My new little project

Thanks for the help guys

I'm currently recording the next song, and I will definitely keep these points in mind whilst producing it. So far I've taken the EQ and compression advice into full sqing (i.e. not to much compression and to appreciate an instruments place in the frequency spectrum) and it works a charm. I knew OF these things before, but not in as much detail. Thanks once again

Despite production, what does everyone think of the composition itself?

I really like this. I love the extended chords, the groove is good. Kept me interested for the full length of the song. It did take a little to long to get to the groove, a slow start. Other than that I really enjoyed it.

Really dig the song man, great work.

Keyboards are definitely dominating the mix too much though. Snares sound quite small (referring more so to the "normal" sounding snare here).
Turn down the keys slightly, but concentrate on bringing the snares up in the mix.
One way is to use different samples on different tracks and process each track differently (it's what I've been doing a fair bit).
If you're not down and dirty with parallel compression yet, read about it when you get the chance, because that really helps too.

Do you use saturation plug ins yet?
I ALWAYS use them without fail, because they add a nice coloration to ITB mixes (In The Box, referring to mixes done digitally entirely using digital plug ins and no outboard gear) that gives you a greater perceived volume, depth and thickness to the overall sound.

Personally, my go to saturation VST plug in is JB Ferox, which is free and can be found here:

http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/


Strap one instance across all your mix tracks. Set the saturation levels to perhaps around 20-30 per cent.
If you're working with distorted guitars you can get away with more, but with drums you're more aiming for a nice, relatively transparent level of coloration rather than full blown saturation. Hysteresis set fairly low.
Bear in mind JB Ferox is intended for mix bus use and not master bus use.
There are some good saturation plug ins for master bus use, but they generally are commercial products.

Another nifty little plug in you can use for snares is this (and you can also use it on the master bus):

http://www.gvst.co.uk/gclip.htm

Just allows you to increase the level of snares while making sure your face isn't torn off with extreme transient levels (hence the name, GClip, which effectively clips transients).
Another plug in, totally free, that I use on all my mixes.

Do a bit of a boost of 250Hz on the snare will help too. Too much will sound woofy, so be careful. Find the frequencies which enhance attack and boost them too (maybe around 2-3KHz or so)
High pass those cymbals if you haven't already.
Although the bulk of their energy is concentrated in the higher frequencies, it helps to remove anything below about 300-500Hz anyway, just to clear the way for the low lower mid based elements of the mix.


Edited by Petrovsk Mizinski - January 12 2010 at 11:32

Ahh, realized I left an entire word out of my post just before and I forgot to make the links instant URL-able-ness, so fixed that too :P
Since I stopped posting in the Shred Room some 7 or so months ago and got some DAW Software and an audio interface, I've been pretty much just been reading about mixing a whole lot and of course applying what I've learn to the actual audio itself. On the audio engineering forums, I tend to just spend more time reading the posts of the knowledgeable people, rather than doing much posting of my own.
I feel the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know and how much more you have to learn.
It's a struggle, and it's frustrating at times, but each time you hear your results improve it's quite rewarding

Nice job Alex I have a fairly similar setup as you, as I write keyboard tunes with synthy bass as well. Mine's in a more symphonic progressive rock direction with a lot of mellotron, organ, and synths. I really enjoyed the main groove on this, and I think the song was well composed and played

The only large flaw is the drum sounds, and I don't have much of a solution for that, though. I initially used different drum machine settings on my keyboards (similarly to your setup I believe), but now I actually play the drum rhythms on the keyboard manually. I basically memorized the setup, and I play the drums myself. It doesn't sound great, but I keep trying to find new ways to make the drums sound professional. There's an drum machine I found online a while ago that worked well, but I'd rather just do them myself. Keyboard drumming is fun anyway

All in all, great job dude, and I look forward to hearing some more!

-Jeff

The Pessimist wrote: Haha yeah As the Buddhist philosophy states: "The foolish man thinks he knows everything and the wise man knows he knows nothing" The truth man, learning and listening is always better. For example, just now I downloaded the saturator you linked me to, and it actually made my mix sound a whole lot better if used in the right places (and quite minimally). It's just another way of seperating the tracks I suppose?

I'd say saturation helps more to glue together the mix tracks rather than separate them as such.
At least in a metal mix (or certain styles of rock music), where you have distorted guitars/bass guitars, you lose a tiny bit of clarity using saturation, but what you lose in clarity (and the loss is minimal anyway, as I said) you make up for in having a more glued together mix that sounds larger and has more depth to it.
The music you're dealing with I doubt you'd lost any clarity anyway using saturation, you're just gaining more depth and a more glued together mix.
I'm hoping to get some money together eventually to get myself a commercial saturation VST plug in, but for now JB Ferox is pretty good and many people that have compared JB Ferox to the higher end commercial stuff say that JB Ferox is actually seriously good for a free plug in.

It does a mixture of both I've noticed. The actual saturation itself glues them together, but there are certain options within the plugin that cut high and low frequencies THROUGH saturation, which is extremely beneficial. And yeah, there is the depth as well. Too much though and it sounds a bit too "tapey" if you know what i mean

And yeah, I'm saving up for a better EQ as well. On top of that a new computer would be nice as well

NEW NEWS

The new track is up. It's relatively simple compared to the last, but this time I've focused more on atmospheres and more importantly, PRODUCTION. I've taken into account all the great advice you've all given me, and although there is a whole load of other stuff I could do to the mix, I'm quite satisfied with it. And let's face it, I'm sure even the best of producers could pick at their work; we could all go on forever with mixing

I'm just uploading the song onto SoundCloud and YouTube and I'll link it here shortly

Well I love this one even more than the first, it reminds me of Ulver's "Blood Inside" which is a favorite of mine.

The Pessimist wrote: http://soundcloud.com/alekzanderpodraza/elegance Here it is It's called "Elegance", and for good reason. It's a slow, melodic and atmospheric number with a bit more classical influence and some mellotron and organ work that might appeal to you guys. Check it out, the production is MUCH better on this one as I said, so please listen to my handywork

Very nice.

I think I'm with Jay on this, bro. I like 'Elegance' even better than 'Suitcase'. Really cool!