cheddatom Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 I'm in the middle of making an album for the band I play drums and write some of the music for. It's going quite well. I've done a rough mix after drastically changing the guitar sound last night. It' just one track and the vocal sound sucks at the moment, but all comments and opinions are welcome. Bare in mind it's un-mastereed so turn it up! I've tried to use the attachment thingy, hopefully it'll work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 Good work! It's all pretty well balanced, vocals are a bit recessed and guitar is a little small sounding. Cymbals sound rather distorted but that may be the limitations of your cymbals/mic/preamp - also sounds like your stereo image on the drums is a bit muddled. But they're minor details - good vibe and energy which is the most important thing! Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted May 14, 2009 Author Share Posted May 14, 2009 Cheers! "guitar is small sounding" - can you think of anything I could do to make it "bigger" ? The cymbals sound exactly as they do at practice IE they are badly broken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 (edited) [quote name='cheddatom' post='487808' date='May 14 2009, 12:50 PM']"guitar is small sounding" - can you think of anything I could do to make it "bigger" ?[/quote] Try turning it up and sticking some more reverb on it so it sits back in the mix. The bass sound is huge so I wouldn't be afraid of it getting lost. [quote name='cheddatom' post='487808' date='May 14 2009, 12:50 PM']The cymbals sound exactly as they do at practice IE they are badly broken [/quote] Ah. Decent cymbals are worth their weight in gold. Unfortunately they also cost their weight in gold... Even some cheap unbroken ones will sound better but it would be a shame to lose a good performance just because the cymbals sound nasty. Try sweeping some EQ to notch out the nastiest part of their sound, I think it's around 1.5kHz. They'd also sound nicer if you got the images of the drums better matched - at the moment you can hear the cymbals moving around the mix - you need to pan the various drum channels so the hihats and snare are in the same place from channel to channel. Nice to get to use my monitors for something productive, I haven't done any studio work for a year! Alex Edited May 14, 2009 by alexclaber Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted May 14, 2009 Author Share Posted May 14, 2009 Ta for the tips, I'll try and get some of the nastiness out of the cymbals. I've never tried reverb on guitars, i'll give it a go. I don't understand this bit: "if you got the images of the drums better matched - at the moment you can hear the cymbals moving around the mix - you need to pan the various drum channels so the hihats and snare are in the same place from channel to channel." Sorry if i'm being thick, could you explain in detail or link me to a decent site about this? On the drums there are 2 room mics panned L and R, one rear overhead panned centre, 2 snare and a kick in the centre, and then the toms are extremely gated so they wont make much difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted May 14, 2009 Share Posted May 14, 2009 That's quite a strange drum miking arrangement! Start with the L & R room mics to get the basic drum sound. Then bring each other mic in and pan it so that it places the snare and hi-hat in the same stereo place as the LR mics do. If the LR mics don't get a decent sound then try a predominantly mono mix without them. When you listen to the track you can hear the hi-hat moving left and right as different mics pick up more or less of it - the drum image should be as stable as possible. Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted May 14, 2009 Author Share Posted May 14, 2009 Ahhhh, I see, the hats are moving around! I hadn't noticed, maybe my speaker set-up is wrong. The L&R mics together sound great with loads of compression, that's the main sound. Then the rear overhead is used for high frequency transients to try and give some presence, and the close mics on the snare and kick just help them cut through when the rest of the mix is brought in...... Just trying to explain the logic behind my method, although obviously it's not working! As every channel on the drums is central, that would mean the only stereo imaging is coming from the room mics, so I don't understand how the hats would move, unless I was moving a mic or my hats. Is it to do with phasing? Could be that when the snare is hit as the same time as the hat, the close mic on the snare picks up less hat and so they move more towards the right hand room mic? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexclaber Posted May 15, 2009 Share Posted May 15, 2009 Difficult. You see the LR mics are hearing the drums in stereo but then all your closer mics are putting them down the middle in mono, so the attack of most hits will come down the middle but the sustain will shift to the stereo mics, and thus shift position in the mix. Listen to just the LR mics and then pan every other mic to place each part of the kit in roughly the same place as where the stereo image puts them - don't just simply put them in the middle. The usual approach is to position the LR overheads so that the snare and kick are dead centre but obviously that has to be done in tracking, mixing. The rear overhead is particularly strange, that's just going to mess up the stereo image whatever you do. It would be more usual to have LR overheads and then a more distant mono mic for the room sound. Remember that the HF transients are the dominant contributor to the stereo image - I'd take the rear overhead out and try mixing without it. Alex Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted May 15, 2009 Author Share Posted May 15, 2009 Cool, thanks for that, i'll give it a go and report back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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