Eyal Levi & John Douglass: Common drum mix mistakes, adding low-end punch, mastering song dynamics

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast, and now your host, Eyal Levi. This show is brought to you by URM Academy, the world's best education for rock and metal producers. Every month on Nail the Mix, we bring one of the world's best producers to mix a song from scratch, from artists like Ms. Suga Periphery a data, remember, and Bring me the Horizon, and we give you the raw multi-track so you can mix along. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, our collection of bite-sized mixing tutorials and portfolio builder pro quality multi-tracks cleared for use in your portfolio. You can find out [email protected]. All right, welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine podcast. We're going to do a show that has been widely requested. We used to do them all the time. For some reason we stopped doing them all the time really, because I think that it takes a lot out of you to do this kind of show, but this time the lineup is going to be a little different. It's myself and Mr. John Douglass, who you guys should know by now. Hello John. Hi. Hi. So yeah, thank you for doing this with me.

Speaker 2 (01:13):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like I've been doing the one-on-ones for a while and I'm starting to get my own workflow for doing these things so that it's not quite so mentally overwhelming or at least you can try and maintain some good advice. It's like I don't want to give two out of six people on a day like crappy advice.

Speaker 1 (01:39):

You know what happens too? I feel like when you do too many of these is the advice starts to get very samey

(01:48):

Somehow because your ears just get shot a little. So I think that as a podcast, we just kind of needed a break from doing these. So we're going to do a mix Crip Monday on Over It by Bullet for my Valentine. The original mix is done by Mr. Carl Bound, who in my opinion is one of the very best mixer engineer producers out there in Metal today. He came up under Colin Richardson, which was one of the very best metal producer mixers of all time, and what a guy to come up from under. And so his work is just great and we're very fortunate to have him on and very fortunate that bullet from a Valentine's said yes and looking forward to going through these mixes.

Speaker 3 (02:43):

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (02:44):

Let's do it. Okay, so this first one is by Ian Babbitt.

Speaker 3 (03:40):

Can you tell me why it makes no sense to me why you decline? What were you expecting? I can't save you from yourself when you don't want saving. That's all Dad, don't watch.

Speaker 1 (04:43):

Alright, that was by Mr. Ian Babbitt and overall, this is the best mix I've heard from Ian, so good job, Ian. It sounds like the song, it sounds like the band yet. Here's my issues, the tones are good. Nothing really sounds like shit. It's just a little too bright from my tastes. And overall the symbols are a bit in your face and harsh and I'm not hearing enough low end. And that's overall my first real issue is in the intro, it doesn't sound like an intro, it just goes way too hard. If you compare it to the original mix where the dynamic is more subdued, this one is balls out and the high hat is too loud, which helps it sound balls out. And the problem with that is when the full band comes in, it doesn't sound like boom, now we're going, it should sound like the mix just got bigger and things got more intense the moment the band comes in.

(05:42):

So I think the dynamics and the feeling of it are just a little bit off, and I think one of the things that's missing here that's preventing it from sounding huge and driving is the base tone in eq. And you can hear that the bass comes in once the band comes in, but you can barely feel it. And if you contrast that with Carl Bounds mix, that's the huge differentiator When the band comes in, you can really, really hear that gnarly bass tone and you can feel it underneath just thumping and swallowing other mixes in its path. In this one, the band comes in, the low end doesn't change. It's like where's the base? That's my first main thought on it. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (06:27):

Yeah, I mean I was kind of thinking the same thing, looking at it on an analyzer versus the original. I think the sub is in a similar place, but where the bass guitar is living right around the 1 50, 200, 2 50 area seems kind of scooped. Just probably the rhythm guitar is two. Just that whole lower mid thing seems a little light and everything's just kind of congested up in the three K range like you were saying.

Speaker 1 (07:02):

Yeah. Well that kind of goes along with what I was about to say about the vocals. Well kind of goes along with what I was about to say about the vocals. Not really, actually, it doesn't really go along with what I was about to say with the vocals, but I was going to say that when the first verse comes in, there's a vocal delay, like a delay throw, and it's so distracting. It just kind of sounds like dude wanted us to hear that he put a delay on there. It is not so much that a delay was dialed to fit the music, it's just here's the delay. And again, if you compare it to the original, there's plenty of delay and effects on the vocals, but they're in there for texture, they don't dominate

Speaker 2 (07:45):

And they printed some of those delays lays and in those cases it should be that much easier for you to just get what they originally were going for and just try not to overdo it. Yeah, I mean it's easy to be like, oh man, look, that adds so much depth and texture to this part, and then you come back to it, it's like 60 B too loud. So just keep that in mind when you're dealing with the vocal effects. It's really about the lead.

Speaker 1 (08:13):

Yeah, I mean I guess maybe there's sometimes where it's like, ooh, that's a cool effect, but I think in general the effects are there to serve a purpose as in give vocals more depth or more ambience or something like that. They're supposed to support the vocal more than be more important than the vocal.

Speaker 2 (08:34):

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean you can kind of say the same thing about the chorus effect that's going on in the vocals in this song. It's like that's kind of a defining feature of that vocalist sound, but at the same time, if you were to push it way too far, it would just turn into a chorusy mess and you would just be like, why is this guy covered in a chorus pedal?

Speaker 1 (09:01):

So you're talking about that track that Carl included, shit, it escapes me what it's called, but it was a vocal effect track that

Speaker 2 (09:10):

Vocal pedal or something like that.

Speaker 1 (09:13):

He ran it through a bunch of electro harmonics pedals and boss guitar pedals. It's all guitar pedals and it's all just choruses and saturated and cool stuff. But it really, it's exactly like you said it when you put it in there at just the right volume, all it does is it adds this character and size and something unique to those vocals. It's just awesome. Whereas if you turn it up too loud, then it just starts to sound like passing the joint a little too much

Speaker 2 (09:52):

On the other side. If you mute it, it's kind of like, it almost doesn't sound like bullet for my Valentine anymore,

Speaker 1 (09:59):

Which

Speaker 2 (09:59):

Is an interesting thing that they've carved out a specific, it's like chorus has been around for years, but somehow they've made that a defining attribute of their sound without it being cheesy so good on 'em.

Speaker 1 (10:13):

I think that's kind of the beauty of music in a way. I mean you could say that that cliche of the same 12 notes that everyone's had except at least in Western music, but the beauty or the genius in taking this further is in finding new ways to use the same tools or sometimes there's new tools but not that often. So it's in new ways to use the stuff that everybody's had for a while with the exception of the Soothe plugin. That's new and awesome

Speaker 2 (10:54):

And people should be careful with it. Just as a side note,

Speaker 1 (10:57):

Yes, absolutely. You can go too far with it for sure. Okay, so another thing that I was thinking was that the bright symbol plus the lack of low end, let me just say the bright overall sound of the overheads and rooms along with the lack of low end is really, really apparent in the chorus and the kick and snare are very audible and in front of the entire mix, and that's commendable, but in the chorus it really starts to stick out in a weird way. It feels like there's no big audio blanket to go around it, like big guitars and bass. So I'm hearing a loud kick, a loud snare, super loud symbols that sound almost white noise ish vocals are at a decent volume and guitars in the background and no bass. And I definitely think that if those symbols were tamed, you'd have more room for the very important guitars. I mean very, very important guitars and if you had the low end, you wouldn't need to overcompensate with those drum levels

Speaker 2 (12:11):

For sure. Yeah, I think if we just look at his mix versus the original mix, looking at that centered around the three K area and then looking around the 200 area, you probably just kind of really zoom in on what's going on. So I'm just going to loop the first heavy section for a minute.

Speaker 1 (12:37):

And is this from the original or from Ian's?

Speaker 2 (12:40):

This is Ian's. I guess I'm going to get a level matched first, but okay, so that's Ian, and then here's the original. Immediately once you kind of flip back and forth, you get some sort of different perspective on it and it's like the first thing that I hear is that kind of nasally thing in the upper mids. So why don't we start there and just so I'm rolling off, I'm putting EQ on the master bus at the end of the chain on the final mix and rolling off doing a high pass up to four 50 and then just compare that to the original.

(13:42):

So this part doesn't have any vocals in it, but I'd say for this part, the level of that lead guitar, you should probably look at that and that's kind of, I mean lead guitars generally you want 'em up in that vocal range, but it seems like it may be a little too much in this case, but it's pokey, so this is sweeping around the three K area and this is Ian's mix. And then versus the original, if we just take something so before that, if I just kind of make a cut around three K and then that already clears up so much.

Speaker 1 (14:37):

Oh wow, yeah, this sounds so much better. When you isolate the three K like that in Ian's mix, it's so much more caustic compared to the original. I think that's a good word.

Speaker 2 (14:51):

And it's like even just looking on the frequency analyzer, I have the frequency graph of the original overlaid on top of Ian's mix, so you can just look at it and see the spike at three K. Okay, well there's a spot to cut right off the bat and then we could just kind of, okay, so we've saturated our ears with the high end, let's switch it up and low pass everything. This super low sub stuff is pretty even. So here's Ian, and then here's the original. What I hear is the sub of the kick, or I mean the sub of the base and no punch from the kick. I don't know if that translates over Skype, but it does. Yeah, if we pull that low pass back up to maybe like 2 8300 and then ab, so this is Ian and the original.

(16:11):

Yeah, there's a big difference here in that one 50, let's see if we boost around 1 50, 180, something like that, maybe go back to Ian's mix. So I'm boosting like five DB at one 60, so this is without the boost on Ian's mix and then with it, so then just those two EQ changes. I took about five db out at 3.5 K and added five DB at one 60. So now let's listen to the full frequency before and after. It's like already that's kind of like you said, his tones were not bad. It's really just dealing with the frequency buildup or a lack of frequency buildup in certain areas.

Speaker 1 (17:26):

Absolutely. It makes a huge difference. It takes away that before when you were aing them and when I was aing them earlier, making my notes, it kind of, at first when I heard Ian's mix, it sounds pretty good, but then you ab it and it almost sounds like an AM radio compared to the real thing because of that hole in that hole around that one 60 area and then also the too much three K, so that makes a big difference. I have one last note here, well two final notes on this one. Good job on getting the ghost notes to sound like ghost notes on the middle section. However, some of the roles sound a little machine Gunn ish, but maybe that's in the genre. You still did a good job with the ghosts and again, I think the dynamics and feel are off here in the buildup part.

(18:22):

I do like that it's been brought down. That's correct. The buildup part should come down coming down from a heavy part and then it's building back in to what should be the biggest part of the song, but it didn't do enough to build a tension before the final chorus that comes back in. So when the chorus comes back in, it sounds way, way, way bigger than the buildup because the buildup was anemic. If you listen to the original car bound mix, you'll notice that it builds and builds and gets more and more chaotic, and then when the chorus comes back, it's not way, way bigger, but it's a little bigger. It's bigger, it's enough bigger to keep the song going, but he didn't sacrifice the drama of the buildup. And also there's a pause and this is placed there very cleverly pause between the end of the buildup and the beginning of the next chorus. That pause allows you to get bigger with the buildup because it provides a space between when you hear the chorus so they're not right next to each other. You can make the chorus, you can make the perception the chorus be that it's bigger than it actually is in comparison because of that pause. So use that pause, that pause is there to help you.

Speaker 2 (19:47):

Yeah, for sure. Getting those dynamics is really important. I was listening to that buildup, that S narrow buildup thing, and it seemed like it was pretty amply on the original one, and it's one of those personal taste things that I feel like it's going to be interesting to see different people's mixes and how they, it's always interesting, especially ghost snowy type stuff of who can come up with the best version. There was a similar part in that bring me the horizon mix where I think it starts out on a snare roll and that was the first drum part that I heard in everybody's mix, and it was so interesting to see how everybody treated it and tried to massage it into the right place, but it's even just something simple that is really difficult to get perfect for this kind of dense mix.

Speaker 1 (20:37):

And it's interesting, oftentimes what is deemed acceptable by the production community and the people who sign off is not what drummers are cool with for this kind of part. I mean these parts are always a little machine gunn and that's why I said that maybe that's in the genre, but he did do a good job, at least with the, I'm talking about Ian here. Carl did a good job anyways, but Ian at least did a good job with the lower ghosts of making them sound like ghosts. At least it doesn't sound like this weird machine gun blaby trigger ghost mess. Alright, so let's move on to the next mix. Okay, this next mix is by Toor Hansen.

Speaker 3 (22:22):

Why you expecting I?

Speaker 1 (23:24):

Okay, so that was by Todo Hansen and lemme say, okay, first of all, except for the Toms, the drums sound, many room mics and raw directs and it really doesn't sound like much was done to these drums besides the Toms. The Toms sound huge but too huge. You need to watch the low end on those. They're going to destroy a master bus compressor. I feel like these are the kinds of Toms where Alan Duchess would call me up and be like, bro, you need to get a handle on your floor. Tom and I have gotten that phone call before, so yeah, watch that floor, Tom. The intro levels are just wrong. It's like 90% raw drums, 5% guitar, 5% synth, and then suddenly the band comes in, listen to the original intro. The intro is basically supposed to be the first time you really get that main riff given to you and it serves that purpose of the song of being an intro. It shows you a riff that you're going to hear over and over one of the main themes in the song, but right now the intro in this mix is pointless because not really presenting the main riff, it just sounds like a raw drum playing. Any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (24:48):

Yeah, that was my kind of first thought was it sounds like a kind of faders up raw mix and I think that's in some ways it's a good exercise to do, but if you're going to do it, you should definitely reference the original so that you're at least trying to get the balances similar. I feel like you can hear a lot of the elements in this mix, but none of them sound that great. It just sounds like it was kind of raw, straight off the tape or straight off pro tools, whatever.

Speaker 1 (25:23):

Well, it's not taking the song into consideration.

(25:27):

It's like if you want to go raw, fine, whatever, but it's missing the point of that intro on a song level. And so in that case you miss the point of the song of that intro on a song level. Then the production, I mean the mixed choice is even weirder, like it's raw as hell sounding and it doesn't serve the purpose. And so what's even going on here, and I got to say that the raw nature of the drums, and by the way, I'm not against raw drums when done right, I fucking love them. I might even like them better than the modern metal sound. So this is not me being all Mr. Sample dude, but the raw nature of these drums really comes to bite the mix in the ass when the full band comes in after that intro because basically all you could hear are symbols, some raw snare, a shitload of bass and a guitar poking out through that. And of course the occasional megaton out of nowhere. I think

Speaker 2 (26:38):

It really would be beneficial to just, if you're going to take this kind of raw approach, strip it back to your kick in Mike, your snare top Mike, your whatever Tom samples Tom, whatever they are, overhead mics, two rhythm guitars, the bass di, just the minimum amount of tracks that you could possibly do. It sounds like you're trying to use all the tracks and throw them in all at once and I think it may be, I can see how that would be overwhelming and you can't really focus on getting the parts, so I would just stick with the minimum amount that you need to get a decent sounding mix and loop one section over and over, compare it to the original and get those relative balances right before you do anything else or bring in any synths or vocals or vocal effects or any of that stuff.

Speaker 1 (27:30):

Absolutely. We talk about that Tom a little bit. So basically this Tom needs to be gotten under control and alright, I'm going to throw out a number here, but you could bring the power of that Tom back by about 17% and then bring the power up on the kick and snare to match that. And because right now there's all floor Tom power zero kick and snare power and that just doesn't work. The only time you can hear the kick and snare doing their thing is in the verse and intro and even then is very, very subdued and any instrument's immediately drawn them out, got to become more comfortable with the direct mics and possibly use some samples. I'm not just saying to replace them because these natural drums are great, but at least enhance them. You got to do something this isn't working,

Speaker 2 (28:30):

Find a sample that you like or that you don't hate and see how close you can get the natural drums to match just the frequency balance and the punch of that sample. And you could do it with, especially with well tracked acoustic drums and doing some of the symbol gating tricks that we've been talking about on fast tracks and on nailing mixes. As long as you know what you're going for and you're not afraid to do some serious cuts and some serious boosts and you know how to get that symbol bleed out of there, it's really not that hard to get your natural acoustic drum mics to sound consistent and punchy like a sample would be.

Speaker 1 (29:16):

Yeah, absolutely. Actually, I got to say the only time I kind of liked the snare is in the buildup and that buildup section. The snare itself actually sounds all right, but unfortunately it gets weird as soon as other drums start happening and the buildup doesn't really work because guess why the floor tos in the buildup sound bigger than the chorus that comes after it a lot bigger. So the chorus is actually a step down. It's like snare, snare, snare, some guitars come in and then kick and toms or whatever and it's building, building, building and then boom chorus. But in this case, in the buildup that Toms are so huge that it sounds like the chorus after is a step down. So basically this Tom ruins the entire mix. I think just to put it nicely,

Speaker 2 (30:15):

It may be, I think even with good sounding Toms, once you get 'em in the mix, especially if there's kind of a variety of whether there may be Tom Bury, he is playing 16th notes and then there's the thunder tom parts and those are going to require some pretty drastic automation if not processing 'em completely differently. If not augmenting 'em with other mega Tom hits. Obviously getting the Tom to be loud enough is not the problem in this case, but just goes to the point of Toms can be tricky to get 'em just in that perfect place and it's really easy to make 'em way too loud and have 'em fart out your car speakers constantly.

Speaker 1 (30:59):

Yeah, because they're fun. It's fun to get mega Toms. There's something validating and manly or something about it. It's just like, yeah, Toms, but you don't realize that you're crushing the mix, and I don't mean that in a compression sort of way. You're just like crush. Well, even though that happens, you're crushing it in a bad way, you're crushing it like a can and throwing it away. It doesn't go well. It's very quick and easy way to destroy a mix. So here's my suggestion and tell me how you feel about this. My suggestion is start over and really, really work on getting an even but powerful drum sound with a full kit where the shells all have similar punches each other. Start there, go from there, then worry about the rest of the song.

Speaker 2 (31:54):

Yeah, I think that's good advice, especially if you're going to stick with the raw drum thing. You got to at least have those kick and snare banging and get those overheads in there and then from there you can just kind of massage the guitars and bass. That should be a little less work recorded really well.

Speaker 1 (32:13):

Yeah, exactly. And at that point, if you bring in the guitars and the kick starts to disappear a little at that point you can decide maybe I need to give it a little bit more of an extreme EQ in the five or eight range once the guitars are in, or maybe I do need to add a sample, but at least you'll be coming from a starting point of balance and power with your drums and can decide accordingly.

Speaker 2 (32:45):

And I think it's probably going on the topic of templates and speed mixing, having a ready to go chain for natural kick and snare and Tom's probably too really is one of those things. It's fairly easy to template out and just have a handful of parameters that you change for each snare drum. So maybe consider doing that even if you could still do your kind of raw faders up style mixing, but at least your initial drum mics are getting some love that gets it a lot closer to the final product.

Speaker 1 (33:24):

Yeah, I mean look man, let's be real drums, especially in this genre, whether you're going sample or not do need a lot of love in order to sound right. It just is what it is.

Speaker 2 (33:39):

Yeah, I mean find what kind of moves that you're making over and over on Drum to get it to that place. For me, it's usually cutting a ton of three, 400 and a cutting a ton of 1.2 K or something around there. And then from there things seem a whole lot easier once you've gotten rid of 24 DB of garbage or whatever.

Speaker 1 (34:03):

Absolutely. Hey everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast then you should know this. Brought to you by URM Academy UM Academy's mission is to create the next generation of audio professionals by giving them the inspiration and information to hone their craft and build a career doing what they love. You've probably heard me talk about Nail the Mix before, and if you're a member, you already know how amazing it is. At the beginning of the month, nail the mix members get the raw multitracks to a new song by artists like Bringeth Horizon ra, asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others. Then at the end of the month, the producer who mixed it comes on and does a live streaming walkthrough of exactly how they mix the song on the album and takes your questions live on air. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, our collection of dozens of bite-sized mixing tutorials that cover all the basics as well as Portfolio Builder, which is a library of pro quality multi-tracks cleared for your use in your portfolio.

(35:04):

So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those who really want to step up the game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhanced, which includes everything I already told you about and access to our massive library of fast tracks, which are deep, super detailed courses on intermediate and advanced topics like gate staging, mastering low end and so forth. It's over 40 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed. Intense members also get access to one-on-one office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes on a live video stream, fix it up and talk you through exactly what we're doing at every step. So if any of that sounds interesting to you, if you're ready to level up your mixing skills and your audio career, head over to urm academy.com to find out more. Okay, moving on. This one is by Mr. Brad Higgins.

Speaker 3 (36:33):

After all this time, you still recognize that your problem lies. Can you tell me why you thrown it all away? It makes no sense to me why you wouldn't watching you decline, what were you expecting? I can't save you from yourself when you don't.

Speaker 1 (37:56):

All right. That was by Mr. Brad Higgins, and I do personally think that was the best of the three. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (38:09):

I dunno,

Speaker 1 (38:11):

You don't have to agree with me, but

Speaker 2 (38:12):

I think I might go with Ian's just because it sounds a little more modern to me just from the raw tones, whereas I feel like this one is a little more mid rangey or something,

Speaker 1 (38:26):

Although I do think let's get into what that or something is.

Speaker 2 (38:29):

Yeah, I guess the thing that I really like about Brad's Mix is that the low end seems pretty close to the original.

Speaker 1 (38:39):

Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess to me that's the big thing. I feel like that's what separates the men from the boys when it comes to modern mixes is that low end. And I really do think it's really one of the hardest parts of mixing heavy music.

Speaker 2 (38:58):

Well, I think it can be, especially if, I mean the thing that's made the biggest difference for me is just being able to roll things off and listen to it that way. It was just kind of impossible for me the way my ears were without being super in tuned or trained or whatever, to be able to separate what was going on down there from the rest of the mix. Even if logically I could think about it, well, I'm just supposed to ignore the high end of the kick and the snare, your ears are not just going to ignore it because logically that makes sense. You have to actually roll off the frequencies, otherwise your brain is going to start playing tricks on you. So I think the biggest thing, if you simplify it to the point where you're just looking at a couple elements like kick the bottom of the kick, the bottom of the scenario, the bottom of the bass and some guitar, then just think about it that way and reference something that you trust has good low end, then that makes it simpler. But for sure getting to that point mentally of being able to work that way, people definitely get hung up on it.

Speaker 1 (40:18):

Well, dude, I have a personal question about your mixes. I remember a long time ago, when I say a long time ago, I don't mean that long, mean maybe around 2013 or 14 your mixes were good, but they're not as good as they are now. It is kind of like you hit some, I've watched you go through different periods where your shit gets way better in a short period of time and then it plateaus for a while and then it gets way better. I think that's how most people evolve. But I remember once maybe 2013 or 14, you were having a problem getting enough low end in your mixes and you told me that it was because you didn't have a good way to hear low end, and so you were afraid of adding too much. And so you were consciously erring on the side of caution. How did you overcome that?

Speaker 2 (41:19):

I think a lot of it was really, well, it sucks to say, but if you can't trust your ears on something, you've got to trust your eyes or you have to have some tool to be able to be able to make up for what it is you're not hearing. So in this case, it's like if I can look at it on an analyzer and see, well first I'll check my ears and say, well, the low end sounds roughly in the ballpark. Let me check an analyzer and see what's going on at like 35 hertz versus 60 hertz versus 80 hertz versus one 20. Because if I just listened to it on my own, I might not be able to tell the difference between 60 and 40 or 160. And I think that's one of the things that you see a lot of in amateur mixes is a buildup around 80 and a hundred where people can actually hear the stuff coming out of their speakers and then it dies off around 60.

(42:22):

I don't know if I had that problem so much, but I was just generally, I think for one thing I wasn't referencing until the end of the process. And once I stopped doing that and actively started referencing as I'm building tones and as I'm balancing things, that made a huge difference. And just being able to have something aside from another human's opinion. If I can use my analyzer as a kind of, okay, I know it's matching this other song down to plus or minus one db, that kind of stuff, or checking the high end really, I had similar problems with over boosting the high end or having my mixes B two dark and kind of trying to find the balance between that too. So yeah, honestly just breaking things down into frequency bands and trying to do anything I can to change my perspective, whether it's mono or whatever, different speakers, anything

Speaker 1 (43:22):

Interesting. I never thought that I mastered low end or anything, but there was a time period around 2013 or something where it got way better. It turned a corner for sure. I started to understand it a lot more and I was doing things like that. I was separating things into frequency bands and just analyzing the bottom of the kick with the bottom of the center at the bottom, the guitars. How does this work together? How does it work together in a bunch of mixes I like, but I digress. We're running out of time here and I want to talk about Brad's mix some, so lemme go back to my notes here. To me this was the best of the three mixes mainly because I feel like the overall levels are the best, but I would say that there may be a hair too much low and on the kick, either that or not enough of that five to eight k click on it.

(44:25):

It sounds okay when there's very few guitars or not much bass, but just gets kind of lost. That's a normal thing when everything comes in. I love though that the low end comes to life when the main song comes in. That's great. That's what some of the other mixes are missing. And that's actually, I went through the octagon and I listened to a lot of mixes and that's something that by and large the community is messing up is getting that low end right between the intro and when the main band comes in. So I'll say one thing that is bugging me though is that the snare just sounds really dry. It's like I'm hearing some direct mics in very little room or reverb, however you would go about giving the snare some ambience, but I'm not hearing any of it and it's important. I don't think this is meant to be a raw sounding song.

(45:23):

Now let me say though that the dryness works a little bit in the verse a little bit. If it's going to work in any of these parts, it kind of works in the verse a little bit, intro where there isn't a wall of guitars and stuff. I just honestly wish I had a little more ambiance, but I'm not going to knock it on the verse if that's the artistic choice. However, it only works until heavy guitars come in and I suggest watching nail the mix episodes where different mixes are discussed for different sections. I believe Taylor Larson did that in the Asking Alexandria one, man, we've done so many, they kind of run together. But Annie nailed the mix where we cover that topic. The first one that comes to mind is Taylor Larson asking Alexandria is to have a different drum mix for a different part.

Speaker 2 (46:23):

Yeah, that's what I was going to say too. And yeah, the more you can learn to deal with seemingly complex tasks like having multiple drum kits within one session, but just simplify it down enough so that it's manageable. You don't want a hundred tracks of drums to start off your session with. But yeah, I guess I had some of the same kind of feelings. I think the low end is pretty killer. The main difference I heard was just kind of if you roll off up to four 50 again somewhere like that. So this is Brad's mix and then this is the original. It's like the overall frequency response is kind of similar, but it's just the elements in there. Like you said, the punch of the snare is way different. So here's the original mix that Pop of the Transient is like, yeah, it sounds like a transient designer or something pushed pretty hard. And then maybe if we put it in the mono, we could probably tell the relative balance between some of the mono and then the stereo guitars. Sounds like the vocals could probably come up a little bit and be a little. Yeah, I think so as well. I mean everything sounds a little mid focused. So this is Brad around 500 hertz, and then the original, actually those are pretty similar. I guess I was wrong there.

(48:51):

The high end though. It sounds like we need some more presence in the symbols for sure.

Speaker 1 (48:56):

I agree with you on that.

Speaker 2 (48:58):

Yeah, I think that's a pretty common thing is either people have a big buildup at like eight K in the symbols that needs to be cut. I think that's sometimes, maybe that's just a certain pair of mics that gets commonly used or certain symbols have that, or the symbols are just way too low and everything else is trying to compensate for that high and brightness. So yeah, I mean I think in this case, if you can just kind of work on the more midrange and upper midrange stuff, now that you've got the low end in place, you're kind of well on your way. But yeah, main thing, like you said, the punchiness of the snare just really, I think, yeah, that seems to be a common thread between some of these mixes is just getting the natural drums to sound a little more slamming.

Speaker 1 (49:50):

And the ambience get the ambience right. I that's really important.

Speaker 2 (49:54):

Nobody wants to hear just the direct snare. You want to hear the big

Speaker 1 (49:59):

Bloom of the snare in the room unless it's a rage against the machine record or something. I guess I have a couple more notes. I think the buildup isn't smooth. It sounds like the snare show at first, the snare is way loud in that buildup. And then when the guitars first come in, it's like boom, jarring. Sounds like there's no fade on that guitar track that just comes in. I don't mean a long fade, I mean a micro fade, the kind of stuff that you put on track so that they don't sound like they just popped out out of nowhere and hit you in the head.

(50:41):

It sounds like it's just there. And then as the elements add to the snare just kind of gets lost and things start getting buried. Now look, I was taught by a very good mixer that one of the ways you get things to work in a mix is not by turning everything up, that as you get elements, you turn down the things around it. And so I know that that's how you should do things most times. But in this case, I don't think it's really working too well. It's not really, it just seems like everything gets smaller as more elements get added and things start getting buried more. I guess the example that I was giving though is say you have heavy rhythms and a lead guitar comes in, but you don't want the guitar to blast your head off. You balance it with the rhythms and then you turn the rhythms down like half a db. That's kind of a traditional way to work in a lead guitar, but this is not really doing that. It just sounds like things are getting smaller and smaller and smaller as it gets crowded and crowded and crowded. And I think that the problem, I'm convinced that the problem is that it started with the snare too loud. So he ran out of headroom as he started to build it. The snare at the beginning of the buildup is just fucking blaring and there's not much space to go from there.

(52:27):

There's nowhere to build up to. So by the time the buildup is over, it's not even a buildup anymore. And anyways, my verdict on this one though is a remix is not required. Should polish the kick. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (52:43):

Yeah, I think I was just going to say on parts like that where bridges or in between parts where it's just not quite working, maybe the rest of the mix, the chorus is working a little better. My kind of rule of thumb is just do the biggest move that you can get away with or on as many different things as you can. Try and create as much contrast as you can without it sounding weird. In this case, it probably starts with turning that snare down and then build it up from there, get the build of the snare and then build everything around that. And yeah, just in general, see what happens if you turn down down, if it goes to acquired or parts, see what happens if you turn down some element of the drums like six B. One of the common ones is having really dry drums in the verse and then big room in the chorus or vice versa. So that kind of stuff. Just see what you can get away with.

Speaker 1 (53:42):

Absolutely. And I'd say in conclusion, polish that kick a little. Consider the high end on it so it doesn't get lost. Consider some ambience on the drums. Consider a longer snare somehow, either through using the rooms and overheads or a reverb on it or a sample underneath it, especially in the choruses. Work that buildup better and do explore different mixes for different parts.

Speaker 3 (54:16):

And

Speaker 1 (54:17):

With that, got to bring this episode of Mixed Crip Monday to an end. Thank you for being with me, John Douglass. And yeah, thanks to everybody for listening. And I hope that you guys tune in on May 22nd, 2018 to watch Carl Bound. Show us all how this mix is done. For real.

Speaker 2 (54:41):

Yeah, for realsies,

Speaker 1 (54:44):

For reals to get in touch with the RM podcast. Visit

Speaker 3 (54:49):

Podcast and.