Phasing/drop out (or just mixing?) issue...

[remis]

Originally Posted by madgt621

well now that its a decent hour where im at, i got a chance to turn up loud and check it out. here's my take on it.

The problem is with how the rhythm guitar and bass are interacting. Some serious frequency collision going on there. The guitar has this mean crunch to it, which sounds sick on it's own, but the bass track just really messes with it too much. I can still hear it with the bass-less track.

So what I would do, is start cutting out "unimportant" and "ringing" frequencies out of the bass guitar. There's a reason why in a lot of heavy music the bass guitar is almost mixed out! Don't worry though, since you got a hpf on the guitar, you can boost a bit the low frequencies that are not really present in the guitar track. this will still allow the bass to be heard, it'll just be a little more background. It's all about carving little pockets for each instrument to live.

Also, an issue seems to be that the kick is getting eaten up in the mix. Try to lower the guitars a little bit in contrast to the drums. Remember it doesn't have to be brutally loud just yet. Thats what master bus compression is for.

The guitars are real thick, which sounds cool, but it's like a morbidly obese guy on a crowded train. He's sweating and breathing on everyone, and no one's having a good time.

Hopefully I could be of help, let us know how it turns out.

Cheers for all the info I've had a bit of a play around...let me know what you think...

Link is here

[udamann88]

Originally Posted by remis

Cheers for all the info I've had a bit of a play around...let me know what you think...

Link is here

It sounds much better now....fwiw.....& This tune is kickin son........I like the vibe on this tune a lot & the playing........

This may not help at all, but I try to get my guitar & bass track tones the way I want them right at the very start.........If I can that is.......The less I have to mess w/ it later the better........lol

I'm glad that you got it fixed......

So what was the trick/answer for this problem?

I thought that the bass drum punch might have been messing w/ the low bass tones.....but that was just a stab in the dark....lol

[mikefont]

Originally Posted by madgt621

but it's like a morbidly obese guy on a crowded train. He's sweating and breathing on everyone, and no one's having a good time.

WOW...what a visual image there! Awesome analogy!

.

[remis]

Originally Posted by madgt621

but it's like a morbidly obese guy on a crowded train. He's sweating and breathing on everyone, and no one's having a good time.

Haha +1 on Mikes comment, that was the funniest thing I've read all day!
I literally LOL'd

Originally Posted by udamann88

It sounds much better now....fwiw.....& This tune is kickin son........I like the vibe on this tune a lot & the playing........

This may not help at all, but I try to get my guitar & bass track tones the way I want them right at the very start.........If I can that is.......The less I have to mess w/ it later the better........lol

I'm glad that you got it fixed......

So what was the trick/answer for this problem?

I thought that the bass drum punch might have been messing w/ the low bass tones.....but that was just a stab in the dark....lol

Thanks X-man! Appreciate your input bro. Got a fair bit of work to do on the song yet. Gotta rerecord the vox yet, which may have to wait until I've got the room acoustically treated coz at the moment she's ochoeing like crazy. If I play a certain string on the guitar the whole room vibrates haha But I'm keen to test out the liquid pre's on my new Liquid Saffire 56...in due time I guess. ALso need to do the bass for the whole song, I just thought I'd try figure this out before going any further...as you can tell I have very limited experience with mixing

The answer was in eq'ing the crap out of it...as suggested by madgt621. I ended up having to put fairly significant HPF's on the guitars and had to put a HUGE LPF on the bass track to get it to sit as it is in the remix version.

[madgt621]

Haha! Glad you guys like the analogy. There's a flipside to it though. Its not like i'm just poking fun at the obese. I usually use the obese to represent bass frequencies, and conversely, I use skinny high and mighty vegan hipsters/yuppies as the high frequencies. It's something like this:

"the high frequencies, like said hipsters/yuppies, in moderation can really make a sound crisp and clean; somewhat "gentrify" the sound. But if you got too much in one area, it this shrill annoying mess of how nifty my new Prius is, or how awesome I look riding everywhere on my fixed gear bicycle."

So yeah, just putting that out there, its not just the obese, but the obese reference is so much easier to say.

Anyway, to comment on the newest track. I like the way its progressing. Much cleaner than the previous one. I guess the biggest problem that shouts out at me, is that it sounds like a massive wall of guitar still. It's like I'm standing between two guitar cabinets, and my head is right under the drummer's crash cymbals.

I would balance out the drums a bit more, maybe back off the cymbals a tad, and the kick and the snare need to stand out a bit more as well. Not necessarily much louder, but maybe a little more upfront. They're kinda getting buried.

I'd also put a little bit of definition on the bass, if possible. It's a bit hip hop sub-bassy to me, but who knows, it may actually work great in the mix after its all balanced out. For rock bass, I actually prefer the sound to be a bit driven, but that also may present problems with the massive wall of distortion from the guitars. Maybe notch in some midrange frequencies for definition? Hard to tell.

It's really a constant back and forth, as each part kinda plays with the next. But hey, that's mixing right?

[remis]

Originally Posted by madgt621

Haha! Glad you guys like the analogy. There's a flipside to it though. Its not like i'm just poking fun at the obese. I usually use the obese to represent bass frequencies, and conversely, I use skinny high and mighty vegan hipsters/yuppies as the high frequencies. It's something like this:

"the high frequencies, like said hipsters/yuppies, in moderation can really make a sound crisp and clean; somewhat "gentrify" the sound. But if you got too much in one area, it this shrill annoying mess of how nifty my new Prius is, or how awesome I look riding everywhere on my fixed gear bicycle."

So yeah, just putting that out there, its not just the obese, but the obese reference is so much easier to say.

Anyway, to comment on the newest track. I like the way its progressing. Much cleaner than the previous one. I guess the biggest problem that shouts out at me, is that it sounds like a massive wall of guitar still. It's like I'm standing between two guitar cabinets, and my head is right under the drummer's crash cymbals.

I would balance out the drums a bit more, maybe back off the cymbals a tad, and the kick and the snare need to stand out a bit more as well. Not necessarily much louder, but maybe a little more upfront. They're kinda getting buried.

I'd also put a little bit of definition on the bass, if possible. It's a bit hip hop sub-bassy to me, but who knows, it may actually work great in the mix after its all balanced out. For rock bass, I actually prefer the sound to be a bit driven, but that also may present problems with the massive wall of distortion from the guitars. Maybe notch in some midrange frequencies for definition? Hard to tell.

It's really a constant back and forth, as each part kinda plays with the next. But hey, that's mixing right?

Thanks a lot for the advice and suggestions I have a lot to learn (so you'll probably see a fair few posts asking questions and asking for suggestions on mixing etc in the near future) and really appreciate all the great people on this forum who are so happy to give their time and skills to help others, like myself, out

I'm on site (at work) until Thursday so I'll have a good sit down when I'm back on break next and see if I can get some more substantial work done on this track and post back and see what you guys think then.

Cheers