Dialing in Metal Tones to fit in a mix

Is there a bass in there? If so, turn it up. Otherwise, awesome mix!! VERY Judas Priest/Saxon. Hi-hat and cymbals may be a *tad* loud. I loved it!!
 
juliancs said:
Is there a bass in there? If so, turn it up. Otherwise, awesome mix!! VERY Judas Priest/Saxon. Hi-hat and cymbals may be a *tad* loud. I loved it!!
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Yeah, I think the patch I used for bass blends in a bit too much with the guitars and gets kind of buried. I was experimenting with a patch that uses the crossover so that the lows go through the SVT and the highs go through FAS Modern with just a touch of distortion... and that doesn't give the separation I get with my other patch using only the SVT. The bass sounds too much like the lows of the guitar, since it's doing basically the same line. I think I'll re-track the bass with just the SVT patch and see how it mixes.

After listening to it in my truck tonight I definitely agree on the cymbals too. They need to come down just a bit to fit in better. Thanks much for the comments and suggestions! I appreciate the comparison with Priest & Saxon.

Edit: Since I never sleep enough anyway I went ahead and did one more mix with the existing bass track to see if I could get it to sit nicely with the guitars. I boosted the volume, compressed the sub track and ran the mixed bass track through the UAD Pultec and I think it fits in better. I also did some minor EQing of the guitars to clean up some of the low end there. It's uploaded at the same link as my first post.
 
Me again. Sounds awesome! I think I'd roll off the low end of the bass a *tiny* bit, its a little boomy. But other than the mix is awesome. These are just my opinions, obviously. I LOVE the guitar sound. It's very heavy yet very clean.

Nice work!
 
rdomain said:
Guitars sound good. What amps etc did you use?
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Thanks, I'm glad you like the tones. Three tracks in mono for the rhythm sound; Left is the FAS Modern, middle is the CAE Lead and right is my Keeley Metal Zone into a JCM 800. I think I used the German and V30 cabs on all of these tracks.
juliancs said:
Me again. Sounds awesome! I think I'd roll off the low end of the bass a *tiny* bit, its a little boomy. But other than the mix is awesome. These are just my opinions, obviously. I LOVE the guitar sound. It's very heavy yet very clean.
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Yeah, that's why I buried it in my first mix. I really need to dial in my bass patch a lot better I think and re-track it. I did some pretty extensive EQing on this one and it still sounded kind of boomy. The lower of the two tracks had a sharp hi-pass at about 40Hz and it still came out boomy. I am finally digging my recorded guitar tones though. I did have a little too much mud in the low range until the most recent batch of tweaking. My monitors are just a little weak in the lows, so I usually do that at first.

Thanks guys for checking it out and for the feedback! It is greatly appreciated.
 
juliancs said:
Is that you singing? Even more saxon/dio now! Awesome stuff man. Something to be proud of.
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Thanks! Yeah, that's me. I was into Dio pretty heavily way back when I was learning to sing, so naturally picked up some of his style. I'm a little taller and not quite so trollish looking (I hope).
 
sheguitarplayer said:
Sounds really cool. Lke the singing too.
Is that the axe fx on the lead guitar track?
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Thanks! Yeah, it's Axe-FX on all guitars and bass. It was the CAE Lead through the 4x12 German and V30 cabs for the lead guitar, with a little chorus and echo.
 
I'd agree with what the others said above:
1. Hi hat is too isolated and sizzle (like the hi end was boosted on a cheaper mic). Everything sounds too isolated and gates. I want to hear some of the room or the overheads to make it sounds more integrated.
2. The guitars sounds "digitally" to me, almost like they were encoded to Mp3 a few times... just not enough sense of air moving in a room. If they was recorded with a real amp, I would have said perhaps you need more of a room mic sound.
3. The low end of the guitar is overlapping with the bass guitar sound. Others said the same... it just sounds like the guitar is muddy. I want to hear more the bass in it's own register.
4. The lead sound works better for me than the rhythm sounds do. Nice work there.
 
My preference is for any distorted guitars to have High-pass filters applied to them. This is the secret to having them "sit" in a mix. I find that (depending on the tone) that a hiah-pass around 100 - 120 Hz cleans things up to give the bass and the kick room to breathe. Some material requires a higher high-pass setting.

This is almost always the case with bass guitars too. They usually have their high-pass around 80Hz.

Give it a try and let me know what you think. Remember, the track will sound very different solo'd but more full in the landscape of a mix. :D
 
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