Skip to main content

Hi everyone!

Righty, 1st things 1st. My gear,

MOTU pre-8 (x2, I optically link 2 giving me 16 chanells)
Yamaha hs50 monitors with sub.
Cubase SX
ART V3 Preamp
Assortment of Sontronic condensers and Shure mics for vocals, guitars drums etc. Condensers are used on vocals and overheads, dynamics on guitars/drum heads etc.

Kind of music is hard rock/metal. Intricate guitars and drums blah blah. Very high gain I suppose is the point I'm making.

Ok so, lets say I have a drum mix I'm really happy with, sounds great!

Same with guitars, which are then double tracked with multiple mic positionings. Panned accordingly to make a lovely chunky wall of sounds which sounds great.

Then Bass goes in with Mic'd up cab and DI. All is well individually.

Individually everything sounds almost exactly as I want it. However when I put it together it sounds good, but the mix is really spaced. Like there is a huge gap from the centre of the mix to the Left & right of it.

Im being Picky as I think the recordings sound good. But was hoping someone could give a few suggestions as to how to fill it out without being messy and layering too much.

Any help gratefully recieved.

Topic Tags

Comments

LJ25 Fri, 10/16/2009 - 01:59

Hi. Sorry for the late reply. Not been home yet so unable to acces my stuff. I will send a private message to the 2 of you with a link to the bands website. Dont really like posting them up on here. Looks like spam :P

The room is a rectangular shape, padded with matresses on all 4 walls, curtains and has 3 sofas surrounding the drum kit. The drums dont seem to be the problem. Its more the guitars. I have them clos mic'd with the cab pointing towards the sofa and I position the matresses on the 2 adjacent walls to prevent reflections. I may be talking crap but I think its the way I am mixing! Any idea? :/

Cheers guys!

L

LJ25 Fri, 10/16/2009 - 06:51

jg49. Hi, cheers for the input. Yeah I know. haha. I like to keep my recording interests seperate from my live performance work. I am sure its not a problem. I will mix down a sample of the song in question this evening actually and post that. Better than directing everyone to the bands website!

Cheers!

L

Space Fri, 10/16/2009 - 11:50

"The room is a rectangular shape, padded with matresses on all 4 walls, curtains and has 3 sofas surrounding the drum kit. The drums dont seem to be the problem. Its more the guitars."

Now when you say mattresses on all four walls, what is this mattress you are talking about, what is it made out of...is it a mattress that would go on a bed?

Bad idea...just a real bad idea. If we knew where you lived (like the stickies usually request you to place in your profile) it might make since.

Overall it reads like you have entirely too much of the wrong type of absorption in the room with the mattresses and the three(3) sofas.

The rectangular room is a great start but the rest is a poor environment to record in and a terrible one to monitor in.

What are the dimensions of the room, wall lengths, ceiling heights, concrete or wooden structure?

If the room is already small and you are packing it with your low end/high fire spread rate mattresses then it is no wonder your mixes are not translating to the real world.

But what if it is a big room? I don't know if it is or is not but I heard the mattresses acoustical influence in your work. It has no high end life.

You guys sound good enough but if I had to say what the problem was I would say it is the room acoustically speaking.

That said, I have read and heard that there are ways out of these issues once you get to know your monitoring environment, EQing the room, etc. But for an edge that you can really appreciate, someone in the band has to learn some basic acoustics to repair that room.