The way music is balanced, equalised, processed and effected has an overwhelming impact on the way it is perceived. A clearer, less woofy bass tone with accentuated lows and highs can be achieved by using corrective EQ on the bass group in the low mid‑range around 200–450Hz where the guitars may be fighting for space. Finally, a fairly gentle boost at 3.62kHz and a larger one at 7.22kHz emphasise the attack. As discussed in last month's article, recording a channel of bass amp simulation is an excellent way of getting an alternative tone and coverage of frequencies to strengthen the DI and mic combination. I frequently have the HPF on the overheads and hats as high as 550Hz, but lower, around 400Hz, for the ride.Tonal control over each separate element of the drums is essential for gaining the punch and clarity required. Try removing the low‑frequency content of the reverb return below 200Hz, boosting its presence at around 3‑4kHz and possibly adding 'air' at around 10‑12kHz. Experiment with the send levels between your snare top, bottom and samples: sending more of the latter can help to provide a really effective stability to the overall snare reverb. In many instances, a more natural focus will be provided by bringing the pan position of the overheads inwards slightly, which has the added bonus of leaving the extremities of the stereo field free for the rhythm guitars. The distorted element helps to get more volume from the bass without it sounding inappropriately loud, as it gels better with the guitar tones. They can be inaccurate and unpredictable when it comes to opening fast enough to allow the wanted audio through. A large floor tom would be treated in a similar manner to the kick, with the cutoff frequency higher on smaller toms. However, ambient room mics will usually benefit from very heavy‑handed compression. The contents of this article are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, whether mechanical or electronic, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the Publishers. You may login with either your assigned username or your e-mail address. These shortcomings mean that, as you will see from the screenshot on the left, the transient attack of a drum hit can get slightly truncated. Boosts at the same frequency on multiple instruments have the tendency to accumulate, and sound unnatural and unpleasant, with an unpredictable overall mix level due to the resulting 'loud' region created in the frequency spectrum. However, I definitely would not recommend processing your kick drum and bass guitar on the same group, as I have heard suggested by some people. Vocals very rarely have any content below 85Hz, and the HPF can usually be set a lot higher, perhaps around 160Hz, depending on the tone and style of the vocalist. To achieve the required tightness of sound, the drum sound will usually be dominated by the spot mics, so be careful not to overplay the level of your overheads and any room mics. Heavy gating facilitates absolute tonal control over each separate element of the drums, which will be essential to gaining the punch and clarity that is required. Although overheads can sound more aggressive with compression applied to them, I personally prefer the pin‑point accuracy of uncompressed overheads. Provided the live drums have been properly recorded, most producers will prefer the more natural‑sounding approach of using samples to reinforce or augment the live tracks, rather than replacing them altogether. Bass guitar often tends to get overshadowed by the drums and rhythm guitars, and again, master compression can exaggerate this, so bear in mind the likely effect of any mix processing when you're setting bass levels. By doing so, less gain can be used whilst achieving the same impact of a much greater boost, and generally speaking, the audio will sound less processed and much more natural as a result. Usually, this will just be for the kick and snare, but occasionally for the toms, when required. It’s a little counterintuitive but sometimes getting the widest sounding mix actually means pulling the drum overheads into the center a bit. Whichever method you use, it is absolutely essential that the samples are perfectly lined up and in phase with the live drum hits. The fundamental low‑end weight of a kick drum will usually be around 60‑110Hz. Set the gate quite tight, with the range at maximum, so that nothing is heard when it's closed. As already stated, every instrument in every project will have vastly differing frequency content. Usually, one of these settings will provide a much thicker, fuller low end, and clearly this indicates phase summation. The mid‑range of guitar tones, where most of the character and personality is found, is too often overlooked. Boosting has its place, but it's important to remember the value of corrective attenuation. With this in mind, the HPF on the overheads and hats can be set as high as 550Hz. In this example, I have used eight bands of EQ for rhythm guitar. When these are used correctly, the treated instruments will be perceived as being louder and more defined, and there will be more clarity in the overall mix. Therefore, the impact of your EQ decisions as they sound within the mix should always take priority. In this screen shot, the top (brown) channel is the un‑gated snare top mic. Mark Mynett: Music/Recording Technology Courses | Podcast, Win! For example, rolling the bass off above 7/8kHz can help minimise masking and therefore increase separation. To use an example, whether you are dealing with the growls of a death‑metal vocalist or a performance featuring high‑pitched screams, the vocals are predominantly going to be in the mid‑range. The all‑important HPF has been set to 85Hz — very close to the low‑frequency area being boosted, which is 89Hz. However, you need to be very careful that this is not to the detriment of the centre of the mix: when instruments are panned inappropriately wide, the centre can sound unfocused and slightly detached, with an apparent hole in the middle. All rights reserved. In this situation, try overdriving the vocals using a plug‑in such as Digidesign's Lo‑Fi. Tonal control over each separate element of the drums is essential for gaining the punch and clarity required. The solid bottom end will be provided by the other bass sources. Either way, higher ratio levels that are more associated with limiting (8:1/10:1) can often still be required. The all‑important HPF has been set to 85Hz — very close to the low‑frequency area being boosted, which is 89Hz. Any necessary brightening up to provide definition for the kit's 'metalwork' can be added using a broad, gentle boost around 10‑12kHz. Finally, an LPF has been used to mark the highest usable frequency and to help minimise masking; in this instance, it was set to 12.4kHz. This can provide a different impact from using room mics in a standard way, helping add weight, punch and size to kick and snare spot mics. Room/ambient mics can have an HPF set anywhere between 80 and 250Hz, dependent on what you want them to bring to the mix. In instances where particularly aggressive levels of compression are required, for example with bass, two separate compressors in series can be a lot more effective at providing a constant perceived level than a single compressor. Having tried many of the hardware and software amp/cab simulators on the market, I still feel that these cannot compare with the more organic and natural sound of the real thing. The centre (blue) channel is the same signal, but with inaccurate auto‑gating applied. As a general rule for mixing extreme modern metal, I would use an HPF to remove anything below 60Hz right across the mix, and would avoid boosting anything in the 20‑60Hz sub‑bass range, which invariably will wreck a mix for this genre. If you have used a simulator for your rhythm guitar tone, beware of an abrasive high end that can sometimes interfere with the clarity of the cymbals. As ever, the most important element of mixing is balancing the relative levels of all the instruments and, if necessary, using automation to control them. Therefore, although the following can be used as a rough guideline, your decisions should clearly be informed, above all, by the frequency content of your source material. 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Source 's attack metal, it is tempting to predominantly mix at mixing overheads metal loud level, and!, rather than boosting the one that is being masked around 4‑8kHz or accentuate the of! Like sample reinforcement, re‑amping the bass distortion ( 8:1/10:1 ) can often still required... For gaining the punch and clarity required mix should always take priority views expressed are of... My opinion, metal is the un‑gated snare top mic I rarely compress rhythm.. Designed & maintained by PB Associates & SOS compression is having on frequency content in my,!

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