Some rock stuff using the Axe Fx + Beta OH IR

Sammetal91

Sammetal91

Power User
So I have come out of my ball of laziness and did me some engineering after like 6+ months of being stagnant. Gotta say for being rusty, I improved somehow :lol although there are some things I can fix of course. This is a song from the band I'm in. All guitars used the good old Standard with the OH Bogner V30 SM57 position 5 beta IR and I think the Recto Orange and JCM 800 amp sims. I think I use one more different amp sim for the lighter gain stuff but I can't recall at the moment.

Feel free to give me pointers on the mix and let me know what you think of the guitars since they're using the new Beta IRs. Enjoy :)

 
hey man!

Great track....couple of suggestions though...

Firstly....pull the vocal down by 2-3dB, it's just a little dominant over the entire mix and could sit back with the music a bit more

Secondly, the drums, particularly the snare...it sounds too dry and lacking some context and i think this could be greatly improved either blending in the room mics or adding some reverb, again just to add some glue to the kit and therefore the mix

These are not criticisms just suggestions that i think could improve an already solid mix

Hope that helps!

Justin
 
justinjcm900 said:
hey man!

Great track....couple of suggestions though...

Firstly....pull the vocal down by 2-3dB, it's just a little dominant over the entire mix and could sit back with the music a bit more

Secondly, the drums, particularly the snare...it sounds too dry and lacking some context and i think this could be greatly improved either blending in the room mics or adding some reverb, again just to add some glue to the kit and therefore the mix

These are not criticisms just suggestions that i think could improve an already solid mix

Hope that helps!

Justin
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exactly what I was looking for! I'm not offended by any means! Yeah I had trouble with the vocals so I'm glad you pointed it out. As for the snare I actually am using a reverb but apparently It's very light if you can't hear it :) I'm pretty sure It's a bright plate too but I'll crank it a bit more.
 
What's also interesting that you said about room mics is that this was actually played on v drums and then subsequently retriggered. I don't think v drums have bleed unless we didn't have that connected somehow. So I'll see if I can get my hands on a convolution plug in and put the drums through a room simulation and blend it. I felt that spacial oddity as well.
 
No problem!

What's also interesting that you said about room mics is that this was actually played on v drums and then subsequently retriggered
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Ok cool, i just figured it was superior drummer or something.

Well if you no room mics to blend and the single snare verb doesn't work then try this...

Send all the channels to a bus, keep one dry and duplicate it, but on this one add a reverb, small to medium rooms work best and have it 100% wet. Once you've found what that you like, something that sounds powerful to you, something that glues the kit together....blend this reverb bus against the dry bus and this effectively is your stereo room mics.

One final thing with that suggestion, always back the level of the kick send down more than the rest of the channels because it can become over-powering and make the reverb too obvious. The point is really to add glue to the kit across the stereo image and therefore add context to the whole mix
 
I was thinking of doing that actually but at the time I think my ears were shot and my MBP might be acting weird when listening back though the headphones output because everything I heard sounded horrible and muffled. Good stuff man I really appreciate the constructive criticism! Do you think I should also treat the wet track as a "room" Mic and eq it accordingly?
 
Do you think I should also treat the wet track as a "room" Mic and eq it accordingly?
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Yeah absolutely, it's not a rule but i would use a high pass at 100 or 200Hz just to clear the bottom end, usually a wide band cut around 500/600Hz usually where some the high resonance from the snare and toms is and occasionally a wide cut between 2 and 3k where some of the harshness of the cymbals is found. Obviously these are rough boundaries, but most importantly use your ears.

Biggest tip i can give you (you may be aware of this already) don't listen to the drums for too long in solo, use the solo button when you are removing unpleasant resonant frequencies (usually narrow bandwidth) and then listen to them in context. I've done it too many times where i've got something sounding great by itself and then put it in the mix and it falls apart!

So just keep that in mind and sorry if you already do that haha
 
It's all good man I'll take any advice, whether I know it or not :) it just might penetrate my skull for it to make sense and finally be put to use. :)
 
It's all good man I'll take any advice, whether I know it or not it just might penetrate my skull for it to make sense and finally be put to use.
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haha, well hope that helps man!

Final thing i'll say is that it was good to hear that you had not been biased towards the guitars in the mix. Some guitarists who engineer their own stuff have a tendency to favor the guitars over everything else and the mix can suffer overall because of it.

Just think about the way you take the time and care when crafting your guitar tones....now take that ethic and apply it across everything you do in production....everything starts to get better...trust me!
 
justinjcm900 said:
haha, well hope that helps man!

Final thing i'll say is that it was good to hear that you had not been biased towards the guitars in the mix. Some guitarists who engineer their own stuff have a tendency to favor the guitars over everything else and the mix can suffer overall because of it.

Just think about the way you take the time and care when crafting your guitar tones....now take that ethic and apply it across everything you do in production....everything starts to get better...trust me!
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thanks man! Yeah I really check myself on that aspect and try to think what people that aren't musicians want to hear and that's why I have the vocals so prominent (to a fault) :). Yeah I'm still refining my craft obviously so I'll definitely be paying much more attention to instruments I don't play and treat them as I do guitars. Once again, I really appreciate the constructive criticism. It really helps!
 
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