JOEL WANASEK: Mixing High-Speed Metal, Fixing Harsh Mid-Range, and Balancing Sub-Bass

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. And now your host, Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:08):

Welcome to the URM podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's crazy to think that we are now on our seventh year. Don't ask me how that all just flew by, but it did. Man, time moves fast and it's only because of you, the listeners, if you'd like us to stick around another seven years and there's a few simple things you can do that would really, really help us out, I would endlessly appreciate if you would, number one, share our episodes with your friends. Number two, post our episodes on your Facebook and Instagram and tag me at al Levi URM audio and at URM Academy and of course our guest. And number three, leave us reviews and five star reviews wherever you can. We especially love iTunes reviews. Once again, thank you for all the years and years of loyalty. I just want you to know that we will never charge you for this podcast, and I will always work as hard as possible to improve the episodes in every single way.

(01:10):

All we ask in return is a share a post and tag us. Oh, and one last thing. Do you have a question you would like me to answer on an episode? I don't mean for a guest. I mean for me, it can be about anything. Email it to [email protected]. That's EYAL at m dot A-C-D-E-M-Y. There's no.com on that. It's exactly the way I spelled it. And use the subject line Answer me Eyal. Alright, let's get on with it. Welcome to Mix Crit Monday. I'm Eyal Levi, and with me is Mr. Joel Wanasek. This is the show where we crit your mixes. Today we're going to be crit your RM subscriber mixes of the song Drone Corps Aviator by Spire, which is one of the nail the mix songs this month. So in order to get something on mixed script Monday, all we do is scour our Facebook group, the Octagon, which is the mixed group, and we picked three lonely mixes and here they are. That's all there is to it. So Joel, you ready for this?

Speaker 3 (02:17):

I was born ready. I mean, they got a lot to live up to. I was just listening to Dave ER's mix and dude, it's so sick. I mean, it sounds amazing. It

Speaker 2 (02:26):

Sounds amazing, and this style of music is so difficult to mix and Dave's mixes sound incredible, but I feel like people don't understand what a crazy achievement it is to be able to get this kind of stuff sounding that good.

Speaker 3 (02:43):

I will argue till I'm dead, that metal is the hardest genre to mix, especially because I can mix so many other genres proficiently. But this type of metal, anything fast, with a lot of technical on the guitars and it's just in blast beats and it's just absurd trying to find the balance between low and top end and energy and size and clarity. It's hats off to him for his achievement on this because he deserves a medal or something for this mix

Speaker 2 (03:11):

To be able to have music of this speed. Let's be real. There's a song on this album that's at 400 BPM. Lots of the song

Speaker 3 (03:23):

Couldn't at 200, huh?

Speaker 2 (03:24):

No, no, 400. Lots of them are above 300. I'm not sure what Drone Corps is at. It's in the three hundreds. But that much information lying at you, and these aren't simple parts they're playing, they're extremely complex. To get any sort of clarity out of that while also making it sound powerful, it's insane. And to have so much definition like in the blast beats at that speed to have so much definition in the guitar riffs and the leads to where you really can't hear every note. But it doesn't sound like some tiny, stupid, shitty mix. It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (04:04):

Like I said, he should get a medal.

Speaker 2 (04:05):

Yeah, I agree. We should get something. Maybe we'll bring him on nail the mix or something.

Speaker 3 (04:09):

We should hit him up and see if he's down.

Speaker 2 (04:11):

I'll hit him. We'll see if he's down. Yeah, totally. Alright, let's get started. This first mix is by your subscriber Dan Cox, and this is his drone corpse aviator mix that we picked from the Rock Toon. We'll play you a couple minutes and then we'll talk about it. Here goes

Speaker 4 (05:12):

Community.

Speaker 2 (06:07):

That's a lot to take in so much musical information. So first things first, I mean, this is super obvious, but the intro is totally dry and that sounds weird to have it, that drive, if you listen to the actual release that it's affected a certain way to build into the song with it dry like that. It's just fast guitars by themselves. It sets you up for a weird listen. Now, what I noticed though about those guitars being dry is that that kind of persists like the lead guitars, which are a very important element in this, for instance, sound very dry. And so they stick out kind of weird. They don't sound like they're part of the mix, they just kind of stick out weird. Did you notice that?

Speaker 3 (07:03):

Yeah, I mean, my notes are a little bit more basic on that. I mean, on a fundamental level, I

Speaker 2 (07:07):

Got more, well,

Speaker 3 (07:08):

Let's start with the guitars, because for me, the guitars are, I'm having a hard time because we only listened to a little snippet debating whether the guitars are really over eqd or under eqd, meaning they sound harsh and the EQ on them is super weird. There's like a big masking range somewhere between, I want to say like 802 K. That's,

Speaker 2 (07:26):

Yeah, man, I was hearing this weird honky thing in the guitars

Speaker 3 (07:29):

Guitar. It just swallows the clarity of the mix and that really kind of, I'm just reading my notes here, it really kind of threw me off. So the guitars, if we go back to, we've been doing EQ training at URM this week or the last few weeks, a lot of masking frequencies, meaning that I would notch some frequencies in the top end. They're not eqd correctly and they have to be eqd correctly and dialed in very precisely for this kind of music. So that's my first note.

Speaker 2 (07:56):

I noticed that too. There's just this weird mid-range thing that is just so loud and so obvious and it just swallows other instruments. Okay, so talking about weird EQ on things, I think the symbols too, there's too many harsh frequencies on the symbols and the accent symbols. Also kind of like the lead guitars, they don't sound like part of the kit. It's like you have the overheads where he is playing the drums in the overheads and there's this level for the symbols. And then whenever he hits an accent symbol, like a splash or something, it just jumps out. It's by itself almost, and it's harsh. It sounds really, really harsh. And one thing about the way, I don't know exactly how this was miked, but I do know that in this style of music, oftentimes space pairs are used and space pairs in combination with spot mics on accent symbols, and it's kind of this blend is created, and those accent symbol mics are usually there for automation purposes.

(09:03):

If something is getting lost in a blast beat or something, and it goes to a splash, like two tiny hits, two tiny 16th notes at a 300 VPM song, you can turn it up a little, but it's meant to really just accent or clarify what's in the overheads already. It's not meant to just stick right out. And so that also improperly eqd symbols also have this thing about them that mask everything else. So you've got some masking happening from the symbols. You've got some masking happening from the mids and the guitars. What do you think of the overheads and symbols?

Speaker 3 (09:43):

I mean, yeah, that's right. On other things that I had, I think you should reapproach the snare. Well, the kick has decent clarity. The snare I felt was lacking a lot of clarity. And again, which just wasn't eqd, right? I mean, I don't know what sample or whatever was used, but I would definitely reapproach that. But I mean, to me that's a minor point. If you want to talk about eq, I moved down the spectrum. I think there's too much sub on the base, the bottom end, and this mix isn't right. And again, if you listen to Dave's mix, what really blows me away about it is how tight the low end is. And it's big. It's got a lot of punchy bottom, but at this tempo. So it's really, I feel like you have a range of that little bit to play in and you have to get it.

(10:23):

If anything too much, it'll be too boomy, anything too less, you're not going to have any punch. And I think there's a little bit too much sub going on in the bass. Aside from that, the other thing I have is I feel like the vocals are just in general, and this is probably because there's so much masking going on in the symbols and the guitars, but the vocals are too loud and they don't gel probably because there's not enough room for them frequency wise to fit where they're supposed to in the upper mid range, but there's just not eqd correctly. So they need to be whittled down and brightened up a little, I think brightened up, if I remember correctly. It needs work. It doesn't fit together like a puzzle. It's very loose right now and everything is just kind of disconnected.

Speaker 2 (10:59):

Vocals sound strangely dry and they just stick out weird, which is a common, it's just a common theme in this mix is that lots of these lead elements, and not just lead elements because the symbols too, but they just stick out weird. And the vocals, the lead guitar feel overly dry. And so it's just almost vocals in space. You

Speaker 3 (11:23):

Got to get the ambiances to gel, if that makes sense. So that's why, for example, if you're using one common reverb send or one common delay send for everything, it's a lot easier to get a mix to sound cohesive instead of a different reverb plugin on every single element that you want to reverberate. So that's something to maybe consider depending on the approach that you took.

Speaker 2 (11:44):

Yeah, and I'll say this, as far as the base goes, I'm hearing more of the highs from the base than actually hearing it lay a foundation though I do think that the low end is jacked. I'm not hearing it tight enough to lay a foundation. So it's just like rumble. So rumble and some high end, and that high end of the base, it stands out again. It's two separate, it's not supporting the mix, it's just base loud, fucking bass. There's all kinds of problems with this mix. Is this a redo?

Speaker 3 (12:16):

I don't know. I mean, I feel like it could be, I think

Speaker 2 (12:18):

It's fixable.

Speaker 3 (12:19):

I mean, again, sometimes some of these moves on the guitars might be an issue of just a wide notch at a certain range for two to two and a half db, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, now I can hear the symbols. Now I can hear the vocals, bring it down, adjust the balance a little bit of here, a little bit there. I mean, just like we did last week in EQ training, just repositioning things around the spectrum a little bit can kind of totally change the way your mix sounds with some very, very small moves like a DB or two here or there. So it's at the point where if they pick a new snare sample and just a little bit of eq, we'd be there.

Speaker 2 (12:53):

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I don't think this is a start from scratch. Hey, everybody, if you're enjoying this podcast and you should know that it's brought to you by URM Academy, URM 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. The beginning of the month, nail the mix members, get the raw multi-tracks to a new song by artists like Lamb of God, angels and Airwaves. Knock loose OPEC shuga, bring me the Horizon. Gaira asking Alexandria Machine Head and Papa Roach among many, many others over 60 at this point. 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.

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And these are guys like TLA Will Putney, Jens Borin, Dan Lancaster, to I Matson, Andrew Wade, and many, many more. You'll also get access to Mix Lab, which is 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 use in your portfolio. So your career will never again be held back by the quality of your source material. And for those of you who really want to step up their game, we have another membership tier called URM Enhance, 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 gain, staging, mastering, low end and so forth. It's over 500 hours of content. And man, let me tell you, this stuff is just insanely detailed.

(14:42):

Enhanced members also get access to one-on-ones, which are basically office hour sessions with us and Mix Rescue, which is where we open up one of your mixes and 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 in your audio career, head over to URM Academy to find out more. Alright, let's move on to the next one. I'm going to mispronounce the last name, but this is JF Kon I think. Anyhow, let's listen to J F's Drone Corps Aviator Mix

Speaker 4 (15:58):

Community with,

Speaker 2 (16:53):

All right, that was by JF Kon, and I'm going to say overall a pretty good job. I was impressed. There's a few things that could be better, but overall, really good job. And I'm going to say the thing that I liked the least about this was the snare balance. And what I mean by snare balance is it's internal balance. So I feel like there's too much bottom snare and it's making the snare too scratchy. It sounds scratchy. The only thing I can think of is that the bottom snare is too loud. And that matters at these speeds because the drum beats are basically one long snare fill or snare roll is some of these parts. And so if you're hearing too much bottom snare, it sounds very, very scratchy and there's snare everywhere. I also notice that the symbols are pretty whist, and so they overtake certain things they need to be audible but have less of a sonic footprint.

(17:59):

And I also think that the base needs to be more controlled. You can't really hear his individual notes too much. The individual notes do matter in this band. If you listen to Aeros Mix, you can hear the individual notes the bassist is playing. And so it's not like a lot of metal where bass is just some afterthought or a low extension of the guitars. It's got a real bass player that plays actual bass lines. So got to respect that and bring the notes out while also providing a foundation for the music. What do you think, Joel?

Speaker 3 (18:32):

I got three main things. The first thing I thought was the mix actually lacks just a little bit of power and all of my suggestions here. I said this mix is pretty good, our minor thing. So when I say it lacks a little power, when I go to Dave's mix, it's just got a tighter bottom. It's got a little bit more punch, and this one is just a little bit too thin. It just needs a little bit more, but more, and like you said, there are some boomy elements on the base. Like you said, it can definitely get a little out of control, so you got to watch it. But I would just add a little bit more low end, whether it be the kick or the base or whatever. It's hard to sit here and listen to something once and then give without opening it in a DW and tell you exactly what the problem is.

(19:11):

But I think it could have just a little bit more power in push in the subs. That being said, one of my major notes is the guitars are a bit harsh. They're definitely EQ better than the last mix we listened to. But I think there's a couple of just frequencies and things like that that get a little bit, they build up when the symbols are there, the leads are there, and they just need to be notched. And a couple of frequencies that poke my ears a bit. But again, it's very subtle. It's not bad. And the last thing I have is the vocals. I thought were just a little bit on the muddy side, and they're very close to being perfectly balanced, at least to my ear. But there's a little bit of a low mid buildup in them that I think could just come down a little bit. And I think it would just open up a little bit more space and clarity for the guitars and the mix would be clear. So those are my three things. Like I said, they're all minor adjustments. I'm talking like a half DB here, a DB here. It's nothing that really stands out as like, oh, man, this needs a lot of work.

Speaker 2 (20:04):

No, this is real close.

Speaker 3 (20:05):

Yeah, definitely

Speaker 2 (20:06):

A great job, jf. Okay, let's move on to the next one. And last one. This is Andy Kim's drone corpse aviator mix. Here it goes,

Speaker 4 (20:55):

Community with the,

Speaker 2 (21:49):

Okay, that was Andy Kim's mix. That mix is very painful to listen to. Do you think so?

Speaker 3 (21:55):

Yeah. This one to me goes into the redo category, and I have a number of notes, so

Speaker 2 (22:01):

I'll let you start. So there's this weird noise happening in the high mids, and earlier when I made my notes, I was thinking that it was the symbols, but I couldn't totally tell. And now I'm thinking that there's this, it's like the distortion on the base is creating this weird sound. There's this weird noise happening throughout. Okay. So I can barely make out any guitar definition on anything. But the high parts, anytime the guitars aren't playing up high, they're lost. The drums sound completely distorted, like there's decapitate on the snare or something, or devil lock or something. It just sounds crazy. The symbols are painful. The mastering is weird. I can hear pumping all over the place, especially clean parts. The volume is just shifting so much. And the low end is super weird on this because at times there's absolutely no low end. So basically my final note was I would start over.

Speaker 3 (23:09):

Yeah, I mean, the first thing I noticed is how ridiculously clipped the drums are. And even the mix in general just sounds super thrusted and distorted. And there's a wall of, again, 800 to 1.5 that it's just brutal in terms of it sounds like a wall of distortion in the mid range. The snare is just super over clipped. It almost sounds like a rust snare, but you took the clipper and went all the way to plus 20 DB where it's pure distortion and it sounds just like it's clipped so much where it sounds like, I like the wooden spoon hitting the bowl of mashed potatoes. It's just like a soft flop. It's like you've clipped all of the energy out of it, and all that's left is what used to be a drum hit. So I would really back off the mix pumps. The vocals have weird sub in them.

(23:57):

The whole mix is just muddy. So I think 90% of the problems are EQ related. Maybe not 90, maybe like 80. But so many things are EQ related in this mix. And for example, if you're having pumping on the mix, the first thing is to check your low end balance across your instruments, like guitars, bass, et cetera, because compressors react to most of that. So yeah, I mean, I think I would just start with a fresh approach. Maybe try getting some samples in there, not thrusting your drums so hard. He probably tried to make it aggressive by clipping up everything and the result or limiting everything into a clipping type distortion because there's not enough transient almost for it to sound like it's clipped. I dunno, it's hard to know exactly what happened, but I think less distortion, better EQ control, simpler mixing. It sounds like it got over complicated and messy in terms of a lot of saturation and things like that going on. And just try to simplify and see where that takes you.

Speaker 2 (24:54):

Yeah, chill out. Basically this mix needs to chill out. So you think it's clipping on a natural snare. Interesting. Yeah, it sounded like a distorted natural snare. You're right,

Speaker 3 (25:07):

There's a fill in

Speaker 2 (25:08):

There. I just thought they put fucking devil lock on it or something.

Speaker 3 (25:11):

Yeah, there's a fill in there where it really stands out. It just jumps out. And it sounds like you just took the, say it's a 57 on top. I have an open it, but just take that your snare direct mic, and just like I murder it plus 20 on a clipper, I feel like I'm testing a clipper, if that makes sense. So

Speaker 2 (25:27):

Yeah, just start over with that in mind and I guarantee you your mix will be better. Cool. This has been a mix Crip Monday. If you want to get your mix on mixed Crip Monday, all you got to do is end the octagon post mix is in the octagon, and we will pick at random. So that's it. There's no actual submission process with that. Thank you, Joel.

Speaker 3 (25:48):

Thank you Al.

Speaker 2 (25:49):

Yeah, and thanks all of you for hanging out. We will see you next time. Alright, then another URM podcast episode in the bag. Please remember to share our episodes with your friends as well as post them to your Facebook and Instagram or any social media you use. Please tag me at al Levi URM audio at URM Academy. And of course tag our guest as well. I mean, they really do appreciate it. In addition, do you have any questions for me about anything? Email them to [email protected]. That's EYAL at M dot aca, DEMY. And use the subject line answer me Al. Alright then. Till next time, happy mixing.

Speaker 1 (26:32):

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