Into the Cold Light - Half-Life 2 "Triage at Dawn" metal remix

[BKM]

Hi everyone

 

I'm new to this community and after two weeks of back and forth, I found the courage to post my most recent project. I hope you don't mind that this is going to be a somewhat longer post; I want to share some background on the track and on myself. The track is called "Into the Cold Light" and is a metal remix of "Triage at Dawn" from the Half-Life 2 soundtrack by Kelly Bailey. Most likely you have at some point already heard DJ Dains famous remix of this short, yet incredibly powerful ambient piece. I found it very inspiring when I arranged my own cover.

 

Sources:

• Original (Kelly Bailey): https://youtu.be/rvyswm1UMko
• DJ Dains Remix: https://youtu.be/iy61r3Qkm6o

 

Into the Cold Light:

• SoundCloud (download provides MP3 320 kbps): https://soundcloud.com/bkm/into-the-cold-light
• Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zM35R3RsWA

 

 

GEAR

 

I used Cubase 7 as DAW and EZDrummer with the Metal Heads addon as drum sequencer. Everything else (piano, strings, choir, ...) is stock Cubase instruments. Guitar tracks weere recorded via DI, using a Radial Pro48 DI box into an Alesis iO2 audio interface. I've been using a dedicated DI box for the first time on this mix and it made a huge difference in clarity and note definition - the iO2's unbalanced guitar input is astonishingly bad and gave me clipping issues even at lowest gain settings in the past (I use high-output pickups, that's probably the reason). Guitars were recorded with an ESP LTD MH-417 and bass was recorded with an Ibanez SG 405. My guitar tone is courtesy of the free "Emissary" software amp sim by Ignite Amplifications, in combination with mic impulses by Red Wire and Guitar Hacks. Aside from EZDrummer, I've been using freeware and stock plugins exclusively for mixing and mastering. Lately, I've been in love with a lot of Antress plugins like the Modern Analoguer (tape saturation) and their vintage console emulations, even though they have the nasty habit to occasionally crash Cubase since they are not being developed anymore.

 

 

ISSUES WITH THE TRACK

 

There are some glaring issues with this track. From what I read in the rules it is definitely not up to the OCRemix standards, so I do not plan on submitting it. Here are some things that I am aware of:

• Bass is an incoherent mess. I'm struggling with the headphones I use for mixing.
   
• I'm still very much fighting with my guitar skills and with latency issues, so some riffs and especially the solo are not as tight as they could be. I refuse to edit my takes, so at least it's an honest performance. Frankly, I started practicing with a metronome much too late and it's coming back to bite me.
   
• Balance between rhythm and lead guitars is off at various points during the track.
   
• The piano gets drowned out during the busier parts of the track, my EQing needs some more work as well.
   
• I mastered too loud, there's clipping. You can hear it clearly after the orchestral intro when the guitars kick in. Mastering is my biggest weak-spot, although I am starting to become at least a bit proficient with multiband compressors.
   
• Overall, the track would profit from some more brilliance, but I was unable to achieve that without making things sound harsh.

 

 

LAST WORDS

 

First of all, thanks if you made it through my ramblings. Despite all the problems, I really hope that there's one or two of you who enjoy the mix. I would appreciate your feedback immensely! Also, from what I've seen so far, there is not that many Cubase users on here, are there? I have been using Cubase for 5 years now and have found myself acquiring some knowledge on mixing and mastering with free / stock VST plugins, so if you have questions, I would be glad to help! Just bear in mind that I come from a metal background

 

 

Cheers

[BKM]

I really shouldn't write forum posts when I'm not feeling well ... I cut out some of the ramblings in my original post and decided to try and learn how to optimize my mixing instead of whining about lack of time. In that context, I challenged myself to completely redo the mix in 2 evenings, kind of a "get shit done" approach. I tried to tackle as many of the issues stated above as possible while not losing myself in the details and I think I was able to improve on the original version.

 

https://soundcloud.com/bkm/into-the-cold-light-v2

 

Would love to hear what you think. Cheers!