• Songs
  • Beepster Metal (my first Sonar production) (p.4)
2012/09/25 14:08:43
STinGA
I know :-)
2012/09/25 15:22:43
jamesyoyo
bapu


Beeps, the pro's have weighed in on the technicalities of the mix so I won't belabor them.

And tell James that I have over 45K in posts and I'm still new to this too, and plus also my mixes are turrible.

Nice playing.


Don't start any new fights, Ed.
2012/09/25 15:31:56
evadianepug
He's a chain yanker!  LOL!
2012/09/25 16:09:33
Beepster
@STinGA... Thank you kindly. I'm gonna see what I can do to get those drum sound a little more present amongst other things but I'm currently installing X2 which is likely going to take up my afternoon. I think I want to let my brain take a break from the tune anyway. I'm probably a little too close to it at the moment to really make any positive improvements.
2012/09/25 19:02:31
SToons
Beepster


I panned them out to about 10% thinking that would be enough but when (and if) I revisit this I'll keep that in mind. I don't know much about proper mix separation but I'm learning so future endeavors should be a little more presentable (I was trying to go for a nice Slayer type chug but it didn't quite work out

Try seperating the rhythm parts 80-100%. !00% works fine and is very common for metal. 10% is essentially a waste of time.
 
On one track add an EQ. Choose a boost of about 8 dB using a Bandpass filter. Sweep the Frequency between roughly 2-4 kHz until you hear a sweet spot pop out. Lower the boost to about 3 dB. EQ the other rhythm track with a 3dB cut at the same frequency. This can also be important for circumstances where the mix is heard in mono or with less than ideal seperation.
 
Try using different guitars, amps etc. for each rhythm track, for example a Mesa on one side and a Marshall/Soldano on the other.
2012/09/25 19:21:36
Beepster
Thanks, SToons. You are describing a few things I did (or thought I had done but realized upon closer inspection had screwed up... gotta fix it) but other stuff I did not know. Particularly the pan levels for the rhythm guitars. I wasn't sure how far to go (when I double checked I had actually set them at 20% but that's still not enough). The idea was, and it ALMOST got done was to have the 5150 on one track then the Hot Solo on drastically different settings (Low Crunch and High Squeal) on the other two clones of that track then copy all those settings to guitar 2's tracks. Then pan each set of three out from there... but as I said I BEEPED it up. I also did the whole Anderton notching EQ to get rid of the squishy squashies but again it looks like that technique only made it onto a few tracks. So essentially I completely screwed it up. lol... but thanks for the extra tips. I was kind of aching to get some in depth advice. Once I fix it all I'll post the new version with a detailed list of the settings and invite all my buddies to come pick it apart. Cheers and again thank you.
2012/09/25 19:40:15
Rus W
Excuse the gamer in me, but you've got a uber boss fight happening! How long did it take you to beat him/her or get beaten by him or her? Did you throw your console out the window afterwards? :D

I'm with the others about the drums being a bit low, but not every tune needs drums. Not my style, but I do appreciate the effort put into it and that's not me saying I don't like the song either.

Btw, I'm still learning the production stuff, too, so you aren't alone.

All in all, this piece was well done for it only to be a rough sketch. Anticipating to see how this will be fleshed out.
2012/09/25 19:46:47
Bill Jackson [Cakewalk]
SToons

Try using different guitars, amps etc. for each rhythm track, for example a Mesa on one side and a Marshall/Soldano on the other.

I agree, this is ideal.  However, since the parts are already tracked, this may not be an easy option.  My personal favorite tool to give doubled/panned metal guitar tracks a different color is Sonitus:Multiband.  It sorta works as an eq and compressor simultaneously on 5 individual bands.  So you can create differences in both dynamics and overall frequency dominance.  This is the core of what differs between two amps.  Here's a (sloppy, quick & dirty) example of it does...  The first few measures are "natural" the last few measures are with a multiband on each track, tweaked differently:


https://dl.dropbox.com/u/...9/MultibandExample.mp3


2012/09/25 20:03:58
Beepster
Right on, Rus. The gamer comment confuses me a bit but it made me laugh anyway. I more than respect your opinion due to your theoretical/compositional insights and our past discussions. You may find this interesting or at least amusing. I wrote this completely backwards. I was just playing around with BFD and tossed together a drum track to see what the preset grooves were like. THEN I started jamming along with it and pieced together the rhythm guitar parts. It was tricky because the beats move and change so darned fast. Also in usual Beepster style of course I had to toss in some random measure counts and at one point cut off a measure (man was that a pain to create a transition for). Compared to what I'd usually do the rhythm guit parts are pretty simplistic but I just wanted something I could easily solo over... which actually turned out to be... kind of true, kind of not. Now this is the part you might appreciate. Because of all the diminished 5ths in the rhythm parts I automatically assumed that Locrian would be my best bet for leads. Well after a couple of evenings trying to shoehorn in some Locrian based solos... and then trying to go back and forth from Aeolian to Locrian and even attempting to squeeze in some Dorian I realized the darned thing is in Phrygian with little pockets of Locrian jammed in there. Hilarious. So from there all the improv and diatonic based stuff went easy and the rest was just chromatics following the rhythms. It was obnoxiously fun going through that process. There is a reason I labeled it dork metal... because I'm a dork. Hope you've been well and thanks for the listen. ;-)
2012/09/25 20:09:18
daryl1968
evadianepug


He's a chain yanker!  LOL!


where I come from that could be used as rhyming slang :)
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