Mix Feedback Wanted

[InLimbo]

So I've never really recorded "live" instruments in the past, save a short guitar track to be looped over other stuff. Most of the time, the drums, bass, and other instruments are from a VST, with all of the "recording" already accomplished by some sort of professional that require little effort aside from adjusting levels and what-not.

However, I've been playing with two other guys semi-seriously since the beginning of the year and we decided that we'd like to have a decent copy of something to listen to - I'm sure everyone knows that music always sounds different when you're playing it than when you're listening to it. Really, we just wanted to try it out and see what we actually sounded like. That being said, we've all had some sort of experience in making stuff to listen to, but not to this extent of micing everything, and trying to do as good as mix and production - or whatever you want to call it - as we could. We're pretty pleased with the results, and are collectively surprised with what we were able to come up with.

Which is where I come to you guys who have worked on recording, and know what stuff can / should sound like. Let me know what you think about how the recording sounds, and if there's something that doesn't quite have a place in the mix, or something that you'd like to hear differently. Feel free to comment on composition too, if there's something that stands out.

Any feedback will be appreciated - thanks!

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[jorri]

Not really any advice over the mix. I think that's good, the guitar and speech is quite upfront but that's probably intentional.

But I think the drum sounds could be improved. The toms and cymbals sound quite artificial. And it sounds like a huge kit, a lot of things like splashes which dont really need to be in there. I think with VST you have to aim for it to not be trying to be an acoustic kit perhaps, ambience might help- the guitar is already pretty wet, but the drums are very dry, treated room sound-still like a super clean sample set, which isn't so 'post-rock'. Saturation can help them be natural as well, but maybe the way to go is to have them quite 'effected' by some kind of effect so it is less of a case that they are trying to sound like real drums.....
...alternatively if you recorded real drums, you'd probably get the right sound from the start, which is an option i'd go for if its available. personally i'd rather use two mics in a substandard room rather than VST, or if using VST i'd go for intentionally artificial sounds.

[InLimbo]

Awesome reply, thanks.

As far as the drums, that is a recorded acoustic set, not a VST. Two overheads mics, one on the kick, one on the snare, and one on each of the four toms. We tried playing a little with making them more "saturated" using VST effects, but we found that they either started to sound fizzy or brittle, which is the exact opposite as what we were hoping for, which was just some warmth. Right now there's a little compression, a little EQ, reverb, and we gated everything aside from the two overheads. But not a lot of post processing overall. It's strange how different these instruments sound individually versus in the mix.

You said something about the guitar, which was actually what we left alone for the most part. Maybe with a little more fiddling on it within the mix, we can make some more room for the drums to not sound quite so polished - I think this is what you might mean by it sounding artificial? I'd agree wth that. Good suggestion, I'll see what I can do by maybe trying to have it not so much in the foreground and maybe make a little more room to breathe.

[Shadoweclipse13]

Sounds great to me! I like how the drums are in the mix, not overpowering, but still there. The guitar sounds like the mic and amp were placed a few feet away, like a natural reverb. I liked it a lot. The guitars very much reminded me of a few songs on Alchemy Index Vol. III by Thrice or As Cities Burn, both of whom I love immensely.

Was there bass? Couldn't really hear much bass, but that could just be that I was listening on my phone too.

[InLimbo]

Yeah there's a synth bass, nothing fancy (he's sort of new to it), but it's definitely there, most just doing longer notes. I can't hear it on my phone either.

[Shadoweclipse13]

I'll check it out with headphones later then. Oh, I forgot to mention, towards the end of the song (like last 2 minutes) when it got a little heavier... Totally made me think of newer Mono, which is always a good thing

[jorri]

Ah ok, thought you said in the first post they were mostly VST because i misread that was what you were doing in the past

I guess i heard from that they were just a bit to clean really. Was just my tastes for this genre, but i do hear this drum sound on professional recording, just less so with music like this and you might want to know i'm a bit of an albini worshipper. But on the whole i tend to like minimal set ups anyway both for the amount of drums and the amount of mics.

I think its just some lack of ambience to me, I usually avoid gating because spill actually helps with that particular sound (i guess a natural sound.), and so does an ambient mic (if you didn't use one). An ambient mic can still be used in a small room, you can take a figure 8 pattern, put the kit in the null so it's only picking up reflected sounds, and delay it so its out of the phase area as well as bigger. But if this is your ideal sound you had in your head, don't listen to my subjective taste.

[zeoy]

The music is good and that's the first and most important ingredient you need. Your drummer is over enthusiastic at some points and a bit off at others.
Now for the mix: you need those drums louder (and probably a bit of EQ to make them a little bit brighter and some compression to make them gel together). Can't judge right now because they are so behind the guitar and the vocals.
The bass synth needs more volume too and probably some EQ boost in the low mids to make it clearer (esp. for those listening through cheap phones/speakers).
Post a new mix with a better balance of drums/guitar/bass/vocal and we can discuss in more detail later.

[InLimbo]

I think its just some lack of ambience to me, I usually avoid gating because spill actually helps with that particular sound (i guess a natural sound.), and so does an ambient mic (if you didn't use one). An ambient mic can still be used in a small room, you can take a figure 8 pattern, put the kit in the null so it's only picking up reflected sounds, and delay it so its out of the phase area as well as bigger. But if this is your ideal sound you had in your head, don't listen to my subjective taste.

An ambient mic would have actually been a great idea, and it's something I've wanted to try when recording my guitar, especially since I run a pretty wet stereo setup. I guess the same idea applies when recording drums. I do have a condenser mic with that figure 8 pattern that you're talking about which I could play around with. It isn't anything special (Behringer, I believe), but it could definitely be worth a shot. I'm not sure exactly what your describing with putting the kit in the null and using delay to make it out phase, but that sounds like an interesting technique for sure.

The music is good and that's the first and most important ingredient you need. Your drummer is over enthusiastic at some points and a bit off at others.
Now for the mix: you need those drums louder (and probably a bit of EQ to make them a little bit brighter and some compression to make them gel together). Can't judge right now because they are so behind the guitar and the vocals.
The bass synth needs more volume too and probably some EQ boost in the low mids to make it clearer (esp. for those listening through cheap phones/speakers).
Post a new mix with a better balance of drums/guitar/bass/vocal and we can discuss in more detail later.

I'm not sure that I even understand what you're saying here - I'm grateful for any feedback, but I think I'm going to have to disagree in making the drums louder. We've tried it out on a dozen or more different types of speakers and headphones, and all of which, not once were the drums too quiet, or at least in regards to what we're going for. And I guess I just don't understand what you mean by they're so far behind the vocals? I can hear them just fine - does anyone else notice this?

You might be onto something with the bass synth needing a bit more of a mid boost for lesser quality speakers, but I have to ask - is this really a concern when people are mixing? Like, they want to make sure that it's going to sound good on cell phones? I get basic headphones, bookshelf speakers, car speakers, etc. And what we did listen to it on, the bass was present, though it could probably use more mid.

[jorri]

Can't find the video i found out about that technique from. It was somewhere on 'creativesoundlab' channel on youtube.

A figure 8 hears both opposite directions. But what it also does is reject sound the most of all the mic patters at 90 degrees. (like a cardioid rejects sound from 180 deg or behind the microphone)
You basically face it 90 degrees from the kit, its a good idea to point it near the top corners of the room for example.
That way it doesn't pick up direct sound, but sound that is bouncing off the walls.
You could do that with a cardioid too, (facing the opposite direction of the kit in that case) would still work but is a bit less effective.

The result is an ambient signal, but it will have some time delay. In a large room this won't matter as its a long delay so is beginning to be audible as a separate 'ambience'.
However with a small room, the delay is small, so this causes phase cancellation. You could align the mic with overheads, but actually you are trying to add ambience so that's not the best plan.
Instead it is best to delay the ambient mic to about 30 secs, so its out of the area of phase cancellation. You just want it to begin to be heard as a separate sound, but not quite an obvious slapback.
That both makes phase problems disappear for the most part, and it makes it sound larger, like you are dealing with a bigger distance, and since you've positioned the mic to not pick up direct sound both these things fit together to simulate a much more distant mic (that would pick up less direct sound too, even if it were pointing at the kit, because its closer to the reflections). If you've got a room that's around >30ft of course you might not need to do this!

[zeoy]

The music is good and that's the first and most important ingredient you need. Your drummer is over enthusiastic at some points and a bit off at others.
Now for the mix: you need those drums louder (and probably a bit of EQ to make them a little bit brighter and some compression to make them gel together). Can't judge right now because they are so behind the guitar and the vocals.
The bass synth needs more volume too and probably some EQ boost in the low mids to make it clearer (esp. for those listening through cheap phones/speakers).
Post a new mix with a better balance of drums/guitar/bass/vocal and we can discuss in more detail later.

I'm not sure that I even understand what you're saying here - I'm grateful for any feedback, but I think I'm going to have to disagree in making the drums louder. We've tried it out on a dozen or more different types of speakers and headphones, and all of which, not once were the drums too quiet, or at least in regards to what we're going for. And I guess I just don't understand what you mean by they're so far behind the vocals? I can hear them just fine - does anyone else notice this?

You might be onto something with the bass synth needing a bit more of a mid boost for lesser quality speakers, but I have to ask - is this really a concern when people are mixing? Like, they want to make sure that it's going to sound good on cell phones? I get basic headphones, bookshelf speakers, car speakers, etc. And what we did listen to it on, the bass was present, though it could probably use more mid.

I was probably exaggerating with the "so far behind the vocals" part but for my taste the drums levels should be closer to those of the guitar. Of course is totally valid to want them pushed back a little bit. Even in that case, I would try to homogenize the sound a little bit more (a push in the mids for the synth bass, a little EQ/comp/reverb on the drums).
Regarding the speakers question, I was always checking my mixes in good monitors, good headphones, cheap headphones, PC speakers and car. Not easy to achieve good results everywhere and my efforts weren't always successful.

[666stringking]

Wow, this is really beautiful and textural, nice work! The cavernous and bright tone of the guitar is perfect, I wouldn't change a thing. I actually really appreciate the drum mix, as sometimes loud drums can come across as harsh, especially in this style of music. I like where your kick is sitting EQ-wise, and your cymbals are at a nice level (people often have their crash too high in the mix). The snare top mic could definitely use a boost somewhere between 2k and 5k, and possibly another little bump further in the spectrum for an airy effect. Your bass is sounding a bit buried, and I think that sweeping your mid frequencies will reveal a frequency that makes it pop a bit.

Overall a really interesting song, thanks for sharing!

[julius2790]

I like the music and I think you've created a good vibe. I definitely feel like I'm in a space hearing you perform, which is what I tend to go for. Very natural sounding. I think the guitar sounds really good. I like where the drums sit in the mix.

I'm listening on a good set of monitors, and I do hear an absence of low end, but that might not be a bad thing.

Overall you've got a good thing going, I think. I would say just continue to trust your intuition with this one. You'll probably get a host of opinions based on what everyone else would do differently, but it sounds good already. I don't hear anything that sounds really off or needs changing in terms of how it was recorded or mixed.