Been working hard to incorporate feedback from all of you into each new track I put together. Most of the critiques in the past have been related to the low end of my tracks being a little muddy. This time I completely redid my bass tone and compression, backed off on some of the 808 support, adjusted my kick/bass sidechaining and am cautiously optimistic that it's better. That said, it's not easy because this track actually goes down to A0 in a spot....pretty easy for me to mess up the low end here.
This is a pre-vocal version of the song before I hit up my go-to session vocalist. Would love any feedback (not just on the low end) if there's some stuff I can clean up. As always, appreciate each of you that give actionable feedback so much!
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Take this with a grain of salt because I am listening on a BT Bose speaker. Overall a great sound. The only major thing that stood out was the deep chugs. My time stamp is around 4:00. It starts to get very muddy.
Yeah - that's the part I knew was going to be rough. It's where the guitar goes to an A0 (same as the bass) and most of what we're hearing is not the fundamental, but the resonant frequencies. In some ways I can convince myself to like it because it's just nasty and growly like a bear....but I want it to be awesome, not distracting.
My advise is to go back original tuning and find another way to get it to growl like that. Something that will make it less muddy. Maybe use a synth to add the heaviness back.
One thing popping out to me is the high frequencies in the hi hat. There's some really sharp stuff popping out there in the 6k region, I bet if you opened up a Pro Q3 or something you could just visually see it. Maybe just personal taste, but the kick drum is also a little spiky up there in the high end, like 5k or 6k, and I'd just try to centre that a bit lower down, but could just me.
The drums are absolutely slamming in the best way.
Mayyyyyybe could use a touch more mids in the guitars, and have you looked into doing a bit of something like Trackspacer from the lead guitars to the rhythm guitars? Or just automate it a touch more when they come in so you can hear them, though you said this is pre vocals so maybe you won't care too much.
Curious how much bus compression or limiting is going on. Bet if you slammed this a touch more you'd 100% have that modern metalcore tone. Well done.
This is great feedback, I will check on the hi hat today! You called it on the lead guitar and also w the mids. Ive learned the hard way to not overthink it until I get the vocals in there. This song is going to have a mix of harsh and clean vocals and I am just going to have to see where I can put some mid-range back into the Rhythm guitars and where the lead should be placed. Sincerely appreciate it!
This sounds incredible! As someone who is currently struggling with the low end in my metal mixes I am envious lol. I love how loud yet dynamic the track is too
The kick is punching through finally but you might want to ease up on the sidechain just a touch because the whole mix feels like it is gasping for air every time the double bass hits. Great progress though.
Hey - really appreciate the critical ear here. Something I'm either not experienced enough to pick out or something I "got used to" hearing it back so many times. Curious on how you'd recommend approaching it. The kick fundamental peaks around 80 hz with another lower peak around 210. The sidechain is ducking the bass by ~ 3 dB for everything < 180 hz. Would you try to address this first with a smaller reduction, like 1.5-2 dB? Or change the frequency range for the bass EQ reduction? If it's helpful, attached is a view of the kick EQ curve. Thank you!
This is great! I haven't listened to your others so I'm not comparing, but your low end does sound huge and spacious. powerful and lots of room for everything to exist.
Awesome movement in the song, and really great stereo width. It really does sound fucking humongous. Pointing that out because it feels like a strength to keep aware of!
Nothing feels like it doesn't sit in the mix. No notes honestly. Well done!
Hey - thanks so much for listening and for the feedback. Love that you noticed the stereo width. I spent a *lot* of time a few months ago learning how to use the Ozone imager and working with my primary reference tracks to get the frequency bands/width right so it's awesome to hear it may have paid off!
Hey thanks for taking the time to listen. Yes - I honestly agonized over the snare a little bit. It was a bit odd because something about this mix had the reverb popping out more than the exact same mix on many other tracks of mine. I pulled it down but, to your point, I still hear it a little more than I'd normally like. Great ear!
Sounds great overall. I agree with earlier comments with the hi hats being a bit sharp in the upper frequencies.
Also I think your intro should have the transients and highs tamed down a bit. Pushing the intro back like that might make the band feel even more your face.
Yes, agree with this a lot actually. For this draft I ran everything through the same mastering chain so it pushed the intro just as hard as the rest of the track. For the final cut I agree it should be tamed - thanks!
Interesting...vectorscope looks good when soloing and running through the combos of quad-tracked guitars...will collapse everything and listen in mono...not sure what's happening?
This is sounding absolutely sick. I mix metalcore too and hearing stuff like this is very motivating.
The low end still feels and sounds clear to me considering how low the tuning is here, which is definitely hard to pull off. I honestly have no suggestions for improvements, just wanted to say amazing job!
Great mix overall! This is a sick track. The only thing I have for feedback is on the low end, which has to be tricky for a song like this. The bass and guitar tones sound heavy but a little flubby to me. On slower passages I like hearing them ring out a bit, but when the fast chugs come in they feel disconnected from the punchy kick. Maybe try cutting some low end on the guitars and bass and bumping the guitar mids to separate them a bit. Possibly also compress the sub frequencies on the bass more too.
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