Making room in a busy mix

[Kolstad]

The lead guitar seems to drown a bit in this mix, which is terrible considering the great performance.
As you have scooped the rhythms, and boosted the mids on the lead, the issue may not be space.
Maybe a distortion plug-in like the Softtube Saturation knob, Soundtoys Decapitator or something similar on the lead guitar, will make it come through the mix? Perhaps also a short delay (with no feedback) can help it sit better in the middle..

If not, maybe try something illogical (that belongs to a different mindset), like pulling out the mids from the lead again, and then use the saturation or delay.

[RockChild56]

Hey Henry I don't know if you tried what Rich suggested setting up different Busses for left and right etc. I did and OMG what a difference. That is the Ticket. Try Dude You'll like it.

[playagibson]

Hey Now !

Regarding the bus's, If you have multiple panned tracks sent to one bus, the tracks will become centred.
When I have two guitars panned right and left I will assign each track to it's own bus which I pan as well.
The only other way you can retain the stereo spread is to assign the stereo outputs of the given tracks to a master bus which then you can add eq etc...

Your mid side eq should have a mid gain and a side gain.
When you increase the side gain only your entire mix will open up.
It's a trick used by most mastering engineers. It's a subtle thing though, Too much side gain and it's out of phase.

As far as editing down goes, that's a personal creative decision you make. When you work with other people they may take a hatchet to your arrangement
which could kill it or bring it to life.
Your call there.
Your chops and style are in the Paganini realm, I'm in the Bam Bam realm...

Rich.

[TheHenryManeuver]

@RockChild56 - Thx mate! Glad you're diggin! And, I'm def. gonna be trying that bus-ing technique!

@thesongcabinet - Noice! I'll give that a shot! Right now I've got some tube-screamer emulators on it, but maybe I need to crank it up, 'cause I tend to leave the drive all the way down. I've also heard good things about the decapitator, so that might be next on my investment list!

@Rich - Is this always the case (about the buses)? I like panning hard left and hard right and all guitar parts (mono) and bus-ing them to a stereo aux. where I add I reverb in order to get a stereo sense of reverb (left side's reverb is heard in the right side and vice versa. Is this something that I should be side-chaining instead?

Also, when increasing side gain, how much of a boost is considered mild verse a lot? Thanks for all the help! =) PS - the Paganini comment made my day haha

[andygabrys]

@andygabrys - thanks man! All of the guitars are double tracked and panned hard left and right except for the solo. What would you say I should focus the mix around? I usually try to focus the mix around the drums, more so because I don't know how to mix stuff around vocals haha. The lead guitar is somewhat the focus, but would it be possible to focus a mix around the lead guitar? I usually try to keep the lead guitar in somewhat of a "first violin" spot in the mix, which makes it hard to keep it in the "center" per se, since there's so much back bone that might even much more important.

Henri - you got me man. I was more talking about hacking and slashing the lead guitar part so its kind of a manic thing that pops in and out between the vocal parts instead of running underneath (overtop...?) the whole thing. Might turn it into something that is totally silly with the vocal and the lead guitar trading phrases, but that was my instinct.


Rich - I am so confused about your left and right guitar bus thing? YOu mean you take a left panned guitar, and send it to a mono bus that is L panned?

why not just pan the guitars where they need to be and just route them to a center panned stereo bus, which will respect the panning of those instruments and keep them slammed wide if they were panned that way originally?

is this because of the routing of your effects that are sent from those guitar channels? you want to keep the ambience of the L guitar on the L side? why not just send Post Pan in Logic?

[Robtoons]

Henry!
You maniac! I can tell you anything about the esoteric mix tech you are going for here.
Just wanted to say what blows my mind is your finger-sync over your playback in the video is flawless!
How do you do that? Your PRS is not plugged in- are you just listening to playback so low level that you hear the guitar acoustically?
Off the charts as always my friend!
Cheers! -Rob

[playagibson]

@andygabrys - thanks man! All of the guitars are double tracked and panned hard left and right except for the solo. What would you say I should focus the mix around? I usually try to focus the mix around the drums, more so because I don't know how to mix stuff around vocals haha. The lead guitar is somewhat the focus, but would it be possible to focus a mix around the lead guitar? I usually try to keep the lead guitar in somewhat of a "first violin" spot in the mix, which makes it hard to keep it in the "center" per se, since there's so much back bone that might even much more important.

Henri - you got me man. I was more talking about hacking and slashing the lead guitar part so its kind of a manic thing that pops in and out between the vocal parts instead of running underneath (overtop...?) the whole thing. Might turn it into something that is totally silly with the vocal and the lead guitar trading phrases, but that was my instinct.


Rich - I am so confused about your left and right guitar bus thing? YOu mean you take a left panned guitar, and send it to a mono bus that is L panned?

why not just pan the guitars where they need to be and just route them to a center panned stereo bus, which will respect the panning of those instruments and keep them slammed wide if they were panned that way originally?

is this because of the routing of your effects that are sent from those guitar channels? you want to keep the ambience of the L guitar on the L side? why not just send Post Pan in Logic?

* I've tried that but I find you have better separation when you have separate bus's for tracks that are panned hard left or right.
My left guitar will have it's own bus'd reverb panned left and the right guitar track will have its own bus'd reverb track panned hard right.
It cleans up the middle and you can eq, compress and high pass the reverb / delay etc...
Sending to one bus just doesn't work as well to my ears, Lord knows I've tried.
It's more work and cpu but I do it anyways.
Regarding boosting the mid side. Trust your ears and less is usually more.
You will hear the sound expand.

[coolhouse912]

....I'm a little confused as to how I would actually go about side-chaining the compression for the guitars, like you mentioned. I have double tracked rhythm guitars and leads. Would i have to make an aux. track for all guitars and compress it to have the effect you're talking about? Also, do you recommend any particular type of compression?

Hi Henry,

I was speaking only of the lead guitar that's playing rapid fire counterpoint below the vocal in the chorus. If that is double tracked, create an aux. bus (stereo group track), assign both tracks to it, insert a compressor with side-chaining capability. & activate the side chain. The compressor doesn't have to be anything special, you're using it for ducking.

Make a copy of your vocal track & assign the output to the side-chain of the compressor. This vocal track will not be heard at all. Start playback, open up the compressor insert on your guitar group track. Make sure the vocal signal is hot enough to trigger the compressor. Now the compressor is being triggered by the vocals but is compressing the lead group. Play with the settings until the guitar "ducks" slightly below the vocals. It will do so only when the vocals are present if you set the release correctly.

Give it a try. It's a very useful technique with lots of applications.

Have fun,
Mike

[TheHenryManeuver]

@andygabrys - ah I see I see! I suppose I could give that a shot! I kinda come from the Protest the Hero school of writing (if you haven't heard them, czech em!) where it's all about dem layers haha

@Rob - thanks man! Yeah, I took my recording rig outside and just tracked there! Syke. I had my lap top to the side with the volume cranked all the way up. For this one, I had about an hour worth of footage that I went through to get shots that synced as close as possible. HUGE time guzzler haha

@playagibson - It def. does open the mix. Might try that with a few poppier sounding jams!

@Mike - that sounds sophisticated haha I am gonna give that a go on the next mix, but I have a feeling that I'm gonna mess it up. Is there a general name to this technique that I could Google for youtube tutorials?

[andygabrys]

Henry - that's some good CanCon man. this is what i just checked out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWDrdAJMcRs - its a great track although having kids, when the pram got hit by the van i freaked out....lol

so when you bring a ref that up, its much easier to see what you are doing compared to them. here's my 2 cents. Note that the video version of Hair trigger is still limited and compressed quite a bit but seems to be peaking at -3 db or -5db. so some monitor adjustment is necessary for an A/B comparison. The tune is on iTunes in all its loud glory for a better A/B.

Its obvious that you went for a different mix. smear the lead guitar a bit. stereo vocals in parts. a lot of stuff that sounds big and wide by itself, but ends up kinda stacked on top of itself when all playing at once.

sounds like to me their mix is much more discrete. the tapping guitar is hard L. the primary rhythm guitar is hard right. the bass has got a little hair on it. the mix is less mid focused than yours, but each individual sound source still has a respectable mid range for clarity and punch. great rhythm guitar sound. great lead sound. great bass sound. fantastic vocal sound IMO. dude has pipes too. Go Canada! His vocal is much more centered and mono. still some effects on it. not dry, but close. the rest of the band has much more bottom and fatness which allows the argggh! to come through in his vocal with that cutting midrange and top without much competition. Listen how quiet his vocal is compared to the band and how it still cuts?

conversely - in your mix, there is almost no bottom by comparison. you have got attack and clarity on the kick. you have tonnes of knock on the snare, but I am not hearing the fatness of the bottom of the kick drum. I wanna hear that 65 hz. I wanna hear 125 hz on the snare. I can hear your bass a little, but I don't hear any fatness of the low end. The bass is more an impression rather than some fat thud on the bottom. I want to hear something down there. maybe some 50hz on the bass, to dovetail around the kick at 65hz, then a little more 100-300 hz on the bass, still taking out that 400 hz on the kick if the two are masking each other.

there is nothing hitting me in the gut with your mix when i turn it up. What does hit me is tonnes of aggressive midrange (I think its 1k-3.5 k that is most prevalent). Mostly cause that is the click on the kick, the snare, the guitars, the audible part of the bass, and the vocals, all screaming through that narrow frequency.

in your mix, the guitars wash over the soundstage left to right. Which whether you try Rich's method of discrete submix mono busses panned hard L and R or just get more careful with panning and where you send effects, you can get a more discrete and clear sound on all the guitars. keep them out of the way of the vocal.

narrowing the focus on the vocal is also going to give it a spot in the mix apart from the guitars.

maybe its a formula but you can't go wrong with Guitars L+R, Bass, kick snare, vocals C. It just kinda works.

anyways, still an amazing production on your end. and if you wanted to A/B against this tune or their other material, you might come up with something different, maybe it would work more to have the wicked guitar lines flying at the same time as the vocal, and give everyone some camera time.

good luck!