Supremacy-Cosmic Cataclysm

[Garpocalypse]

I've finally gotten around to updating my most garpocalyptic remix to date. What started out as a quick remixing of Supremacy for the PRC crowd ended up becoming one of my favorite mixes to work on so far. Mostly because I am closer than ever to the sound I wanted... Two years ago.

Source:

Remix: http://soundcloud.com/garpocalypse/supremacy-cosmic-cataclysm-1 (updated 6-20-13)

Updates:

Guitars Redone

VST's used:

Dimension Pro

EWQLSO

Le Pou Amp and Cab sims

Zeta+

Rapture

Steven Slate Drums

If it's passable I'm hoping this will be my debut mixpost so please, tastefully, reem this one out.

Edited June 24, 2013 by Garpocalypse

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Definitely has a power metalish vibe to it.

The only thing I can think of at the moment is that the leads don't "pop" out at me like they feel they should. A more aggressive tone may do the trick. Also, to support the speed metal vibe, perhaps some more lead guitar or just melodies harmonized in 3rds in general?

[timaeus222]

Intro is interesting, but the flute needs to be louder with more articulations. Guitar tone sounds a little too high passed to me, and also needs more tone crafting. There might also be too much reverb or delay on it.

Speed up the BPM by about 4-8?

0:36 - lead needs a more aggressive tone with much more vibrato.

0:54 - Flute could work, but still needs more articulations like vibrato.

Drums need glue or compression. 1:21 needs a transition. 1:37 might be missing a cymbal. 1:51 needs a transition too.

2:38 - things are sounding really muddy here. You might have too much reverb since things sound really distant.

I haven't really heard much bass other than the low mids of a rock bass until 3:07.

Good start, lots of polishing needed.

Edited June 19, 2013 by timaeus222

[Garpocalypse]

Thanks for the comments. It does kinda suck that after a night where you think you had your best mix session ever you get up the next day and realize it wasn't quite as awesome as you thought it was...

I'm going to try mastering it differently tonight and see if that does anything. Otherwise rebuild it from the ground up...again.

One thing i really can't stand is artificial vibrato. Maybe i'm not programming it right but anything more than a small amount of expression never comes off well.

And ACO, I like to think my mixes are a lesson in guitarist humility. In the back, where they belong! Just kidding, i think most people are the same but i freaking love background delayed guitars. So that's where they are staying.

[Mak Eightman]

Hi!)

Note: I'm talking about production only

Can't say anything useful about drums compression, so try Timaeus's offer..

I'd suggest to boost freqs at 90-130Hz and cut rest of the lows for kick drum. Also boost 3kHz.. After you can try to boost 80-90Hz for bass "guitar"..

Too much highs for snare(or could be reverb issue).. Just my opinion. Hi-hat could sound more better and clear if you pan it to R/L.

Overall.. same common problem.. Too much reverberation.

My advice.. Build your mix with no reverberation. Cut it out.

This will help you to understand "Freq-Instrument" dependence.

When you understand how it works you can create as crazy amount of reverb as you want)) At least it helped me.

At this moment no matter what you do, your mix will sound crowded/unclear. Mostly because of reverberation(90% i'd say).

I hope someone will give you more constructive advice.

SFME

p.s. delayed guitars? making your mix more noisy at this moment when you use this trick with such reverberation imo..

p.p.s. theres one trick.. you can replace reverberation effect with delay..........

[Esperado]

diggin it! im glad you took this to the workshop

[Garpocalypse]

Hey mak, actually those tips you gave me almost a year ago about reverb really stuck with me. I may have taken it to the other extreme because I only used two delay plugins on this whole mix. I stripped all reverb and delay settings from every instrument and I ran some delay on a buss that grouped the orchestra, choir, bass and guitars and then a slightly different delay setting for a few of the leads on a seperate FX buss.

I really want an epic sound, yea i know that word is overused, but I can't believe how light the settings seem to need to be to achieve it. Next time i'm going to try to organize depth with a few more tiers of lighter delay and see if that can convey space between the sounds a little better.

Thanks esperado!

Edited March 11, 2013 by Garpocalypse

[Ryan Jobson]

some of the extremely fast kicks or hihats don't really fit IMO, since you're using sampled version of real drum kit. It just doesn't feel right.

The kick gets lost in the mix, there's no real punch to it. I think why nothing really stands out to me comes down to sample quality.

As a whole the track seems to lack some meaty low end...

Arrangement wise I don't really have any complaints, although I've never listened to the source prior to just now.

Lastly, I don't review peoples work often.. I don't think I'm very good at reviewing other peoples work, sorry :3

[Garpocalypse]

Thanks Syllix i'll take anything I can get!

I guess I made some bad kick EQ choices. This mix started out as a hybrid of trance and metal, because I wanted to make an electronic mix i could actually listen to, but as it went it got more and more metal. I wanted the kick to sound closer to a sub heavy trance kick but i think i'll redo that.

Recording new guitar parts and i hope to get a fresh mixing done this weekend.

[Garpocalypse]

Hoping to throw this at the judges soon. I've had this on my hdd for an eternity it seems.

For this version I overhauled the guitars and mixed everything to pink noise. I also think I achieved greater depth to the overall mix. I'm sure it could still use a tweak or two but i'm going to throw it up for mod review.

http://soundcloud.com/garpocalypse/supremacy-cosmiccataclysmver8

Enjoy!

[timaeus222]

As it turns out, the guitar is slightly too loud or the snare is slightly too soft, since the snare is a bit buried right now.

What did you use for the flute? EWQLSO? It doesn't sound too convincing for some reason. Did you use the keyswitches? It sounds kind of static right now.

0:20 was a very sudden leap in dynamics. 1:06 exposes a really quiet kick, or it could just also point back to the guitars being too loud. I can't really hear the bass tone either. See if you can meld the guitar and bass tones using notch and peaking EQ. They should still be distinguishable, but one shouldn't overpower the other.

Edited June 15, 2013 by timaeus222

[Garpocalypse]

Thanks Timaeus

That flute is just from Dimension Pro. I wanted it a little fake sounding to bridge the gap between it and the center panned distorted lead that comes in at 0:53. I'll try using EWQLSO flute again even though I wasn't crazy about it the first time I used it.

Guitars are a little too loud afterall. I'll drop them a few db and see if I can get the orchestra also poking through a little better in a few spots.

Still, i'll leave it up for mod review since I want to feel like i made at least some type of progress with this one lately.

[Brandon Strader]

The problem with the flute is the part / sequencing more than the sample. There's no pause for breath, and the sequencing is really kind of mechanical. It's hitting a bunch of equally-powered notes without a pause for breath.

At 0:34, the kick is muffled. That's a good kind of bassy hit to have, but you also need to have the higher frequency in the kick -- give it a small bit of click to go along with the oomph. That'll make it easier to hear and also give it some definition.

The break at 1:21 is awesome! I like the glitching.

At 1:36 you can hear how muffled the kick is. When you add that click, you should also raise the volume until it sounds fitting. At 2:07 to 2:53 it sounds like you don't even HAVE a kick. You gotta get that level figured out. Too much subby oomph, not enough click, and volume too low.

I've used Slate Drums and they aren't as customizable as other libraries, but that is not so much an issue for what you are experiencing as far as I know. What I think might be the issue is that your "room mic" is too high, and the regular volume is too low. This gives it too much of a roomy sound and not enough of the core sample's volume. So in general your drums are not hitting with as much power as they should, and as much power as I know the Slate drums usually have... So fiddle with the room settings and raise the volume on everything! But don't go overboard then have people blaming me because your song is all drum and you can't hear anything else, there's a good range to be in without going overboard, right now I'd say you are under.

You said you're working on a new version, let me know when you have it up and I'll try to comment on it faster... sorry.

P.S. Don't try to "meld" the guitars and bass, they should sound distinct from each other, while being EQ'd apart so that they don't bleed into each other. If they're just kind of bleeding into each other, try a 200hz low shelf cut of like -1db or more depending on how much bleeding, cut the bass at your kickdrum's bass frequency and between 250hz-600hz or so, that low frequency area of bass guitars that aren't worth crap. 800Hz should be your "body" type area of the bass with that good buzz, 0hz to 60hz or so is your sub bass which you should either leave as is, boost, or cut depending on how much bass you want. BUT If you can't hear this, I'd be careful... you need to be using a system that can reproduce the sub bass accurately or you're gonna have a mess in some peoples' systems. I'll usually high pass a bass to about 2Khz but you can also boost it a bit at 2KHz for more nice buzzy pick sound. I mean, you don't have to highpass to 2KHz and I know there's more high end frequencies that are awesome, but unless you're making something like "

" you don't really need those freqs. Edited June 15, 2013 by Brandon Strader

[timaeus222]

P.S. Don't try to "meld" the guitars and bass, they should sound distinct from each other, while being EQ'd apart so that they don't bleed into each other.

Sorry, that's not literally what I meant. I was intending to say each of their tones should be audible at any one time. I meant "meld" as in "cohesively combined". A little like this (if you listen closely, at 0:27 you can hear the bass notes clearly. At least... if you use nice equipment. Tiny bit muddy, but not too bad IMO. Toms don't like me. xD).

Edited June 15, 2013 by timaeus222

[Garpocalypse]

Thanks for the notes Brandon!

at 1:36 you can hear how muffled the kick is. When you add that click, you should also raise the volume until it sounds fitting. At 2:07 to 2:53 it sounds like you don't even HAVE a kick. You gotta get that level figured out. Too much subby oomph, not enough click, and volume too low.

For the middle I processed the kick and snare differently by knocking off the subs and some of the highs to dull them. I then opened them back up at 2:53. It was a nice idea but with the drums coming and going the way they do probably wasn't necessary.

I've used Slate Drums and they aren't as customizable as other libraries, but that is not so much an issue for what you are experiencing as far as I know. What I think might be the issue is that your "room mic" is too high, and the regular volume is too low. This gives it too much of a roomy sound and not enough of the core sample's volume. So in general your drums are not hitting with as much power as they should, and as much power as I know the Slate drums usually have... So fiddle with the room settings and raise the volume on everything! But don't go overboard then have people blaming me because your song is all drum and you can't hear anything else, there's a good range to be in without going overboard, right now I'd say you are under.

Never even thought to mess with those settings.

P.S. Don't try to "meld" the guitars and bass, they should sound distinct from each other, while being EQ'd apart so that they don't bleed into each other. If they're just kind of bleeding into each other, try a 200hz low shelf cut of like -1db or more depending on how much bleeding, cut the bass at your kickdrum's bass frequency and between 250hz-600hz or so, that low frequency area of bass guitars that aren't worth crap. 800Hz should be your "body" type area of the bass with that good buzz, 0hz to 60hz or so is your sub bass which you should either leave as is, boost, or cut depending on how much bass you want. BUT If you can't hear this, I'd be careful... you need to be using a system that can reproduce the sub bass accurately or you're gonna have a mess in some peoples' systems. I'll usually high pass a bass to about 2Khz but you can also boost it a bit at 2KHz for more nice buzzy pick sound. I mean, you don't have to highpass to 2KHz and I know there's more high end frequencies that are awesome, but unless you're making something like "

" you don't really need those freqs.

Usually for the subs between the bass and kick I just look at a spectrum analyzer. I tend to end up boosting the kick 3-5 db around 40hz and dip around 80 then boost the bass at 80 and cut the rest or just dip 40 by the same amount as I raised the kick.

I think that's good enough for a mod review. Will resubmit for MR with new version.

[Argle]

Recognize the Slate drums, but they sound weak in this context. Would like to hear a louder kick, with more click. Try some parallel compression on the drum bus to beef up the kit as well.

[Eino Keskitalo]

I think you've gotten lots of great production comments so I'll skip those. This sounds familiar, I probably listened to the PRC version but I'm not sure if I gave any comments. I seem to recall this has come a long way.

You have an interesting sound, combining metal/hard rock, synthy synth sequencing and folksy flute. I don't think I hear a piece in this vein too often (though I'm not a metal afficionado). I thought the sound 0:20-0:35 was quite well done.

I would mostly critique the flow of the piece. Despite what I said above about the 0:20-0:35 section, the piece might get going better if that was skipped and it went straight into the next section with the faster beat. It kind of feels like the piece has two intros after another.

The fill at 0:37 seems out of place, I notice that in this part you have fills at the end of the second bar instead of the fourth (per four bars) which is interesting but the first one feels out of place, too soon. I'm not sure if the rest of the fills would feel awkward if the first one was removed, but it's worth a try. The same with the fill at 2:36, it just seems to break the energy the piece just gained by accelerating the beat.

On the other hand, some of the pacing of the piece is quite excellent, I really like the easing into synthy stuff, and picking it up again around 1:10-1:40.

I thought Brandon's point about leaving breathing room for the flute was excellent. The flute is a bit static also velocity-wise, and it feels a bit like you hear the same flute riff again and again throughout the song. It draws attention from the amount of detail/variation present in the backing track. This is probably the third thing that affects my overall perception of the flow of the piece. You could do more there! More dynamic velocities, little trills, mixing it lower sometimes and bringing some background lead up more prominently - I know nothing about sequencing such an instrument but those are some of the ideas I'd try. I'll say though, excellent counterpoint/alternate melody/whatchamacallit at 1:57 & 2:05! That adds a lot.

Pretty critical there but there's a lot of potential here, it's already an interesting track and could get very impressive! Good going!

--Eino

[timaeus222]

Usually for the subs between the bass and kick I just look at a spectrum analyzer. I tend to end up boosting the kick 3-5 db around 40hz and dip around 80 then boost the bass at 80 and cut the rest or just dip 40 by the same amount as I raised the kick.

Hm. Personally I would have dipped a tiny bit at 40 and below on the kick, not boosted the bass at 40, notched the bass at 80, and thin-peaked the kick at 80. Of course, don't overdo it. From what you said, it would make the bass overpower the kick's thump and the kick's subs overpower the bass' subs.

[Garpocalypse]

Hm. Personally I would have dipped a tiny bit at 40 and below on the kick, not boosted the bass at 40, notched the bass at 80, and thin-peaked the kick at 80. Of course, don't overdo it. From what you said, it would make the bass overpower the kick's thump and the kick's subs overpower the bass' subs.

Bass was cut at 40. Actually I think this mix had everything below 80 cut on the bass with the kick boosted at 40 and cut at 80 slightly as well as a drum bus cut at 500.

Thanks for the load of comments everyone.

Parallel compression is something i use on all of my metal remixes, i'm a huge fan of it. Getting the right balance has been huge pain for me though. Sometimes I over do it, sometimes I under do it.

:banghead:

[Brandon Strader]

Just set your parallel compression to release like 35ms. You only need it to add snap to your drums, and you don't want the bus send to be set too high or it'll sound bad. But you still need to compress your drum pieces individually even with parallel compression.

There's no real point to cut the kick at 80Hz. I usually boost 80Hz if I'm doing metal, I'll boost lower (like 50hz) if I want a more subby sound to the bass of the kick, but between 50 and 80 is pretty normal area to boost on a kick drum. No cut, unless the kick drum is too bassy to begin with.

Cutting the bass where you're boosting the kick is smart.

But up to 60Hz is considered sub bass. That's why I would recommend going 80Hz for the metal kick instead. You want the bass of it, but not necessarily the sub bass. Using your ears, add a peak boost around 4-5KHz for the click and you should be in business. Don't cut too much out of your kick or it'll sound hollow, like slapping a plastic coffee container with a spoon.

[timaeus222]

Using your ears, add a peak boost around 4-5KHz for the click and you should be in business.

Interesting. I usually just do a high shelf above 4kHz and then a mild low pass at ~18-20kHz. Is there any reason you seem to like doing the peak boost more?

[Brandon Strader]

Interesting. I usually just do a high shelf above 4kHz and then a mild low pass at ~18-20kHz. Is there any reason you seem to like doing the peak boost more?

To add the click for the metal kickdrum. Click is good. Highpassing to 20hz is kinda redundant because we can't hear it anyways

[timaeus222]

Highpassing to 20hz is kinda redundant because we can't hear it anyways

Well, that's actually not entirely true; I've tried low passing to 18~19.6kHz before on iZotope Stutter Edit, and it made the effects' treble much cleaner at all volumes. Usually it can be too piercing at even ~150% volume, and I like my songs to sound consistent at many volumes.

[Brandon Strader]

Oh wait low pass at 18KHz? Dunno why I thought you meant the opposite. (highpass at 20hz)

I used to do a slight shelf down in that range but stopped doing it recently. Comparing A to B didn't show much of a difference, but maybe it is mainly an electronica thing. I think that's when I started doing it, was when I was making the technodubsteps.

edit: but you should post your own thread for your mix! Gar, sorry for hijacking your thread. :3

Edited June 16, 2013 by Brandon Strader

[Garpocalypse]

edit: but you should post your own thread for your mix! Gar, sorry for hijacking your thread. :3

Darkesword saves every thread but mine...