Hello everyone. As always, I left the song to mix on the last Sunday before the deadline, hehe. This time, the drums were a big challenge for me and I confess that the snare in particular didn't come close to what I wanted to achieve for the song.
In the song provider's comments, it was said that it's about energy and not about the most polished mix. I considered the recommendation, but thought: why not make a mix that is energetic, but also polished, as much as possible? I believe I achieved that goal.
As always, I used BX SSL 9000J for all equalization and compression on the channels and VSC-2 for bus compression. There were also 6 instances of Relab Lx 480, 4 for reverbs and 2 for delays, one shorter and one longer. I also used two instances of Eventide H3000 factory.
All equalization was done with the aim of extracting the maximum possible energy from the recording, while still trying to leave everything as rounded and defined as possible.
On the drums, in addition to the traditional phase interaction check:
Kick: -22dB around 240Hz with a Q that is not too narrow. I wanted the kick to come through a bit, but not too much and not in a way that would hurt your ears. To help cut it, I added 15dB at 10Khz and 4Khz approximately, plus 6dB at 60Hz for a bit of body. Compression with a fast attack reaching 6dB of reduction.
Snare: I started using Cubase's gate to try to get rid of at least part of the cymbal spill in the track, and I had some success. To give it a bit of impact and clarity, I equalized it as follows: +15dB 6Khz, +9dB 1.5Khz, +9dB 30Hz (approximate values). I compressed generously, reaching 10dB of reduction. Unfortunately, it still didn't get where I wanted it to and my attempts with transient designer didn't please me, so I accepted the sound. I'm not a sampler, but if the rules allowed it, I would definitely add some to this song.
Toms: A little EQ boosting bass and treble and fast compression.
Overheads: Hi pass at 200Hz, -6db at 400Hz and +6db at 12khz (also approximate values), 3db gain reduction in the compressor with fast attack. I like the cymbals to come through a bit, but without covering the guitars.
Room: Just very strong compression, in peak mode with fast attack.
Snare, toms, overheads and room were sent to the lx480 in a room setting with 900ms decay, 14ms pre delay.
Bass: Low pass at 6khz, +15db at 5khz, +20db at 3khz and a lot of compression with fast attack. This helped cut the guitars a bit, but not as much as I would have liked. Just like the snare drum, I accepted the sound and continued.
Guitars: There were many of them and since in my opinion this was the part with the best tone, I decided to make them a bit louder. The equalization and compression didn't vary much between them, basically a hi pass filter between 100 and 150hz and some generous gain (15-20db) at 8khz and 4khz. On the ‘bend’ guitar it was also necessary to attenuate some of the bass around 130hz to help it not blend in excessively with the other instruments at the end of the song. All the guitars were compressed with a target of 6db of gain reduction. The octaver, bridge and special Fx guitars went to the second reverb (short random hall) to the third reverb (hall with 4s) and to the delays. The lead guitar went to the reverb and to a slap delay on the 3000 factory.
Synth: +6db 8khz and Hall reverb.
Vocals: Another challenge here, some of the vocals had an excess in the 2.5kHz region that I treated with the SSL EQ. Other than that, all the vocals were equalized with hi pass at 160Hz, -10dB at 120Hz (shelf), +6dB at 10kHz. Strong compression with 14dB of reduction and fast attack, this helped to round out the highs of the equalization a little in the points where they bothered me. At some points I used the fourth reverb (plate with 100ms of pre delay), but not always because there was already ambience in the recording. There were also slap and long delays at times.
On the VSC-2 I compressed a lot with fast attack and soft ratio, of 6 to 8dB of reduction. This finished rounding out the highs and lows.
Finally I did a lot of automation, I would say that of the hour and a half that I spent mixing the song, 70 minutes were for automation. The goal was to control what went through the compression, and what sometimes got lost in the mass of guitars, especially toms. I also used automation to extend the dynamics between sections of the song and to give some specific impact, with volume and added effects.
I hope you like it.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11iEpbg ... 2HG6t/view
A friendly reminder: