First full band recording attempt.

[Diocide]

So I've recently made the jump to full band recording. I never had a need to before, but since forming another band, I really wanted to give it a go.

Equipment list;
Mac Mini 2. Something ghz, 5 gigs of ram
Glyph 500gb external HD
Presonus 1818VSL Interface
Presonus Studio One DAW
KRK Rokit 8 Monitors
Sennheiser HD280 headphones

I did some pre production by setting all the time sigs and tempo changed and created a scratch guitar track. I then tracked the drums. Used a CAD kick drum mic, sm57 on the snare and toms, and I used 2 MXL 990 condensers as overheads for the cymbals. Total of 6 mics for drums.

I then tracked the guitars. I did one track with a sm57 on one of the Fanes in my Mesa 4x12 using a musket out In front of my Laney. The I doubled it up, using just a ts9 in front of the laney, while micing up a v30 in my Mesa 2x12. All using my LTD baritone tuned to B standard.

I recorded bass direct and used an amp sim within the DAW.

Vocals were recorded with one of the mxl 990's.

I'm now getting down to mixing. I'm going to pot some clips soon and see what you guys think. I've done some EQing and whatnot, but haven't gotten too heavy into it.

You can check the "Undercliff" Facebook page for some pics I took during the recording process.

Thanks!

EDIT; added a second song and second mix of the first song...

[Diocide]

https://soundcloud.com/mr-plx/livingghostsmixdown

There is the initial mixdown. Have at it. DOn't be afraid to hurt me feelings, so long as it's constructive...

[benjamin801]

I'm not a recording engineer, just a musician who's spent a good amount of time in studios, and an appreciator of fine music in all genres. With that disclaimer, a few observations:

- The cymbals, especially the ride, are too forward. I can't tell if they're too loud in the mix, or just EQed in such a way that they are too present.
- The kick drum is nowhere to be found.
- The guitar tone is fat and sludgy - in a good way. Maybe because my own rig tends towards surgically tight palm mutes, I always get off on sludgier mutes.
- The riff and song themselves are way cool

[Diocide]

Your observations are duly noted sir. Thanks. I concur about the bass drum. I need to find a way to separate it from the bass guitar.

I appreciate the words about the songwriting!

[GuitarBilly]

Will listen to it tonight (soundcloud is blocked here)

[Ostinato Rubato]

i know dick about mixing. Overall I thought things were good. Reading Ben's post, I then start to notice more the lack of kick and presence of cymbals and hats.

I only like the vocals in the gruff growl parts, where they sounded pretty good actually. I didn't like the sung parts honestly. Even though the song has an overall dreary kind of vibe, the vocals were dull and also out of tune.

[Diocide]

i know dick about mixing. Overall I thought things were good. Reading Ben's post, I then start to notice more the lack of kick and presence of cymbals and hats.

I only like the vocals in the gruff growl parts, where they sounded pretty good actually. I didn't like the sung parts honestly. Even though the song has an overall dreary kind of vibe, the vocals were dull and also out of tune.

Fair enough. Those vocals belong to me. I can't sing worth a shit, but hey, someone's got to do it. I appreciate it man. Thanks for listening.

[Diocide]

No other insights or opinions? I've messed around with the eq on the bass drum to try and desperate it from the bass guitar, and I'll post another version soon.

[Noizemaker]

I like everything overall, except the vocals.

[Passenger]

Turn down your cymbals a bit, they're pretty loud. Snare sounds pretty good, maybe an eq boost in the 250hz range for more body. The kick has too much low end, now this is where our styles may differ though; i do more djenty/tight low tuned riffage where there are a ton of syncopations, so where as id want to have my kick a little more "clicky", you would probably be going for a totally different sound. Raise up the volume on it a bit and maybe play around in taking ouyt in the 300-500hz rang and boosting in the 4-5k for a little bit of click.

I dont know jack squat about vocal mixing. haha

[mac1215]

it has a ton of 'depth', with more 'in the room' feel. i like that.
cymbals are good for d00m, the kick wasn't bad, maybe bring it up a bit.
vox, meh, but to me, music does the 'heavy lifting'. vox are the icing on the cake, an afterthought.

[Diocide]

Thanks for the insights gentlemen. I've just started to remix the drums a bit, and hope to have a finished project within a couple weeks. I'll post up the changes and see what you guys think.

[Diocide]

ALrighty... I mixed that first song again. Added some high end to the kick to make it a bit more "Present" and chilled out the two overheads... Also added another tune... Let me know what you think....

Take 2
https://soundcloud.com/mr-plx/livingghostsmixdown2


New Song
https://soundcloud.com/mr-plx/atlantismixdown

[Nolly]

I listened to some of the first track, here are my comments:

I'd say your guitars are very dull and midrangey at the moment, try using a nice coloured EQ to shelf boost up in the air region and see where you're at. Cutting some mud will probably be necessary. The right-side guitar is much darker which is skewing the stereo image left a lot, so if retracking with a more similar tone on both sides is a possibility I'd recommend that (try sticking to the same cab/mic setup on both sides, and using a different guitar or amp/settings to get the differentiation if that's what you're after). If not, give the right guitar some presence boost along with the aforementioned high shelving applied on the guitar bus.

The bass is very round and undefined - maybe look into using a bright overdrive pedal during tracking or running it through a distorted guitar amp sim in parallel in your DAW to get some grit in there. Watch the 100-150 area and the 200-300 area for mud, and if cutting that leaves you with something on the thin side, you could look into a tight boost in the 60-70hz region depending where your kick is sitting.

The overheads are really bright but lacking aggression and headroom. They're also not very wide, which is cluttering your centre image. It's difficult to know what you're doing processing-wise, but if you're boosting the hell out of the high end I'd advise using a shelf centred a little lower to get some upper-mid presence into them. If you had tracked with room mics just playing with the ambience those provide would have helped a lot.
Snare, kick and toms are very muddy and tuned rather flat. I'd run a boost through the midrange of each to find the muddiest areas and apply cuts to those. I'd also boost the air region up with a shelf to get some life into them. Some punchy compression on each shell will give you more power.

Overall, some compression on the master bus will generate more excitement, but until the individual instrument issues are worked on it's going to be difficult to know where to start there.
Next time I'd spend more time on tuning the kit and mic placement all around. With that taken care of you'll find it much, much easier to achieve the results you're after come mix-time.

Sorry for such a negative-focussed post, I hope you're not offended.

[Diocide]

Not offended, just a little overwhelmed. That's a lot of info. Thanks for the post, I guess

[Diocide]

Hey Nolly, when you use the term "shelving" or "shelf" you're referring to an EQ shape correct? Esseinatly, a boost in a particular range of frequencies that ends up looking like a shlef? I'm kinda new to this, so I'm still learning some of the terminology.

[Nolly]

No worries! A shelf is an EQ curve that's centred on the frequency you've chosen, but extends up or down to infinity depending on whether it is a high or low shelf. For example this is a high shelf boost at 7kHz, and a low shelf cut at 90Hz: