Dark Ride - Burning Bridges

Hi guys,

I had some time and did another mix of multitracks. I mixt this track before a year and a halve ago, but lots has changed, so I thought to give it another go at it, and see if I can improve.

Its a first mix that is open for revision. Thought I upload it first instead of keep tweaking myself to death and get some other opinions first :slight_smile:

I’m not gonna beg for it, but does anyone have some stone cold critisism for me on this one ? :smiley:
Its an unfinished mix still :slight_smile:

I’ll give it a shot, though this is not my style of music.
So I can’t really comment on composition, instruments, vocals or whatever. There’s just one thing I’m noticing: the vocals sound a bit too far back in the mix, especially in what I am assuming is the chorus (around 1:30). Not sure if it’s just a balance thing, a masking effect (there’s a guitar which is quite prominent in the vocal frequency range) or reverb/ delay. But’s worthwhile tweaking around in there somewhere :cold_sweat:
Good luck!

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Hey Aef,

Thanks for taking the time :slight_smile: I will look into that vocal issue!

Doesn’t realy matter if its your genre or not, I guess you’ll hear balans issues anyway. Only the taste part may differ I guess.

Greets !

Hey cool song, the recording and writing seem very spot on to me.
Regarding the genre, I’m not quite sure what to think about.
Guitars have the overal tone to that kinda song and bass works nicely with them.
Vocals feel a bit disconnected, on top of the song but not into the mix.
Drums are a bit shy to me and I wish more meat in them to get a better sense of rhythm and to compliment the guitar tone.

By the way, I find it really nice and catchy as it should. Good job!

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This is above my pay level. ha ha Love the dudes vocal. Wowser. Like to hear that vocal maybe 1 db louder. Great playing for sure. Makes me wanna retire my guitar. Nice work. Love the burning bridges the best.

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This is a really difficult style of mix to nail. The song and in particular the vocal is killer, so that is a great start.

I think you’ve done a great job with the vocal here. It has the right tone, the right attitude, and it’s sitting right up front in the mix, where it deserves to be, so well done with that.

The fast double-kick drum pattern is so cool, but it is very problematic from a mixing standpoint. On the one hand, if you make it sound like an actual real kick drum, you risk creating a constant 60hz drone in the low end. Alternatively, if you take all the low end out of it and just retain the attack, it doesn’t really sound like a kick drum, so the mix sounds unbalanced.

I think you’ve gone more for the second option here, so for me, the mix lacks low-end punch and warmth. Here’s my suggestion: Try multing the kick drum to different channels. Keep the low end punch in one channel, and keep it as-is in the other. Now, during the fast double kick sections, try putting the only the quarter note kick divisions through the channel with the low end, and put all the rest through the one with less low end. Probably a lot of work, but I guess if it works better, it might be worth it. Keep in mind, I have never mixed this fast kick drum stuff, so it’s only theory at this point.

Overall, the mix is pretty bright in the high mids - particularly the attack of the drums. I think if you cleaned up the low mids around the 200-250hz area in the bass and the guitars, it would give more balance to the mix and mean that you wouldn’t have to push the high mids so hard in order for them to cut through. Possibly, some multi-band compression could help to tighten that area.

Hope that helps!

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See, that’s what I’m talkin’ about! See this thread about ear training to know where I’m coming from with this, but I wish I could listen and know what’s wrong. I can hear that something’s not quite right in the EQ, but I wouldn’t be able to quite put my finger on it. It does sound a bit muddy to me. You’re right, the temptation would be to boost high, rather than cut low. Great comments, @ColdRoomStudio. You truly are a certified golden ear. No sarcasm there. That was a helpful post for me.

So, I agree, there’s some EQ stuff to be done, but other than that, this mix is close. It’s really quite good. Oh, I agree about the kick isn’t punching thru enough. But man, this is otherwise a nice mix. It really is. Love the arrangement. Absolutely love it. Wonderful vocals. Love this guy’s voice. The guitars are tight. Love that little change up at 2:10. I like the rhythm guitars. That double-lead at 2:30+ is so nice. The bass is a bit muddy and needs to come up a tad. Clean it up and bring it up.

This isn’t gonna take much to clean up. When you do, this is an excellent piece. Again, I love the energy, musicianship and creativity in the arrangement. And this guy’s tubes are quite the thing. What a range he has. From so low at 2:20, to that falsetto scream at the end.

I’m gonna be watching this thread. Go for it, Jelle! This is a gem.

Thanks for posting.

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yup, its pretty cool,

I put some vintage and tape eq on it, you might like it, or not…

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Hey guys thanks for all the suggestions here :slight_smile: Gonna be interesting if I get back to that song, cause I actually loaded up this mix before I was realy done tweaking. I was kind of doubting where to go from here, and thought maybe I would let other people opinion influence me on that for a change :smiley:.

I’m gonna open this tread when I go at it, and take it all into account!

@vtr That seems to solve a few issues, but also make the high mids a bit awkward or am I hearing things? :smiley:
The low end sounds pretty good like this though!

Oh, and thanks for the kind words and motivation guys :slight_smile: To make sure, its not my song, cause I sometimes get the sense some of you think I made this :smiley:

Greetings

No probs, try this.

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What did you use for it ? And how do you aproach it ? I’ve fiddling around with it as well, and got some good stuff, but not sure yet about what I’m doing. I’m not getting much further as knowing if I want tube or tape halve of the time. And for the master buss a 2 band setup with the low panned mid and the rest more the sides with practically no distortion on the lows and more quite some on the rest.

I use fabfilter Saturn btw, only decent saturation plug I have.

Usually I add between 0.5dB to about 1.5dB of Eq where I want it.

Maybe seven or eight places 40Hz, 110Hz, 2.5kHz, 20kHz and prob only two little cuts at 640Hz and 700 Hz, a tiny bit of compression and width to open it back up and some 7.5ips tape just for the tone of it…

I don’t really pay attention to the numbers, just twist the knobs. Most of the time I put the eq on as I like the sound of it, I don’t really have it do anything much.

I love saturation plugins, but most of mine sound like shit in truth, although I’m using the Scheps 73 on your midrange guitars, but still just in tiny steps until I learn it.