultech model instead of destroying things with the LP64 like I seem to always do. I decided to do a Pre-Master bus set up again so I could do my tweaks there and leave the Master for the limiter and the analyst just so I didn't have to screw around with post/pre settings or create FX Chains to get the routing right. Again I put on the PC2A which whatever... I probably could have used something else but I really didn't want a lot of compression at all. Just a bit of sparkle and that thing never fails and it's so easy to use. So that was the second stage of my master compression and it was just barely registering. I messed with the little screw knob a bit to get it working just at the right spot and many times that control doesn't do much but here it really did make a difference. Then I tossed on the Blue Tubes Pultec model (the basic one... not the fancy one with extra controls but I may play with that later today). I messed around with that thing for like an hour just trying things out. It is extremely cool. Eventually I got it set up so the bass was more pronounced without being boomy (in fact with the atten knob I seemed to be able to yank out a bit of boominess) and added a bit of clarity at the high end. It also manage to clean up some hi-mid abrasiveness. Really as I a/b'd it the difference was extremely subtle but somehow cleaned it all up in ways I never could have done with a linear phase or multiband. Again I definitely need more face time with this tool and "mastering" in general but I like what it did. Aside from the limiter that is ALL I did to the master and the before/after were very similar... the after was just a little more pro sounding. Not quite as hairy.
 
-Limiter. I think this deserves it's own section because I took a chance here... well not a chance, I did a lot of a/bing and trying things out but I decided to use the Blue Tubes Brickwall limiter instead of the Boost11 one. There really isn't MUCH of a difference and I may even be imagining a difference but to me the BT one is just a touch smoother and less mechanical sounding. It could very be psychological just because it LOOKS like an old analog unit unlike the rather sterile looking B11 but after a good long set of testing them back and forth it just felt more right. In both cases I made sure that I was boosting the signal up enough to be reading between -3 to -1db but BARELY triggering the limiter. Like making it so it only kicked in at two or three spots in the entire song and the reduction was only a db or two. This I think was another difference between the two. The B11 seems to pump and break up the signal when the limiter kicks in even with very little reduction which is very unpleasant. The BT Brickwall kind of does the same thing when you get past a certain point but it is a little less mechanical sounding and at lower/less frequent reduction it's not really noticeable at all (to me anyway). So even though I do need to take a look at other limiters and wish I have been able to afford the Concrete Limiter before I crippled myself financially this addition to the Sonar bundle is very welcome on my system. I'm kind of excited to try out the other BT plugs now considering how cool the two I've tried so far are. Anyway, I tried dialing in the limiter myself and that was working out but I decided to check out the different presets. I decided the CD Mastering preset was giving me the best results but it was a little low (I was peaking at -3 to -2db and I wanted just a little bit more) so I turned up the threshold a little to get more volume and that was that. Now you are listening to the end product.
 
Sorry for the novel but I wanted to write this all down in case I want to take reference it in the future and figured it might be interesting for folks to see what suggestions I used so they can judge what might (or might not) work on their own stuff.
 
Again many thanks and sorry I did not get a chance to reply to everyone. I was meaning to but I've been kind of busy, scattered and not feeling particularly well and figured it might be better to just get the work done instead of blathering on about stuff here. I may give this a quick work over today just to bring down the bass a bit and maybe play around with the mastering stuff a bit more but that depends on how my day progresses.
 
You all rock. Cheers!