Mixing the recordings:
Once I had finished the process of recording some good takes of the guitars, drums, and bass, I was ready to begin mixing. To start with I focused on getting a good mix between the guitars and bass before then working with the drums.
Distortion Guitar mix:
When recording the guitar parts, I set up some audio channels with some plug-ins loaded up so that I could get a good heavy metal sound to work with.
I primarily used three free plug-ins from Ignite Amps, the TS-999 Tube Screamer pedal, Ignite Emissary Amp Simulator, and the NadIR Impulse Response plug-in. These combine to make a full amplifier simulator that provides the raw, heavy metal drive that I have been hoping to achieve.
Pictured above is the Emissary Amp Simulator (Top), NadIR Impulse Response unit (Bottom), and to the left is the TS-999 Tube Screamer pedal.
I had these plug-ins set to give my rhythm guitar sound a powerful low end with the bass on the amp sim maxed. The Tube Screamer pedal gave the sound a huge boost and provided the recordings with a really authentic metal sound. I had my amp cabs set to be a pair of 4×12″ cabinets recorded by a pair of SM57 microphones, one in the centre of the cone, and one off axis. This gave the guitars a more authentic sound that feels a lot less computer generated than just the amp sim on it’s own.
Once I had finished tweaking the basic guitar sound, I applied some reverb to the mix. To do this I was using a reverb plug-in I had downloaded, called Dragonfly Reverb, which simulates a really authentic sounding plate reverb effect:
I wanted to apply reverb to the guitars to give them a more roomy sound as though they had been recorded through a microphone, rather than directly into Ableton. I only applied the effect lightly as I didn’t want the guitars to start sounding messy, and once I had the effect set up it really added to the sound in a positive way.
I spent some time after this trying out various EQ settings, but eventually scrapped the idea. As this was a guitar recorded directly into Ableton, there was no spill or unnatural sounds, and the EQ built into the amp simulator I was using proved to be more than adequate enough for the sound I wanted. If this was a live recording I almost definitely would’ve needed to apply some form of EQ to the track.
Clean guitar mix:
I used a clean guitar channel as well as distortion in my first composition, and to do this I used the same amp sim as before:
I had the amp set to it’s clean channel for this, with a slight boost of the treble, and just a touch on the mids as well. I didn’t use the Tube Screamer pedal for this as it made the sound too powerful and distorted, so I stuck with just the amp and NadIR. I again used the same 4×12″ pair setting for this as I really liked the sound of it.
Additionally, I used Ableton’s built in delay on this channel for the ending section as it’s one of the best delay effect’s I’ve used so far:
This delay pans left and right on each repeat which sounds incredible, so I had this set to not ring out for too long, but long enough to head the left and right repetitions. This effect really added to the ending of my first piece and was definitely worth using.
Finally I applied some EQ to this channel:
I lowered the bass as it was quite dominant, and brought the middle down slightly. I boosted the treble a little bit as I felt it was still a little dull around those frequencies.
Bass mix:
For the bass guitar I kept the sound fairly raw, using a bass amp simulator, and the NadIR impulse response:
As I was recording with an already powerful bass, I kept the gain around the halfway mark so that the sound wasn’t too overpowering. I had the treble turned up more than the bass and mids as it gave the part a fairly aggressive attack which I liked the sound of. I again ran this through a simulated pair of 4×12″ cabinets for that big, raw sound.
I didn’t use any kind of reverb on this track as a bass would normally be recorded through a DI box or a DI output on it’s amp, meaning there normally is no room sound on a bass track.
The EQ on the bass amp sim wasn’t the best, so I applied some EQ afterwards using the ReaEQ plug-in. I boosted the low end and cut a lot of the high as this gave a punchy and full sounding track. This sounded great with the rhythm guitars over the top.
Lead guitar mix:
For the lead guitar parts I largely kept things the same including the use of the tube screamer pedal, however I did change the EQ on the amp. This time I applied a touch more gain, and focused more on the high end. I brought the bass and low mids down to around half, then boosted the high mids a touch before maxing the treble. I did this as the solos are all on the higher end of the guitar, and this helped to make the lead sections cut through the mix well, without being overpowering.
I also applied a very slight reverb to the track as most of the parts were single notes at a time, and this made the space in between flow just a touch smoother. I used the Dragonfly Hall reverb for this as it was slightly less aggressive than the plate reverb, and this worked out well.
These are the only changes I made to the lead guitar sound as it sounded just how I wanted it to once I got to this point.
Drum mix:
As I was limited to only 8 tracks on my version of Ableton, I had to record my drum parts into Logic Pro, and mix them there before bouncing them down to use in Ableton as a single track.
I had a lot of work to do wile mixing the drums as my recordings of them weren’t of the highest quality – mainly the kick drum. As the kick on this recording was so weak I needed to rework in entirely. Fortunately for me, Logic Pro X has a drum replace feature in which I can quickly replace hits from the drum kit with a sample from Logic. This has virtually saved the drum part of the project as I would likely have had to use basic midi drums otherwise.
Additionally, I replaced the snare drum hits. While I did have a fairly adequate sounding snare recording, I felt it was too ‘ringy’ and didn’t have enough power behind it. I experimented with the drum replace feature for a while here until I eventually found a snare that I really liked and captured the energetic and punchy sound I was after.
With this done, I then applied some EQ to the kick drum:
I cut the high end at the very top of the mix, and boosted the low frequencies slightly. I also boosted around the 200-300Hz area to give the kick a slight bit more attack. This combined with the replaced kick made for a much better, heavier sound.
I then started to EQ the snare:
I cut the low and high ends as the snare drums frequencies are more focused around the middle. I boosted around 1000Hz to make the snare have more of a punch and add to the heavy sound I was going for.
Next, I applied some EQ to the hi-hats:
I cut off a lot of the low end on the hats as it’s a more high end sound, and I wanted to get a snappy and tight sound. I boosted around 7000Hz to emphasise this sound.
For the toms, I needed to apply a gate as well as some EQ as this helps cut out the spill from other drums, and lower the ring from the toms themselves.
Here is the EQ and gate on the high tom:
I boosted around the 300Hz area as the toms were tuned fairly low and this added to the attack of the sound. I also cut off the low and high ends to help reduce spill. The gate was set to cut out all of the extra background noise between strikes, giving me a much cleaner track.
Here is the mid tom:
Again I cut the high and low to reduce spill, and gave a slight boost to the bass frequencies to give it a heavier sound.
Here is the Floor tom:
The floor tom recording wasn’t very good in comparison to the rest, so I had to raise the low end frequencies a considerable amount in order to try and give it some depth. I also had to cut off more of the high and low ends than I would have liked to as the drum was so boomy sounding. The gate is the same as the other toms, cutting out the background when the floor tom isn’t being hit.
I actually left the overheads with no EQ as I found I really liked the raw sound of the kit. It felt authentic and powerful which is something I wanted to capture in my tracks, I simply just reduced the levels on these channels so they mixed in nicely with the rest of the drums.
Once I was happy with the mix I had with the kit, I sent each channel through a drum bus in Logic, and applied a compressor to give the whole part a bit of a lift and finish off that heavy metal sound.
Once I was happy with the mix on the kit, I had to bounce it down and put the audio into my Ableton projects to mix in with the tracks.
Mixing the parts together:
Song 1 ‘Dazed’:
With the drums finished I could move them into Ableton and start mixing my projects together.
I started with my first composition, ‘Dazed,’ as there was no lead guitar to mix in so I could find a good balance between drums and rhythm.
Firstly, here is my full project loaded up with the drums put in and synced up:
I started mixing the project by setting levels on the mixer:
For the most part, the levels weren’t too bad overall. I brought down the distortion guitar by around 3db, and the clean around 5db to get a good balance between the two. I then reduced the bass quite considerably as it was very loud and overpowering initially. The live drums were at a fairly good level to begin with and I brought it down ever so slightly to suit the mix.
I had to automate the delay to turn on during the song as I only wanted it for the last section. I also automated the master volume to fade the entire track out at the end:
Once I was completely happy with my mix, I applied a compressor to the master channel, and brought the overall level down by 6db to make it suitable for upload to platforms such as Soundcloud.
With this done, the song was finally in it’s finished state and ready for upload. Here is the final track:
Song 2 ‘Charge 17’:
Here is the Ableton project for this piece:
This piece is the one that I didn’t have time to record live drums for, and therefore has a midi kit instead.
The rhythm guitars and bass guitar are set up to be exactly the other project. I did this as it give the whole EP a coherent sound and I also really just enjoyed the sound I was getting.
For the lead guitar on this track, I had already recorded some wah effect using my pedal. To add to this, I have used the Dragonfly Plate Reverb, and the same built in delay from my first tune. This has given the solo more energy and a bigger presence overall.
As the drums in this track were midi, they already had a really good powerful mix, so I left them as they were for this track.
When setting the levels, I brought the guitars down by 6db as they were very loud to begin with. I reduced the solo as well, but only by about 2db as I wanted it to cut through the mix clearly. I also lowered the drums and bass to fit in with the rhythm section nicely.
Just like in the last track, I finally applied a compressor to the composition and lowered the levels to be suitable for streaming platforms.
Song 3 ‘System Pile-Up’:
Here is the Ableton project for this composition:
Just like the last songs, the guitars here were set up the same as I wanted a level of cohesion in the sound of each piece. This is the same for the bass guitar as well.
As I have shown above in this blog, I have already mixed the live drums fairly well, and I didn’t feel as though they needed any tweaking once added into the Ableton project.
I spent a long time recording this particular piece in general, so I already had a really good mix overall which is why I didn’t have to tweak it much at all. Especially considering I had my amps all set up since the first song.
I did do some volume automation on this composition. The two sections on the orange track where the volume increases are the first and second guitar solo section. I raised them by 3db to help the solo cut through the mix and stand out. I also slightly increased the short extra lead parts around the solo so that the section had a somewhat consistent volume.
I had a really good volume mix on this track, and the automation work took care of the balancing for the solo, so all I needed to do was lower the master volume by 6db to make it suitable for uploading online.
I didn’t use a compressor on this track as I had areas with solo guitar and stops and I didn’t want to take away from the changes in dynamics by compressing the piece.
Here is the finished track:
With this finished, my tracks are now finalised and ready to be uploaded to streaming platforms.
Mixing/mastering evaluation:
Overall I am pretty happy with the mix on my compositions. This is one of my weakest skills when it comes to producing music, but I feel as though I have done an okay job with this. I have definitely improved since my first EP, as the levels of all of my tracks match each other nicely, and the production quality is much clearer.
I also remembered to take into consideration the fact that these would need uploading to a streaming platform, and therefore reduced the levels on each track by 6db to ensure a good listening quality and experience.
I was beginning to run out of time while mixing my tracks as the project was coming to an end, and therefore I wasn’t able to spend too much time on this process. I feel with more time I could do an even better job, and this would give me some more time to research into various mastering techniques to really improve on my project and my overall knowledge of production.
In future I would like to work with live guitar recordings from amplifiers with microphones as this is a different experience entirely to using an amp simulator.
From here I can focus on getting these tracks online and available for public listening.
References:
Rashid, H., 2021. Mixing Music: A Beginners Guide On How To Mix Music. [online] Music Gateway. Available at: <https://www.musicgateway.com/blog/how-to/mixing-music>
Roth, D., 2020. Mixing Music 101: The 8 Steps to a Radio-Ready Sound. [online] Musician on a Mission. Available at: <https://www.musicianonamission.com/mixing-music/>
Mynett, M., 2009. Mixing Metal. [online] Soundonsound.com. Available at: <https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mixing-metal>