Thoughts on this mix for my metal song?

[josephbass86]

Wrote kind of a proggy metal song that changes in mood and feel a lot. Just wondering if anyone had any comments on the mix. Thanks.

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[HardNHeavy]

monster vox seem a bit loud, but that might just be my laptop spkrs..sounds ok to me otherwise

 

[smogg]

Vocals need to come down a notch. Bass down a half notch. Guitar up a half notch. Drums need some clarity and I can barely hear the cymbals. I'm using decent headphones that track pretty well. Just my opinion but you asked. Dig the tune overall. Good luck with your project.

 

[pcake]

the earlier vocals could maybe use some kind of effects. i like the song best when the song picks up and the cookie monster vocals start.

 

[josephbass86]

Vocals need to come down a notch. Bass down a half notch. Guitar up a half notch. Drums need some clarity and I can barely hear the cymbals. I'm using decent headphones that track pretty well. Just my opinion but you asked. Dig the tune overall. Good luck with your project.

Thanks for the honesty that’s what I’m looking for.

 

[josephbass86]

the earlier vocals could maybe use some kind of effects. i like the song best when the song picks up and the cookie monster vocals start.

If you are referring to the clean vocals in the beginning with the piano, there is a ton of delay and reverb on them already to make them sound big. But thanks for listening.

 

[John Sparkman]

Good song.

I like it the way it is.


And yeah, the Cookie Monster comment cracked me up, pcake.
Too funny!

 

[Element Zero]

It’s like Phil Anselmo singing for old school Opeth. It’s cool! Couple suggestions.

Guitars don’t need to be louder per se, but the eq could use some work. Less gain, more mids, slap an HPF around 100 hz, and bring the highs down a bit. That upper register makes the cymbals sound washy especially when riding on the crash.

Drum toms are pretty boomy with a lot of resonance. Hihat and snare need to come up a bit with maybe a different tuning maybe slightly lower in pitch. And personally I’d pan everything to make it sound like you were sitting behind an actual kit.

Bass sounds good. Kinda hard to make out your noodley bits because there’s a cacophony of other busy dense things going on at the same time. Maybe add some upper mids and highs to help it cut more.

Really enjoyed it. Gonna have to go find my old SoundCloud page. Haven’t uploaded in at least 10 years lol.

 

[dune]

the earlier vocals could maybe use some kind of effects. i like the song best when the song picks up and the cookie monster vocals start.

Cookie monster vocals kick ass.

 

[lamarjones]

Vocals need to come down a notch. Bass down a half notch. Guitar up a half notch. Drums need some clarity and I can barely hear the cymbals. I'm using decent headphones that track pretty well. Just my opinion but you asked. Dig the tune overall. Good luck with your project.

I'm not necessarily saying that vocals need to come down, depends on how far out in the mix you want them. Everything else I agree with, would definitely like more 'excitement' with the drums.

 

[Lammchop93]

I agree with the earlier comments. Guitars need to come up and drums need some clarity. I am not an EQ wizard by any means, but it just sounds like a blanket is draped over the drums. Cool song!!

 

[BoogieZK]

Wrote kind of a proggy metal song that changes in mood and feel a lot. Just wondering if anyone had any comments on the mix. Thanks.

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Hello,
Too much compression on low ends, needs more guitar, toms are squashed.
Vocals needs to be a bit lowered.
Overall the compression on kick and toms are squashing the mix, and maybe bring the guitars up a bit.

Only my opinion of course.
Hope it serves you.

 

[mcnach]

Wrote kind of a proggy metal song that changes in mood and feel a lot. Just wondering if anyone had any comments on the mix. Thanks.

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sounds pretty good to me, nice bass!

I think drums need to come to the front a bit more and the bass a bit lower, guitar perhaps a tiny bit up... tiny bit.

 

[groovaholic]

Fortunately, the songwriting & playing are there - and that's the hard part!
Bonus that your singer has decent pitch & tone.

So all it needs is mixing.
I think the overall mix needs brightness - especially in the drum overheads/room mics.
The kick has good punch, but bringing in more snap in the 2-3k region could clarify the "pulse".
The guitar tone could also benefit from sounding a bit more raw...and as much as metal guitarists tend to scoop WAY too much mids, your bass had nice warmth and clarity in the mids and he could use a subtle notch in the range where the meat of your zone is living to give each of you some breathing room.

In fact, I'd recommend that strategy for the whole mix: pull up a frequency analyzer and see where the distribution is heaviest and where the spectrum needs to be punched up.
Then do the same for each instrument or subgroup & use frequency slotting to give each instrument a clearer lane.

Similarly, the other thing the mix needs is space:
I'm hearing too many things in the center of the stereo image; I'd widen and exaggerate the stereo field.
Anything that doesn't need to be panned center for low end solidity (i.e. the kick and bass) should be spread out across the stereo field.
Imagine posing a large group of people for a panoramic picture and making sure that everyone's face is visible...

It's tough to tell with the Soundcloud compression algorithm, but the whole mix also feels a bit squashed - I'd like to hear more dynamics.

 

[josephbass86]

Fortunately, the songwriting & playing are there - and that's the hard part!
Bonus that your singer has decent pitch & tone.

So all it needs is mixing.
I think the overall mix needs brightness - especially in the drum overheads/room mics.
The kick has good punch, but bringing in more snap in the 2-3k region could clarify the "pulse".
The guitar tone could also benefit from sounding a bit more raw...and as much as metal guitarists tend to scoop WAY too much mids, your bass had nice warmth and clarity in the mids and he could use a subtle notch in the range where the meat of your zone is living to give each of you some breathing room.

In fact, I'd recommend that strategy for the whole mix: pull up a frequency analyzer and see where the distribution is heaviest and where the spectrum needs to be punched up.
Then do the same for each instrument or subgroup & use frequency slotting to give each instrument a clearer lane.

Similarly, the other thing the mix needs is space:
I'm hearing too many things in the center of the stereo image; I'd widen and exaggerate the stereo field.
Anything that doesn't need to be panned center for low end solidity (i.e. the kick and bass) should be spread out across the stereo field.
Imagine posing a large group of people for a panoramic picture and making sure that everyone's face is visible...

It's tough to tell with the Soundcloud compression algorithm, but the whole mix also feels a bit squashed - I'd like to hear more dynamics.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I actually did all the vocals on this as well as guitar and bass. Couldn’t find the right people so just did it myself. But I will hopefully come up with a better mix. Still learning this production thing.

 

[Pizza Frog]

I like the mix, (I'm listening on headphones and the kick and snare sound crisp enough, the bass is loud but good, I wouldn't change anything about the level of the instruments but I might tinker with panning to make the overall mix a bit 'wider', the vocal mix is more subjective - it's loud but not obtrusive to me. Great song too.