braunie : Always, mastered with comments :)

Steinberg Lounge
1

Hiya to all dear Cubaers all over the world !

Few months ago I posted this very same song into this very forum (or maybe it was the earlier one). I got positive feedback and loads of tips what I should do, change and so on. Well, I tried to better the mix (and inhouse master) and I got it louder and slightly punchier…allthough there were few comments stating that this is not punchy yet.

I was bit lost at that point…I needed to review my mixing process…well…my “music room” is my haven, keep…a place where only I am entitled to enter…and every time when I get there it is like an escape from the real world…you know - music, playing, mixing - maybe few beers…maybe few beers more…until everything sounds so frigginfanstatic and so on…

well, back to originial story…Lenny was asking for more bass. Ian wanted to have more solid kick. So my next mix was heavier on those. Or that is wat I thought…okay, I wanted to mix this song OTB using my nice SSL, Drawmer,DBX, Lexicon and TC gear. And my nice mixer to glue everything together with the fairy analogue dust. And I was so happy - good mix. Of course Lenny and Ian said that “I can hear the bass but kick still has no punch / definition”. WTF.

Okay, I’m fortunate enough to have a pro mastering engineer as my friend and I send my mix to him (pure mix, no bus compressor, no HPF) and asked if he could make it sound nice. The answer was : whole mix is so distorted that I would not touch it even with a long stick. Everything is distorted. You have a problem there mate. And I thought he was my friend…

But when I was sober I started to review my recording and monitoring chain…and my mixer…I found out that I had calibrated my mixer VU meters wrongly…so there was a fair amount of distortion in summed mix already. Then, I had a Samson matrix controller - really handy tool if you need to combine multiple monitor speakers and multiple sources…I took that out from my monitoring chain and I started to hear things, or differences…it was the biggest source for monitoring distortion I ever had…

So I made another OTB mix. Didn’t normalize it, didn’t put HPF nor my favourite SSL mix bus compressor and sent the mix to him again…he said that now it is so much better - not HiFi though - and I can try to do something…and he did. I do actually like the end result quite a bit. It is so much clearer (you can even hear all the mistakes which were masked earlier).

So here it is…braunie : Always mastered :slight_smile:

Stream or DL here :

…and keep your comments coming !!! I have learned so much during this process…thanks to you all !!!

Does it sound better now ? BTW…this master was done in good old 80’s way - prior voume war…so if it is not that loud crank up the amplifier…it has less limiting distortion I guess

braunie

2

Hiya braunie,

This is a cool tune. IMHO, the drums are way too mellow. By that, I mean there are places where they match the metal feel of the song and other places they’re way too straight.

I see where you’re going with the intro, but putting the same effect on both the voice and the music would bring it together. As it stands, the voice sounds dis-jointed from the music and it clashes a might.

Like I said, cool metal tune. :sunglasses:

3

yeh the guitars sound great, but like mashedmitten says the drums arent quite in the standard of the guitars as regards the mix,the toms which are panned sound great , i think it maybe the snare and bass drum that are just lacking something or have too much of something i dont know i wish i could put my finger on it and i am being realy picky here cause i think you are nearly in the realms of a very pro sounding mix for that style of music ,apart from the vocal on the intro which i think totaly lets it down i think you should take off the effect on the vocal, by the way good vocalist sounds like biff bifford of saxon,all the best

4

Hi Braunie.

Yeah, this is miles better than your previous mixes. There’s a clarity and separation that was missing from the earlier mixes.

The bass and kick are much clearer and well defined here, but I’m still wishing they were fatter, mainly
cuz it’s a heavy metal tune. For a pop mix - this would be perfect - I think I’d fatten the lows a bit for this.
Great sound, though!

Hearing Nate’s comment about the drum part mismatch - I hear that during the verse where you use the closed hats. For this I’d stay with the open hats, ya know, to keep more ‘hair’ on it. :slight_smile:

Excellent job clearing things up!

5

Hi Braunie

Yes much more clarity but something is missing in the emotional sense of the mix. I thinks it’s what lenny says. More bottom end meat required :mrgreen: and the snare and kick are lacking something. Best way I can describe with my little knowledge is sort of flat and plastic.

Still really like the tune. I was in the pub last night and they’ve got Kill The King on the juke box. :sunglasses:

Cheers
Dave

6

I think I know why the drums aren’t satisfying… It’s the samples themselves. I don’t know what you use – the kick sounds like that Steven Slate thwumpy kick, which works, but the snare sounds like that aggressive but pretty thin and poppy SSD sound. Not very appropriate or real sounding.

The lead vocal is dropping in and out a bit in terms of volume – compress that dude AGGRESSIVELY (and maybe bring it up a tiny hair)

Oh, another thing: what bitrate is this? My ears are rejecting lower bitrate mp3’s more and more lately

However, it’s a decent song with good playing in it. Change that snare, and for me it will SOAR, baby!