Is this heavy enough? (comments/criticism/thoughts)

[Communarchy]

Working on a mix for what is supposed to be one of our heavier songs. My engineer will probably slit my throat if I ask for this to be "heavier" again. Also, general thoughts and suggestions on the whole thing are welcome and encouraged.

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/nights-music/glow-mix-9-20-12[/soundcloud]

[kbit]

I think the mix sounds pretty good. The heavy feeling comes across for me and everything sounds great overall.

Although the chorus does feel off to me. I am a fan of weird time breaks and stuff, but I feel like the flow of the song is interrupted during the chorus.

[excane]

I like this a lot. Of course, anything can be heavier but I think the mix is just right between the geet and bass.

[Communarchy]

I like this a lot. Of course, anything can be heavier but I think the mix is just right between the geet and bass.

As an acknowledged master of heavy, I'm happy you think so, Excane. That's satisfying, and of course, you are right, everything can always be heavier (and there are singular moments in other songs where it does!), but if you feel as an overall mix that this is sufficiently heavy, then I'll take your word on it. Bass is sounding a little "honky" now though when the guitars come in during the riff, but that's a minor tweak.

Although the chorus does feel off to me. I am a fan of weird time breaks and stuff, but I feel like the flow of the song is interrupted during the chorus.

KBI, what section of the song are you referring to, because the whole song is in 4/4, sans a few strange things my drummer does? We refer to the "chorus" as the guitar riff that starts the song at :22 and repeats throughout the song with the lyrics "Let me paint a picture of, of you." Now, when the bridge comes in at 2:30, it is a bit jarring, but that was intentional.

[hclapp219]

How many times did you track the guitar and bass? Just overdub each part 20 or 30 times and it will sound huuuuuuge.

But it sounds good now too

[Communarchy]

How many times did you track the guitar and bass? Just overdub each part 20 or 30 times and it will sound huuuuuuge.

But it sounds good now too

Bass is a combination of DI, Direct Out from the amp, and the cab miced with RE20. Guitars were overdubbed in stereo with Fat Head condenser and 421, twice, so a total of 4 tracks, two performances. I find that multiple overdubs of the same part, especially with an effect like a detuning tremolo as in the chorus riff, things will actually start to sound less heavy, losing some of the direct punchiness with each performance. I'm all about tons of overdubs (Siamese Dream is my favorite album), but with riffs, it seems as few overdubs as you can get away with, especially with heavily distorted stuff, the better, the punchier, the more direct it comes across. Just my two cents.

However, when I'm doing large washes of modulated and reverb/delayed clean(ish) guitars, I'm all about tonsssssss of overdubs. Now that shit is heavy.

But it sounds good now too

Thanks for your vote!

[kbit]

Although the chorus does feel off to me. I am a fan of weird time breaks and stuff, but I feel like the flow of the song is interrupted during the chorus.

KBI, what section of the song are you referring to, because the whole song is in 4/4, sans a few strange things my drummer does? We refer to the "chorus" as the guitar riff that starts the song at :22 and repeats throughout the song with the lyrics "Let me paint a picture of, of you." Now, when the bridge comes in at 2:30, it is a bit jarring, but that was intentional.

Yup, you're totally right it is in 4/4 the whole time haha. The part you mentioned is the part I was referring to as the chorus. The more I listen to it, the more it makes sense, but for me it's not locked in. Like the drums, bass, guitar and vocals are all doing something that works within the timing but I lose the groove I felt right before it.

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

the only way to know u got the groove is to lose it in the first place

[Blackened Soul]

I really like it! heavier... I don't know... if you made it heavier you'd lose some of the poppyness. because the drums and the guitars would need a little more mids and less separation, which I don't know if that would be a good idea in the end.

[The4455]

It's hard to hear the drums while the guitars are also in the mix. You could even take one guitar overdub out. It takes away from the overall mix. As soon as the guitar comes in, all I can hear is guitar, snare, cymbals, and hi-hat. It doesn't matter how heavy the guitars or bass sound if the over all mix is bad.
I would either:
a) go with what your sound engineer says, he knows better than you do about this stuff, even if it is your song.
or
b) Personally I would take out the guitar overdubs, it muddys up the song ALOT, there might as well be no bass in this song at all considering that the majority of the low end is coming from the guitars which also takes away from the drums especially the kick, not the rest of the kit so much, but the guitar is so high in the mix that it's hard to "not" hear it.

Basically, for me, there is way to much guitar and the mix, in my opinion, is bad.

The tonality of the Bass sounds awesome in the intro, which I'd like to hear more of. And the drum beat in this song is pretty rad too, but I can't really hear the kick so much, which makes the beat less impacting to the song. The guitar tone is good too, but considering that the guitarist is just playing long sustaining chords for most of the time it doesn't really need to be the center of attention in the instrumental part of the song.

But, if you like the way it sounds the way it is now, then that's cool too.

[Derelict78]

yeah if you want the song heavier you need to do something about the drums, they sound pretty thin to me.

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

sidechain the drums so they punch through maybe? parallel compression too? moar punchy. then u wouldnt necessarily have to get rid of any overdubs.

[Communarchy]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I'm glad everyone pointed out the drums, particularly the kick. Sometimes we have to mix outside of the tracking studio and at the engineer's home due to scheduling restraints and to save money. Unfortunately that means no beefy subwoofer; we just have to large near-fields in his home. Couple this with the fact that my engineer seems to prefer gating the drums way more than I prefer. He's more of a "hear the beater" guy and I'm more of a "feel the resonance" so there is sometimes a struggle between the two. I'm pretty satisfied with the snare sound, it seems to have the right punch, but I agree that the bass drums and toms need less snap and more boom, which shouldn't be a problem to bring up in the mix. The guitars are shelved around 90hz so there isn't any bass in them to get in the way. The first mix had a more aggressive bass guitar sound, and I rounded it off more for this mix. Maybe somewhere in-between would work.

KBI, I'm not sure I'm hearing what you are hearing. I wrote the bass guitar, guitar, and vocal parts for this song. I know the vocal phrasing over the riff is unusual, but I'm not sure what is off-kilter that you are hearing.

[mathias]

Yes, less guitar sound, more kick drum, and you're doing it right

[Bassus Sanguinis]

to me this sounds about as heavy as You probably want to go, with a pop song flow. If I remixed it... it would be heavier, just hardly the same song, and You've already got a nice band feel to that take. Also, i liked the etheric vox sound, nice.

Drums could have a heavier touch, I'd say, meatier EQ and driven through tube preamp with meters on red. If Your drummer played less on the track, more of a simple beat, It could have fuzz on it. But...

And the vox level can be taken a step down. Give room for the heavies, people are always attracted to the human voice and pay more attention.

More of that dirty bass mixed to balance with the guitar... If You want to go there.... add more grainy nasty dirt to bass mids and take it up, with a mix of huge low end bass punching through. You can always have one - but usually only one - bassy, crushing garage lofi dirt instrument louder than everything else without spoiling the balance of tracks with hi freqs content.

But I don't know if anything has to be done to this, it's pretty fucking heavy stuff already for such a pop song, really.