Eyal Levi, Joey Sturgis & Joel Wanasek: Heavy Guitar Tones, Common Mixing Mistakes, and Fixing Performance Issues

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with classes on songwriting, engineering, mixing and mastering. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is also brought to you by Ernie Ball, the world's premier manufacturer of guitar strings, bass strings, and guitar accessories. And now your host, Joey Sturgis, Joel Wanasek, and Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:25):

So yeah, you don't know what rotting eggs smell like. No.

Speaker 3 (00:30):

Well, it's interesting because I've been learning how to make steaks in different ways, and one of the ways is to let your steak sit out for a couple of hours before you cook it, to let all of the juices drain out and make it dry so that it doesn't boil when you fry it, and it definitely starts to get an interesting smell to it, and I was trying to figure out, I wonder how strong my sense of smell really is because there are times where I can't tell if milk is spoiled or not.

Speaker 4 (01:03):

I have a theory about this and that Usually if you have a highly developed couple of senses, say in one area, usually you're lacking in another one. For example, I kind of had a really shitty sense of smell until recently where I started really paying attention to it. It's interesting. I feel like as my hearing got better, I stopped smelling as good.

Speaker 3 (01:23):

That's kind of weird though. If you think about it, we all use our ears very technically and constructively, and it's kind of like a skill that you can get better at. You can get better at learning notes and frequencies and pitches and harmonies and all this, but I think that's more of just a brain exercise more than it is the actual apparatus.

Speaker 4 (01:45):

You can get better at tasting. There are certain techniques, and

Speaker 3 (01:49):

What I'm leading to is can you get better at smelling stuff? Probably.

Speaker 2 (01:53):

Yeah. I don't see why not, because it's so linked to taste and taste is something that you can develop. It stands to reason that you could also develop your sense of smell, but why the fuck would you want to?

Speaker 4 (02:07):

I think it's an issue of just mindfulness sitting down and really just paying attention to it. It's like when you eat, a lot of times you just eat and you eat and you don't think about it. But if you actually sit down and taste and smell the food that you're eating and take your time and pay attention to it, it's a completely different experience than just eating to eat. You

Speaker 2 (02:25):

Enjoy it more. I have a theory about movies that if you want to see the death of Hollywood, it'll be when they add smell to the equation. They've already added 3D, but

Speaker 4 (02:40):

3D smell.

Speaker 2 (02:41):

Can you imagine a war movie with smell? It would change everything,

Speaker 4 (02:46):

But what if they put Peach Blossom fragrance or something

Speaker 2 (02:49):

Like that, peach blossom rot,

Speaker 4 (02:51):

Like war smells really good, but then they have a love scene and they just put farts in it.

Speaker 2 (02:56):

This sounds like real life.

Speaker 4 (02:58):

You could mess with some brutal stuff, man. You could get in a lot of trouble.

Speaker 2 (03:02):

Yeah, that sounds like an ultra realistic love scene to me.

Speaker 4 (03:08):

A Dutch oven knock.

Speaker 2 (03:09):

Yeah, so with that said, why don't we cri some cri my

Speaker 4 (03:12):

Smells, bro.

Speaker 2 (03:13):

Yeah, exactly. Smell

Speaker 4 (03:14):

Crip Monday.

Speaker 2 (03:16):

No, seriously though. I really think that sense of smell is the worst of the senses, at least to me. Mine is super developed and I can't be in the same room, let alone building as things that offend me that way.

Speaker 4 (03:34):

Dude, I had a cologne incident over here the other day,

Speaker 2 (03:37):

Cologne,

Speaker 4 (03:39):

Those dudes that wear cologne where you're like an open air and it's windy, but you're not downwind. You're in the direction. You wouldn't be smelling things. You can still smell 'em like 10, 20 feet away.

Speaker 2 (03:50):

Male rush and prostitute smell.

Speaker 4 (03:53):

I walked into the studio the other day and I don't know what band I had in, but the whole lounge, I gagged. I literally was like, and I was like, holy shit. So I made a beeline from my room, locked all four doors, opened the window, turned on the fan. So later it's just like a couple of dudes. There's no chicks or anything, but all these dudes were wearing so much fucking cologne. It was like a car salesman floor dealership type thing. I don't know. It was really nasty. I don't get it.

Speaker 2 (04:23):

It's putrid. That reminds me, I've never eaten fish in my life, ever, and I've always been real reluctant to try it because of the way it smells. But since you guys eat fish, does it actually taste the way that it smells?

Speaker 3 (04:39):

Here's the thing. It is so weird about fish in the culinary world especially, is that it's a weird protein that doesn't really, it doesn't do a whole lot on its own.

Speaker 4 (04:51):

Yeah, it's very bland.

Speaker 3 (04:52):

You spend pretty much, most of the work is put into just making it taste like something. They cover it up with a bunch of other ingredients and spices to give it some kind of flavor because in reality, I mean it has a smell to it, but the taste definitely does not reflect that smell at all. In fact, I mean if you didn't put anything on it, it was just a fish by itself probably wouldn't taste like anything. It would just be a texture.

Speaker 4 (05:21):

I mean, some fish has a distinct tilapia is good by itself with just a little bit of salt. Some of it like cod, I mean it's like eating fucking gelatin.

Speaker 2 (05:32):

Yeah, yeah. It's like eating gelatin. That's what soy is like. It tastes like how you prepare it.

Speaker 4 (05:37):

Yeah, it's like a tofu or whatever the hell that shit is that they sell in that package. That's clear in gelatin. I tried it once and I was like, this is weird.

Speaker 2 (05:46):

Well, it is weird unless you make it properly. So I guess it's the same thing and it also has a nasty, fishy kind of thing to it if it's not prepared correctly. So I guess maybe it's the same thing. So with that said, maybe we should create some mixes.

Speaker 3 (06:03):

CRI Monday. Yes. This thing called Shark song. What is this?

Speaker 2 (10:29):

Okay, that is by AJ Vienna.

Speaker 3 (10:33):

So it kind of reminded me of Macrophages or 2004 era death metal, and I kind of got a little bit of a bt bam vibe in a couple of spots too. But overall it's a pretty solid mix and a pretty solid production. I was glad that it didn't sound fake, which I don't know, maybe was it recorded back then or is this recent?

Speaker 2 (10:54):

It's recent. That's awesome. I actually picked it because last night while I was doing research for the shows were recording today, I was listening to some old Swedish metal and the production from 2004, 2005, 2003. It's weird. At the time it sounded so immensely huge, but it all sounds a lot smaller when I go back in time. This sounded to me like kind of an authentic version of that European sound. Honestly, I don't hear bt bam as much as I hear OPEC in there.

Speaker 3 (11:30):

Oh yeah, definitely has some opec.

Speaker 2 (11:33):

Yeah, I think if there was one thing I had to crit about this mix the most, which I think if there's anything that throws it off more than other elements, I think it's the bass guitar, obviously they wanted to be able to hear the bass note for note, which I understand in this style of music, the bass can definitely get lost, sometimes

Speaker 3 (11:54):

Gets lost for sure.

Speaker 2 (11:56):

And sometimes especially with the pier stuff, the bass players are actually contributing musical information, not just feel. So I get why they wanted to dial in so many mids, but I think the bass is a little out of tune, so it sours it and I think there's not enough dirt in the low end, so it just kind of sticks out weird to me.

Speaker 3 (12:20):

I'll say props for doing the base at least somewhat correctly though, because like you said, it does get lost. Yes,

Speaker 2 (12:26):

At

Speaker 3 (12:26):

Least you can hear it in here. It is a little bit too present. I think it's a little bit too upfront. I would've maybe made that a final revision would be to turn that down a little bit aside from maybe rerecording it to make it more in key. But

Speaker 4 (12:42):

Yeah, the balance is pretty good overall. I mean when I listened to it, I hit play and I'm like, yeah, it sounds like a song. Nothing really, really stuck out where I was like, dude, that's way out of line. So overall it's actually a pretty good mix. I just had a couple of little nitpicky things that I think may or may not be more preferential.

Speaker 3 (12:59):

I'll tell you, it took me a good, I'd say 70% of listening through to the song until I started to hear what I felt was wrong with it. So I'm interested to hear what your thoughts are first.

Speaker 4 (13:11):

Well, overall, I'll start off with the bottom end and I like the bass and I like the kick, but there's a certain through the eyes of the dead mix that I like that Eric Rutan did, and I don't remember what album is, but one thing I really like about that mix is that the sub on the kick is a little bit more ballsy for where we are on the one that we have right now. I feel like if they just threw a little bit more like low sub into the kick, it would punch and drive the energy of the mix a little bit better. Again, it's preferential because especially in those og OG 2003, geez, we're getting old, but especially in these OG metal mixes, like having a ton of punch in your low sub in the kick really isn't so much of a thing as it is now. But that's something that I thought might drive a little bit more energy in the mix. And again, it's very preferential, but I would've liked to have heard a little bit more sub and I just referenced that one through the eyes of the Dead mix, one of my favorite death metal core, whatever you call it, mixes. It's just got a lot of balls and a lot of punch and that's something that had a really, really good bottom on the kick.

Speaker 3 (14:19):

Let me just comment on the actual guitars since it's guitar month. It took me a while to really find anything wrong with the guitar tone, but around the 70% mark of the song, I started to feel like the guitars were lacking an upper mid range presence.

Speaker 4 (14:39):

I agree with that. I felt like they needed a little bit more separation. I like my stuff really clean though, so I mean I'm obviously always going to be biased in that sort of direction.

Speaker 3 (14:48):

Yeah, it was well recorded. It's a pretty decent tone. It's just I think it could have just been a touch more understandable and I think they could have gotten there with eq.

Speaker 2 (15:00):

I think arrangement was probably also a thing on this one because there's a lot going on between the left and the right guitars. That's very, very naughty and I realize that that works sometimes, but you've got a few different techniques going on at the same time that can yield less than clear results in my experience. For instance, playing complex melody with octaves on one side while playing all out chords, not power chords, but full chords with distortion on the other side. If you're playing on distortion and you're using those two techniques together, you really need to arrange and record it properly or else it'll get real muddy real fast. So I hear some of that going on where I feel like if the arrangement was spaced out a little more, meaning that rather than just playing the full chords, they only pick the chord tone that matter and maybe recorded the octave lines. No, by note it would be better. I just want to say also that I'm not a huge fan of recording note by note, but I feel like octaves on guitar are one of those times where no matter how you feel about that style of recording, you should record them like that because the nature of a guitar is that it will never be in perfect tune.

Speaker 4 (16:26):

Yeah, yeah, I'll echo that.

Speaker 2 (16:28):

Yeah, you get one octave, one fret in tune and then you move up two frets and it's out of tune and that's just the nature of the instrument. So you just need to be aware of it and work around it.

Speaker 4 (16:39):

Hey, what did you guys think about the league guitar stuff that came in? There was a part where there was a dual lead that was panned hard left or almost hard left and I felt like the leads were a little bit, I dunno, I kind of pinched my ear a little bit and it was kind of harsh. My eyes opened up a little bit. I was like, whoa, it's a little intense. Did you guys think the leads maybe needed a little bit more eq? Yes.

Speaker 3 (17:01):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (17:02):

There's your answer. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (17:03):

Definitely. Alright, EQ them leads.

Speaker 3 (17:06):

Yeah, I think the biggest problem, and this is not that big of a problem, but I think the biggest problem is just EQ choices, which is saying a lot for the person who put it together. So good job well done, but a little more time could be spent on eq.

Speaker 4 (17:20):

What would you guys think about maybe carving out some of the mids on the base a little bit more? For example, like we were talking about earlier, I like how the base is really present and it cuts through, but I mean again, he might've been going for a much warmer styling mix where everything kind of blends together and that's cool. And like I said, I'm camp separated, but in my mind I wish there was a little bit of EQ carving on the base and some of the mids, low mids where you still have a lot of presence on the base, but it's a little bit more punchy and defined and I think that would also help clear up some of the guitar note choices too.

Speaker 2 (17:52):

It's a little honky.

Speaker 4 (17:53):

Yeah, just a little just small minor nitpicky adjustments.

Speaker 2 (17:58):

There is one other thing that I noticed that was kind of bugging me, and I know that this is a stylistic choice, so I'm going to say that I actually back the choice, but I think it's a bit too much, which I feel like there's some sort of reverb on lots of stuff. I can't tell what it's on. I can't tell if it's just a room that's turned up way too loud or what, but it seems to me like there's some sort of reverb on everything or close to everything that's making stuff hard to understand at times. Now I realize that could be a stylistic choice because lots of the European style metal was mixed with reverb on the master bus or reverb on the rhythm guitars. Things that people don't do very often nowadays and it can sound kind of cool, give it a good ambience, but I think it might be a little overboard if that's in fact what's happening.

Speaker 4 (18:55):

Yeah, there was definitely a phase that a lot of really brutal recordings had a certain reverb, like the symbols, the snare, the guitars, everything just had an ambience. I definitely remember referencing mixes say five, 10 years ago and hearing a lot of that on the heavy stuff.

Speaker 2 (19:11):

I like the way it sounds in a weird way. I know that using reverb on rhythm guitars is a no-no. And mind you, I don't mean a reverb for special effects, I mean an overall reverb that's just on the whole time. It's kind of a no-no and a reverb on the master bus is kind of a no-no as well. I was always told to never do that stuff, but some of the cool older black metal recordings that I like, I don't mean the basement stuff. I mean the ones that actually sound kind of good do have a shit ton of reverbs, so I'm not against the idea completely. I just definitely think it needs to be dialed in. If you're going to do that, things can quickly get out of hand, especially if you have a very dense arrangement that's moving at a high BPM.

Speaker 4 (19:57):

Definitely.

Speaker 2 (19:58):

Cool. Well I'll talk to you guys next week. Awesome.

Speaker 3 (20:02):

Work on the EQ and work on the production.

Speaker 4 (20:06):

It's almost there. I mean it's a really good mix.

Speaker 3 (20:08):

Is this a subscriber by the way?

Speaker 4 (20:10):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (20:11):

Okay, sweet. Cool. Mr.

Speaker 2 (20:12):

A j Vianna, thanks for submitting the song. Thanks bro.

Speaker 3 (20:15):

Next

Speaker 2 (20:16):

Song.

Speaker 5 (20:35):

Well, I can go to sleep because I see you. I can stay away because sometimes I feel like I

Speaker 6 (21:15):

Just can't. I say I moment, I feel I keep holding my breath and wishing for

Speaker 7 (21:44):

Why I have been closing my eyes.

Speaker 8 (22:02):

I

Speaker 7 (22:35):

What the, my whole life to just like you

Speaker 1 (22:44):

To.

Speaker 3 (23:53):

Alright, so that was 67, is that the name of the song?

Speaker 2 (23:56):

Yeah, 67 by Auspicious Auspicious.

Speaker 3 (24:01):

So I'm going to speak mainly about the distorted guitars. I don't know what to say about clean guitars. For me, clean guitars are completely subjective. It's just what do you want?

Speaker 4 (24:15):

I would've cleaned the clean guitars up with just a little bit of eq. I thought there was some low mid ringing that could have been tightened, but again, it's stylistic and preferential

Speaker 3 (24:24):

Most of the time when the clean guitar ends up in a song that I'm working on, it's like Facty versus a band like Red Hot Chili Peppers that will make a fucking whole album on some kind of halfway clean, halfway dirty guitar tone. But anyway, aside from all that, I think speaking about the distorted guitars, they were way too gainy, way too saturated. Do you guys agree?

Speaker 4 (24:48):

Yes,

Speaker 3 (24:48):

Absolutely. Yeah, it's overboard, definitely super overboard.

Speaker 4 (24:52):

I thought they were a little harsh in maybe the four to six range. There was this little fizzy grainy sound up there that was, I don't know, I heard it and I'm like deleted.

Speaker 2 (25:05):

It reminds me a little bit of the 2000 to 2003 radio Rock Mesa thing where everyone was using a tri axis in an oversized cab and turning their gain and base all the way up and it was more about size than about definition.

Speaker 4 (25:23):

Yeah, I thought they were too mid rangey too, so not only were they just a little bit harsh and too gainy, but I feel like they were just a little bit, again, just like that last mix, they needed a little bit more note definition and a little bit more clarity and that could have definitely been achieved by cleaning up some of the ringing fizzy frequencies in the top, but also finding a little bit of the mid honk, getting that out of there and then if needed, boost a little bit of the presence region of the guitar, like the 2K, three K, not 4K because we hate 4K.

Speaker 3 (25:55):

Well, yeah, there definitely, I felt like the guitars were kind of nasally and because of the fact that it's so saturated, it's lacking definition. You can't tell where chords start and end or where the picking is even happening, and I think the solution to all disc would probably just be a different amp or a different guitar and then maybe some better EQ decisions as well. But I did, there was a lead around two minutes, two minutes and 29 seconds. I thought that tone was actually pretty cool for the lead, but the rhythms were just way to gainy.

Speaker 2 (26:35):

I thought that the clean guitar was a cool throwback to Randy Rhoads era, Aussie tones with that chorus. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (26:46):

Hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:46):

Reminded me a little bit of diary of a madman in a weird way, taking it to super old school stuff. I agree with Joel though. I would've carved it a little more, but it's weird. I don't hear that kind of chorus being used these days too often, so I kind of want to say hats off to just doing that in the first place.

Speaker 4 (27:08):

Yeah, it's not like it was really far off, it was just more of maybe preferential. He might've been going for a warmer tone, but I mean overall, I really like the balance on this mix for the most part I feel like it's mixed well in terms of balance. It's pretty close and pretty good, but there's just a few, those little things, again, I feel like it could be cleaned up a little bit and carved a little bit better and overall it's just a bit muddy and there's a few little harsh things to tame. For example, I thought the kick drum was kind of muddy and mask. I mean I know it's just stock straight slate, but it definitely, I don't know, it's eating up a lot of frequency room and that combined with the guitars, if it was a little cleaner it would have a little bit more power.

Speaker 2 (27:49):

What do you think of the vocals as far as the way they're treated? Do you think they're over compressed? Well, I felt like

Speaker 3 (27:55):

They were pretty loud. First of all, probably over compress and that is probably why they're too loud. There wasn't a lot of movement.

Speaker 4 (28:05):

I thought they were fine, they sounded good, they were smooth, they were bright enough, they cut through the track, they were loud enough. So I didn't really have too much of an issue with the vocal.

Speaker 2 (28:13):

It's interesting to me with doing these crits, what ends up being a stylistic crit versus a technical crit?

Speaker 4 (28:21):

Oh, I have a technical crit.

Speaker 2 (28:23):

Okay,

Speaker 4 (28:23):

Thank you for reminding me.

Speaker 2 (28:24):

No problem.

Speaker 4 (28:25):

I thought the vocals needed a high pass filter because when the clean part is in, I could hear obvious mouth, low base energy, like a hundred hertz and down where it was kind of like boom, boom, a little bit of that fuddy sound in the vocals and I feel like they weren't filtered high enough and that's a technical crit that I've got on the vocal. It was just really in that intro, but they were just taking up a little bit too much low end room for my tastes and it was like they were too much fuddy in the low end of the vocal.

Speaker 2 (28:56):

I was hearing that as well. That's probably where my over compression comment came from. Probably if they cut that before hitting the comp, it would've worked out better. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (29:06):

That's a good pickup. I can definitely see how you drew that association. So

Speaker 3 (29:09):

Yeah, I think we find a lot on these mixes that there's a lot of EQ work that still needs to be done, and I think a good practice to get into is to just listen to a lot of different styles of music and hear instruments being mixed in different ways in different styles of music. So if you go from listening to a modern metal core production straight to jazz, the transformation of the bass is so drastically different between those. It's mind blowing. Yeah, it's mind blowing how crazy that transition is and just keep in mind that you get stuck in these niches and these genres. If you listen to a lot of metal core and you work on metal core, you kind of get stuck into this scooped sound where as you'll go and listen to a different style of music and the bass is a lot more around and not scooped and there's more mid range and presence, and so it's a good habit to get into listen to different music. It's kind of like when you're in the culinary world, you eat different types of food to keep your palette fresh. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (30:14):

You got to mix it up, keep it interesting.

Speaker 2 (30:16):

I also think that when listening to a particular style of music, pay close attention to what you're actually hearing versus what you think you're hearing because sometimes what creates a sound isn't directly obvious. Like for instance, a really, really great kick sound on a heavy recording might not entirely be the kick drum. It could be the high end of the bass guitar combined with the kick drum edited in a certain way to make an overall kind of sound. But to the untrained ear, someone might think that that sound was totally achieved with just a kick. So when approaching a mix, people will try to get that out of just one instrument and end up going overboard with their EQ choices when in reality the way that sound they wanted was achieved was through a careful blend of multiple elements. So I think that that's one of the places where novice or intermediate mixers mess up the most is trying to recreate a sound that I guess they haven't analyzed all the way and actually understood. So sometimes when I hear mixes where I guess the kick drum is overbearing or there's too much low end or too much click or this or that, I feel like they're trying to achieve something and going about it the wrong way when a reality, like you said, a little bit more carving would've probably solved it or the combination of the high end of one instrument with the low end of another would've probably solved the problem.

Speaker 4 (31:58):

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good takeaway on this because when I listen to both of these mixes overall I feel like they're both really good. It's like they don't need a lot of stuff to really bring them up. That extra 10 or 20% they're already really dialed in and sometimes just a few very subtle small changes accumulated over an entire system equal a big change in result. And you'd be shocked how many times you can go in with an EQ and literally notch out one or two DB here or there on two or three things and then when you ab the final mix you're like, oh my god, it's way better. It's not even close. I mean I was mixing something the other day where a simple 0.6 DB master bus cut two less DB on a 15 DB cut on base and the entire mix just took on a whole different set of life because it was just so subtle. But when you a B it, you're just like, that's the difference between it being like there it is and something's just a little off.

Speaker 2 (32:56):

Yeah.

(32:57):

I think that when you're dealing with frequency buildup and you're having to notch things out of an entire mix, probably the first instinct for somebody is to identify which instrument sounds bad or has the annoying frequency and nuking it. But I think that one of the unintended consequences of doing that sometimes can be that you kill the tone in order to get around killing the tone. Sometimes it's more of a matter of, like you said, cutting out a little bit from this and a little bit from that like minus two db of 4K on the symbols plus minus two db of 4K on the guitars plus minus two db of 4K on the vocals will probably yield a better result than minus 12 DB at 4K on the guitar for instance.

Speaker 4 (33:57):

Alright guys, we got one more, right? Kingpin it's called Let's have a listen.

Speaker 3 (37:28):

Cool. That was kingpin who submitted this?

Speaker 2 (37:31):

So this is a band called Bury the Evidence and it's by our subscriber Jonathan Doles, and I've actually created his work before and getting better. Dude,

Speaker 3 (37:43):

That's awesome. Yeah, I felt, again, I felt too gainy on the guitars

(37:49):

And the answer to that is just use less game because clarity is really in less game. I know when you sit down and play guitar, it feels like you want more game, it makes you feel cool, it makes you play better, but that doesn't always mean it sounds good and it's definitely a difficult balance to find the right amount of gain that makes you feel like you're playing properly and also having the right amount to sound good. And on one level that is kind of why you have access to amping. So you can track it a little heavy on the gain and then reamp it to have less,

Speaker 4 (38:25):

Or you could record it with less gain. So you know what it's going to sound like with less gain because the problem if you record it with too much gain is that sometimes on your mutes or whatever, you may not sustain them out long enough and then you turn back the gain and you get in trouble.

Speaker 3 (38:38):

But I like setting it up so that you hear more stuff that you don't want to have in the final guitar tone. I like to have a little more gain so that I know all the squeaky noises that you're hearing are most definitely not going to be in the final song

Speaker 4 (38:54):

That I agree with in terms of the noise and stuff like

Speaker 3 (38:57):

That.

Speaker 4 (38:57):

I made a couple mistakes in the past where I track something on a real amp and then did it with a sim and on the real amp you couldn't hear the B string ringing because the kids had a floating index finger. Then all of a sudden the sim, it just came right out and you're like, shit, but the kids 10 hours of driving away, there's nothing you can do about it.

Speaker 3 (39:15):

I think the guitar tones were also lacking low end and you can just back off the C four bro or use.

Speaker 4 (39:22):

I think the whole mix needed more energy, more low end, or not necessarily bass low end, but more like sub punch to the kick. The guitars needed a little bit more bottom.

Speaker 2 (39:32):

I think that the too much gain and not enough low end thing are causing a deeper problem with the mix as well, which is it sounds to me like there's too much transient designer or something on the drums making them super pokey to the point of distorting in a weird way at the top end of the drums. But I feel like that's done to compensate for the guitar tone to kind of try to cut through the distortion. Do

Speaker 4 (40:06):

The guitars feel disconnected from the mix to you guys? They were kind of just floating in space?

Speaker 2 (40:11):

Yes,

Speaker 4 (40:12):

There was the mix and then there was the guitars just kind of doing their own thing. I mean that was the main thing for me. It was like they were either too quiet, but I don't know, they just didn't gel. Right. I guess that's the best word I can use to explain it. When I listened to the mix, didn't feel like everything was moving as a whole.

Speaker 3 (40:29):

Did you get the vibe? I mean this stuck out to me right away is guitars are way over compressed. You can hear tons of weird volume movements on every stroke. Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 4 (40:43):

You might've buried a limiter on it or it might be just over regained or I dunno, it could be a combination of a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (40:49):

I was going to suggest using a limiter, it sounds like it's compressed, it's too slow. All the movements that the compressor are making are too slow. It's not reacting fast enough to the guitar because the guitar is already saturated. So if you put a compressor after that, for me, it's the wrong processor to use because it's meant to work on a dynamic signal. Whereas a saturated guitar tone is not very dynamic. I mean, you might have a play of maybe four db up and down depending on what notes are being played, what kind of chords. So I would say use a limiter that will even it out a lot better. And also for me, the leads were very unclear and I think they needed pretty much a heavy amount of EQ adjustment.

Speaker 4 (41:31):

Were they kind of harsh to your ear too?

Speaker 3 (41:33):

Yeah, you need to lower the gain and use more fader rides rather than more gain to accomplish the same goal.

Speaker 4 (41:44):

Another good trick on leads is switching mic. So if you're using on axis 57, for example, to mic your cab, just taking your lead guitars and taking that same mic in the same position and putting it off access, sometimes that helps it just give it a slightly different curve and get your leads to punch. Or if you're on a sim, you can do the digital emulation version of that because too much stacking in the same frequency range can be very counterproductive.

Speaker 2 (42:10):

There was one other thing also that upset me about the guitars, which I think also contributes to other problems. And I can't tell if this is in the setup or in the playing, but everything sounds a little sharp to me. It could possibly be death grip, death grip. Well, yeah, death grip is what I call it when I love it. Yeah, guitar player's left hand presses down,

Speaker 4 (42:38):

Everything's out of tune. Yeah, they grab too hard.

Speaker 2 (42:42):

Exactly. And they just pull it sharp. Now if the guitar has an ever tune, then it's an actual tuning of the tuner issue. But something about it sounds a little sharp to me, which I feel is part of why it sounds so separated and why it will not gel together and there's also keyboards going on. So I feel like when you get those two elements, you get a slightly out of tune rhythm guitar plus keyboards that are kind of doing a pad. No amount of EQ is going to gel it together for me unless you just totally scoop the guitars and get rid of as much note definition as possible. But that's not a good solution either. So I feel like my instinct is going to be to say that probably the tuner was showing that the guitar was in tune and the moment that the dude started playing, he was knocking it sharp a bit. Another cause for that could also be palm muting too hard.

Speaker 4 (43:47):

Oh yeah, that drives me. Absolutely. I mean, just having recorded a million guitar players and played guitar for 20 years myself, no one ever pays attention to how they palm muted. And sometimes you have that heavy hand syndrome where they're kind of just choking out the string and they don't even realize it.

Speaker 3 (44:03):

You know what pisses me off is when someone wants to record on a floating,

Speaker 2 (44:08):

I was about to say that.

Speaker 3 (44:08):

Yeah, those are fun. I'm just like, are you retarded? Okay. You put your hand on that thing and it completely changes the tuning of the whole guitar and just in two seconds pushing down with your hand pulls the bridge and then the bridge pulls the strings and you get it's sharp and it sounds stupid. And all of your DJs, they go like woo, like scoop and swoop and stuff. It's fucking weird man.

Speaker 4 (44:35):

Who needs a whammy paddle? Just get a floating bridge.

Speaker 2 (44:38):

I always block those always. I mean, I always stop them with a piece of

Speaker 4 (44:43):

Wood. Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (44:44):

I cannot stand recording a floating bridge for rhythms. So annoying

Speaker 4 (44:48):

Pond muting tech technique is very important though. I mean a lot of people overlook it and just the proximity, meaning moving your hand forward or backwards in the bridge and finding that right spot where you get that really nice, chunky, articulate, muting. I mean, when I'm recording guitars, I will sit down and find the perfect hand position for every time on every riff where the kid mutes, depending on where he is on the neck to get the right amount of resonance or clarity or there's different sounds. And you really need to be mindful of that when you're recording guitars because when you get into a mix sometimes you're like, man, why do these mutes sound like shit? Well, it's probably the playing.

Speaker 2 (45:24):

One thing that's happened a lot for me when I end up replacing somebody else's guitars, it's not because I'm technically tighter or faster or whatever. It's usually because I know where to palm mute. I've had to nick guitars more often because of that than anything else. You'll get a guitar player who can play everything in time, but they just cannot find the sweet spot.

Speaker 4 (45:54):

I completely relate. I mean, I've done more palm muting cameos. Well, that in sweet picking cameos because no one knows how to sweet pick correctly, but on records than anything else. I mean, great guitar players will come into my studio and record and I'll be like, that muting sounds like shit on that breakdown. Give me the guitar. They just can't get the right tone out of it. And it's just an issue of picking and the right hand positioning and the right hand heaviness on the string to really get the tone. And you have to sit there and show them and experiment and show them the different ranges and what sounds they produce and then they have to figure it out for themselves and go home and practice it. But it's definitely, if there's a cameo on an album that I've ever recorded, it's probably, I've replaced Palm mutes on almost everything I've ever done

Speaker 2 (46:36):

A good resource for. This is Andrew Wade's creative live class on recording rock guitars. He spent a good few minutes on palm muting positioning of the right hand and also size, which are hugely overlooked and hugely important aspects to guitar tone. So if anyone wants a deeper look, I would recommend checking out that creative live course. I'm going to just echo that. That is probably what I have replaced the most as well, other than shitty vibrato.

Speaker 4 (47:15):

Oh yeah, that's a whole nother correct.

Speaker 2 (47:18):

Yeah, that is a whole other crit. But it goes back to the same thing we're talking about, which is subtle hand position changes will make all the difference with whether something is in tune or out of tune. I've noticed with vibrato, if you're relying on your fingers rather than your wrist too much, you'll tend to overcompensate because your fingers will not be as strong as your wrist. Whereas if you actually use your wrist in the right position, you won't have to put as much force into your fingers, which will allow you to be more free with your vibrato and therefore have more control. And that's a subtle just positioning shift.

Speaker 4 (48:04):

You know what everybody needs to do, thinking of palm muting and relating back is everybody needs to go find those rock band stems that got leaked onto the internet and go find the devil driver clouds over California one, and then listen to the guitar and solo and listen to the dude's tone and picking, and you can hear the palm muting and how low gain the guitar is in. And listen how awesome the guitar tone is, and when you get your playing the sound that good, then you're ready to start recording.

Speaker 2 (48:30):

Yeah, that's the old drummer from devil driver playing guitar if I remember correctly. And man, he's good. Oh yeah, I

Speaker 4 (48:38):

Don't know who it is, but every time I listen to those stems, I'm like, that's what rhythm guitar picking should sound like and pond muting. You can just hear the power and the clarity and it cuts through. Quad guitar is just butter. It's just so well done. I think that's just such a great tone that Andy sneak nailed down and it's just all the playing. That's really a good example. So put all your palm muting and your parts up against that when you're recording and you'll start getting much better guitar tones that fit into your mixes better.

Speaker 3 (49:11):

Yeah, I mean, sometimes if you're mixing a song, you don't have control over some of those elements that are forcing you to make decisions like that. So I definitely see how it can be frustrating to not get better at mixing when some of this material that you have to work with causes you to not be able to do what you need to do.

Speaker 2 (49:35):

Have you guys ever been working on a mix? I'm sure the answer to this is yes, but have you ever been working on a mix and you just have to accept that there's a certain element that will not sound as good as you want because the files you got just aren't capable of being transformed

Speaker 4 (49:55):

Every other freaking day? I mean, there's just different strategies though. For example, if the guitar playing is really weak in the mix and the drumming is awesome and the bass playing is awesome and the vocals are awesome, then screw the guitar player. Just turn 'em down and let the drums drive the mix so you can use balance as a weapon.

Speaker 2 (50:13):

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 4 (50:14):

Get rid of a really bad player and if the band just sucks, then you're screwed and just quit. But it's definitely a challenge.

Speaker 2 (50:23):

Well, I think one of the best qualities of a great mixer is to understand what the strengths of a song and a recording are and highlighting those rather than sticking to the preconceived notion of what it should be and potentially highlighting problems. And that's something that you also see with great musicians. For instance, when you think of a great musician who's really, really fantastic at a certain genre or a certain style or legendary at whatever, that's what you know them for. You don't know them for what they suck at. I'm not a Blues fan, but for instance, you never heard BB King try to rip a Marty Friedman solo. It would probably awful at it, but was pretty damn good at playing the blues, and that's what he was known for. I think that same mentality applies to mixing. If you have a song where the guitars just suck, but everything else is great, it's your job to hide the guitars as much as possible and bring out what will actually get a good listener reaction out of the mix. And so sometimes, yeah, you have stuff that's a subpar and there's really nothing you can do about it besides mask it and bring out other elements.

Speaker 4 (51:46):

Definitely. Well, I guess that about wraps up mixed crit Monday.

Speaker 3 (51:49):

Yeah. If you guys want to submit your own songs, how do they do that? Actually, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (51:56):

Yeah, just basically go to the Private Producers Club, which is on Facebook and all of you subscribers have access to and look in the rules and you'll see two release forms on there. You need to sign those and have the artist or yourself, if you're the artist, sign off on those and then send us the song with his forms to jsf [email protected] and write mixed Crit Monday. Submit in the subject line and we will check it out. And if we deem it critical, we will cri,

Speaker 4 (52:35):

Right? Hell yeah. Thank you for

Speaker 1 (52:36):

Listening. The Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast is brought to you by Creative Live, the world's best online classroom for creative professionals with classes on songwriting, engineering, mixing and mastering. Go to creative live.com/audio to start learning now. The Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is also brought to you by Ernie Ball, the world's premium manufacturer of guitar strings, bass strings, and guitar accessories. Go to www.ernieball.com to learn more. To ask us questions, suggest topics and interact. Visit URM academy.com and subscribe today.