Mixing a heavy metal album Help!!!

[Jaylen Owens]

My band has multiple songs that need mixing and i have been having problems any help would be appreciated. i use Reaper btw
Thanks!
-Jaylen Owens

 

[Ed Seith]

What’s the issue? I use Reaper, too.

 

[Jaylen Owens]

my guitars are either quiet and they clip or drums are to quiet and so on i try to keep it from not clipping but it sucks rn

 

[Ed Seith]

Try using the NORMALIZE function on tracks you can’t get enough volume on. It also sounds like you might need a little compression on some of those tracks. There are deep lessons online about proper use of compression with various instruments, but the goal is to balance out the levels on instruments that have a wide dynamic range.
Also, you don’t need to boost things up too much for mixing. That was a lot more important with analog/tape mixing because of tape noise. Your master buss should have levels no higher than -6 and should NEVER go “red.”

 

[Andrew Fernandes]

you just to double check you guys have monitor speakers right?

 

[Jaylen Owens]

of course

 

[Jaylen Owens]

i never try to mix on heaphones or computer speakers i fill those speakers and headphones will lie to you.

 

[Ed Seith]

Almost always true. Once you get a mix you like on your mixing system, listen to it on other equipment you’re familiar with to see if anything jumps out there. I use my car and a few other places to listen for issues.

 

[Jaylen Owens]

would you want me to send a pic of some problems and let you see it im terrible at explaining things.

 

[Ed Seith]

Send a couple pics and maybe an MP3 of the mix, if you want.

 

[Andrew Fernandes]

which monitor speakers do you have? (I’m curious) I have K Rokit 6’s

 

[Jaylen Owens]

they are mackie studio monitors

 

[Filip Tomiša]

First thing you have to do before you start mixing is making headroom. You need to have enough headroom so nothing clips, it might sound very quiet but that doesn’t matter cause the last thing you do when you are finishing your mix is putting a limiter on the master channel so that the whole thing has a commerical sound level.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

I mix with headphones first. I use my good ones. The I try my phone. Usually sounds bad there lol but first is headphones. I’ve also noticed myself that my mic volume goes down everytime I record. Yet the recording is still too loud lol.eventually I’ll find that magic balanced fit.