Mix advice on bond-theme-esque song

[wilx]

I'm doing a sort of mock-bond-theme as the closing credits to a short I've been scoring.

I'm nearly there with the arrangement, but the mix really stands out (as unprofessional) when I a/b it with my reference material, namely:

- 'The World is Not Enough' (Garbage) for the verses

- 'You Know My Name' (Chris Cornell's Casino Royale Theme) for the choruses

- 'Butterflies and Hurricanes' (Muse) For middle 8 and general 'shitloads going on, but mix still sounds clean and uncluttered-ness'.

 

Now naturally, the reference tracks were all done by pros, and done on pro equipment, but I'm hoping to get a little closer if anyone can help me out.

 

Done on Logic Pro. Guitars played in a disabled fashion by me, they'll be replaced by a proper player very soon. Sampled bass will be replaced by real bass too.

 

And it will have vox, but for now I've put an instrumental rough mix up on my site...

 

Thanks in advance!

[Spunkadellic]

naturally mixes done "in the box" will always be muddy and smaller than an outboard mix.

 

if budget allows take your files to a studio and mix on the console using all outboard fx and eqs in the analog world and not plugins

 

if you want to do it all at home, first get a good audio interface - apogee etc, second, get a good mic pre and third get a expensive stereo compressor

 

recording everything through a good mic pre then good compressor into good converters will help a lot.

 

WHEN MIXING do it on your analog mixer - enen mackie will have better results than logic. if you have only 8 outputs - no problem - use 8 outputs for drums - use the eq and faders on the on the board logics faders should be all at 0 - to avoid unnecessary processing do all the mixing on the board even add reverb on the board {if you have an outboard unit) now add that expensive compressor to the stereo bus and record the stereo track to logic

 

do this with all the other grouped instruments

 

after all the submixes, use the compressor on your stereo bus - that should help

 

 

the guitars sound fine - everything sounds pretty good - however i am listening on macbook speakers at the moment.

 

if youre using guitar amp pro for dist - ive found that the hot combo 40w mode seems to fit the best in the mix

 

on all digital recordings, use distortion on the snare - if your mixing on a mackie per say, turn the trim uo and the fader down to introduce distortion

 

try and send lead vocal to a bus - heavily compress the bus - then add an iverdrive plugin and turn the gain up a bit. now turn the bus down to barely audible - if the vocal sounds distorted, turn the bus down - you shouldnt really hear it - it seems to help the vocal sit in the mix

 

i have thousands of DAW mixing tricks - if you have any specific topics, i can suggest more - these just came to mind

 

and forgive my spelling and poor phrasing, im typing as i think and not going back

[wilx]

I don't have access to any analogue gear at the mo - strictly mixing in-the-box, but thanks a lot for the reply. Loads of useful information here, & I'll be sure to try out everything you've suggested.

Thanks!

 

EDIT: - in fact, your trick for the vocal is what I've started doing myself since this song! I love putting vocals through amp sims but recently I've started trying it out at a really low level just to colour the sound - almost subliminally.