Balancing Metal Guitars and Bass In A Mix
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- Joel Wanasek shows how to fix the most common metal mixing mistake: lack of balance!
Dialing in the proper balance makes a MASSIVE difference in your mix, and the best part is that it doesn't take any fancy plugins or special tricks-- just the patience to train your ears, and a few simple fader moves.
He uses Cubase, but the same principles apply in any DAW.
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What's your best trick for balancing guitars and bass?
I've never balanced the bass to the guitars. I have always looked at bass as a stringed percussion instrument and glue it into the drums. The guitar is the glue in between percussion and vocals. It is always good to think outside my normal box, thanks Joel!
I have a visual guide, like MMultiAnalyzer, and I try to put the bass at the same level as the stereo buss rhythm guitar if I want it more present or if it has too much bass information, or maybe 3 db LU lower than stereo buss guitars if it has too much mid range information.
I spread my low guitar frequencies to the outer regions with the highs more to the center with the bass centered. Levels always vary depending on the range of notes/strings
I like to pan my guitars 1 and 2 out to -75 and 75 respectively, sometimes doubling up the same track on both sides if there's only 1 guitar riff going on. Bass guitar will pan between -25 and 25. Sometimes I use synth to fill in bass so the synth pans to opposite side of guitar. I record between 0 and -2 dec so I can use EQ to enhance track volumes without changing volumes. Maybe not the best way to do it but it sounds good to me :)
I always compare my bounces to the way that other professional mixes sound and adjust from there.
Mixing in mono is my favourite way of hearing the balance
Dude, I can't thank you enough. I've been mixing an EP for the past 8 hours, and about to ram my head through a wall. I couldn't explain it, but I felt like my mix was just "lopsided." I was just afraid to turn my bass up. Problem solved, life changed.
Thanks man! Appreciate the support!
Sometimes i just have to close my eyes and turn some knobs, when i'm really stuck and can't wrap my brain around what's so wrong!
Try referencing it in mono, rebalance, put it in stereo and rebalance, and keep tweaking it until the balance is the same in both, then you know your levels are perfect.
if you’re scared about headroom, just boost perceived loudness using saturation and compression
I'm a guitarist, but I love hearing a defined bass in a mix. Especially when it's a nice bi-amped tone with a clear low and gritty high end.
Guitars so loud a guitar player probably mixed it. HEY NOW! I resemble that remark lol
I actually disagree on that. as a guitarist I tend to balance them too quiet, since can hear the shit in my mind. :D
Me too haha I amateurly tend to give more volume to the guitar
Norhing wrong with the guitars coming to the foreground!
The smart thing to do is send them To the background when the solo or the vocals come in to dominate the mix. 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻
Im pretty sure a drummer mixed gwars battle maximus album.
Triggered kicks overtake the whole thing
Make sure you take it to the car and listen
This video is ridiculous! That's exactly what I needed! I WANT TO SIGN IN!
DO IT!! And while you´re at it, Go Enhanced. You´ll get even more of the good stuff. You won´t be sorry hahaha
Thanx a lot bro!!!
I’m that guitar player that always mixes the guitars too loud lol I have to wait hours before I go back and listen and realize they’re super loud
We are ALL that guy lol- you’re not alone!
Always! no matter how good a mix feels, i always have to come back later and check it with fresh ears. most of the time i do it every time! especially listening for balance... and they're sometimes notably off! lol.
@@slavesforging5361 I'm the opposite, big only because I go so far out of the way to try not to that I end up mixing them really quite. I listen later and I'm like yeah these drums dominate the mix hahaha
I really appreciate what you guys are doing, thank you!
Thanks for watching, we appreciate the support!
Not sure how I ended up here, but I've been listening with it in the background and it slowly started sounding better and better. Nice.
I find tone at the source before everything is a huge part of the process. My downfall in the beginning was i had this great fat guitar tone when it was on its own but a nightmare when attempting to put in a mix. I'm no longer afraid to make drastic cuts boosting midds and cutting low ends and cutting high ends sounds odd on its own but when a bass guitar is added to the picture its fat and sits great :D I'm learning a lot more that things have their spaces so make cuts where pieces don't so they can breathe. Makes the whole mixing process a lot less stressing and more fun lol
I've been struggling with this specific thing
Thanks for the great video
Glad it was helpful!
It's funny how a lot of guitarists demo a new drum VSTi, and their guitars are so loud you can barely hear the drums at all, and the bass guitar is completely inaudible. Ah, the guitarist ego at work. Never fails to astound me.
Great stuff here. I would love to have seen how you EQ'd both the bass and the guitars to get them to fit together so nicely.
We did a 12.5 hour nailthemix on this you can get as a subscriber if you purchase the back issue as well as get the multitracks for this whole song.
to be honest i thought he eq'd these tracks so professionally, that he actually got away with cranking up either guitar or bass without it completely destroying the mix and stepping on it. the timbre's were so inherently different (with each instrument being so isolated by frequencies), that nothing really could step on each other no matter how volumes were setup. which was pretty interesting. had i cranked these up on any of my projects, the effect would have been much worse!
This sounds like every song played on WJRR when I drive through Orlando.
Back at it with another great one!
Awesome video!!! Wish i saw this video a few years ago.. haha I always used the VU Meter trick locked with the kick and when it was set that was it for the mix. Now i see myself automating a lot more like you shown in this video. And using feel more than a meter.
Excellent content! This is definitely one of my favorites. Such useful info
Do you balance volumes before you start mixing/eg/compression etc?
It is recommended.
That machine head song ws my first introduction to them actually. However the burn my eyes album is fucking insannnne
Machine Head! I'm in love with this song haha btw thx for sharing this trick!!
So you would automate the volume of the guitars for the chorus, but what about EQ? Would one ever typically automate that to leave room for vocals? Say a dip in the 1-4 k-hz range somewhere, or whatever?
It's nice to know that there's some wiggle room for the guitar volume; I was actually surprised how much you were able to turn it up. From my experience, turning the guitars up seems to be a good way to create "perceived" loudness, but I tend to have trouble maintaining that "bite" when the vocals come in.
Any tips for getting guitars and vocals to play nicely?
Automation could be a great tool for this-- you could automate either the volume or EQ shape when the vocals come in. Here's a little tutorial as an example: th-cam.com/video/g7N_wanbQ9w/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for the suggestion!
So glad I found this video!!
I'm pretty shure, that someone hearing my mixes will recognise that I am a bass player.
This is the stuff that made me sign up for Enhanced! Best investment I've made in life thus far.
Appreciate the support sir!
People over compress bass. It for sure needs compression usually to some degree, but i’ve found people and myself using multiple instances of compression in some way or another and it kills what the bass is a lot of times. Everyone seems to want a basically constantly running sub exciter with a bass guitar… some might even think they are being conservative in that mindset by multiband compressing it but leaving the super lows pretty quiet but constantly tickling it… honestly almost nothing could be worse to my ears with bass toned like that. You are supposed to lose some of that grounding that happens with different or higher notes. Multibanding the shit out of a bass, or over use of distortion to essentially get the same squashed effect just kills it for me. It was one of my biggest problems. My basses now sound SO much bigger with smarter and a lighter hand with compression because it will move away from that hugeness and come back at times. When you are constantly running the subs it’s just shit.
good reference at 8:34
Balancing before mixing/equing or balancing while mix any effect/instruments??
I like to do it before EQ-ing, makes my EQ-ing process easier.
But hey, there's no one way of doing it, whatever works for you.
But bear in mind that you can't EQ a poor volume level, so pay closer attention to it.
Shut up, balance is fun! 😁
Seriously tho, It's the crucial, but also creative part of mixing
Nice tone, bass is a bit quiet for me. Hate sampled drums, they sound obvious
Very nice!
I find when I have 2 Guitars, 1 left, 1 right, guitar left playing a different melody to guitar 2, sounds soft and when they both join up to play the same thing, they are both very loud.
How do you balance that?
Automation
automation is one way... but the loudness there is perceived loudness. communicate with the artist about their intention maybe.. if it is dynamic and fits the song ? keep it. that's my call. sure there is limits.
Very insightful! I know you mentioned automating the guitars up for the part that doesn't have vocals, how does that differ from placing a side chained compressor on the guitars that would duck the guitars down 2db when the vocals kick in on the chorus?
You can do it either way.
=O Mixing is all sorts of Magic!
you're going to get slightly different effects from a compressor than just an eq or volume adjustment due to attack, release, knee and all those lovely things we adore compressors for. generally, i say automate for levels, compress to make something more brutal and really control how it hits hard, or glides in nice and easy. if that makes sense. you're really changing the shape of the sound when using a compressor, not just volumes.
What's your preference, when tracking rythm guitars, in panning a 2 guitarist band where the 2 guitar players use different amps? For my latest record instead of wide panning the 2 guitarists separate. (1 guitarist on the left with both his takes using a 5150 and the other on the right x2 takes usining a JCM 900) I paired them together so there's a 5150 and a jcm 900 on both the left and the right to balance out the tone. I sent all tracks to one Bus so they all get the same EQ and multi multiband compression. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! Great video!
How to put stereo guitars out of phase, what is going on with your AD/DA conversion?
"And Justice for all Album" has joined the chat:
Very good video
Thanks man!
So, only after everything is levelled you insert compression etc if its needed?
Also do you do any EQing before even levelling everything?
Thanks for a good lesson!
What's really sad is that in 99% of records all of that sweet balance would be crushed down to smooth during the mastering just for loudness sake...
Awesome!!!!
Random question but when you add a group channel track, to send your guitars to, do you make that channel track mono or stereo?
stereo
Hey do you quad track guitar or double track?
The butt rock is real. But great tutorial!
God damnit I had ONE request.
LOL - sorry man, Joel would punch me in the face!
Hahaha understandable.
It took a guy literally 3 minutes to start talking about a matter at hand. Gotta get that ad revenue money.
I stand corrected, 4:25 to start getting to a point. Geez.
7:00
So this took you a 12:30 video, please god ...
Gotta get that ad revenue...
Dat wusst ich alles schon.
Schade, jetz ham se des Video extra für dich gemacht, und du wusstest das einfach schon.
@@hannes1734 Ja und du kannst sogar lesen! Der Knaller.
@@newrockorder Das ham se mir in der ersten Klasse beigebracht. Bin denen immer noch dankbar, denn das wusst ich nämlich damals noch nicht.
@@hannes1734 Das ist doch super! Stell´dir vor, die hätten´s nicht gemacht. Dann könntest du hier gar nicht deinen Senf abgeben. Ich find´s gut. Gratuliere. Es lebe die "Gibdeinensenfabfreiheit."
Mein anfänglicher Kommentar war vielleicht etwas platt, aber eigentlich wollte ich sagen:
Diese Video ist eigentlich Zeitverschwendung, denn es werden nur Platitüden rausgehauen, ohne Mehrwert. Beste Grüße
guitars sound very phasey to me
That's my specialty when recording guitars lol
like for Machine Head
Edit out those swallows jeesh
Hey everybody, Joel wannasecure.
The bass tone is awful to my taste.... This kind of bass tone is made for making room to other instruments. So lets just cut the bass out of the mix... It is basicaly the same thing.
The video is great, still i would like to hear and understand what the bass player is doing.
this bass tone is definitely designed to sit in this mix. wouldn't sound good on it's own, but that happens a lot in rock and metal mixes, were the bass tone is supportive, not the highlight. i've seen people overdue their tone and sometimes drum tone in metal, and it just doesn't fit into the song.
Don't get me wrong, the video is great, the song is great. But what i'm not into is that the bass is submerge into the guitar sound.
Why does the bass has to be supportive? Why doesn't it takes place like another instruments?
Basically, low ends on the side, the bass sound just add a layer of grind on the guitar tracks.
Plus, the bass tone is not good for me because with good speakers or good headphones (HD650), I don't clearly hear what he is playing.
No matter the band, no matter how famous they are. it could be great to dip a frequency in the guitar tone to make some room for the bass guitar, less mid saturation and you get both bass guitar understanding and guitar tone goodness.
And yeah, i'm a bass player and only bass that's why i like to hear the bass.... A matter of priorities i guess.
@@BZK33 yup i feel ya. in my own music the bass is usually playing a counter melody to the guitar, and the instruments are somewhat justaposed as the bass is often playing higher than the guitar. this song isn't a riff i would ever write. but what he did makes sense for it. for recording, i find i have to write two bass parts. one that follows the guitar to thicken them up, and the original bass line i wrote that is actually melodic, musical, and separate from the guitars. which is... interesting to mix well. (i'm still working on that one).
It's sounds great
@@BZK33 because the bass part he wrote just kinda sucks like the rest of the song