Re: Killjoy (= moar metal)
I've had these weird recording sprees ever since I got the Axe Fx...
Nice to hear you're in a creative mood. To be fully honest with you, I'd mix the guitars a little lower while letting the drums cut loose a little more. They suffer from excess compression and the outcome is the cymbal hiss sounds really loud while the kicks and snares are sort of weak and wimpy while they should be the punches, kicks and blows punishing your presumably innocent listener. How's that different from, say, a bad, anemic drummer, who can't hit them hides like a man...
Two gentlemen, namely Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Munson told me the guitars will cut through anyway. Well sort of, unless they are 6dB below something else occupying the midrange frequencies, to which human ears are most sensitive.
I'm well aware there'a fashion to create louder sounding mixes because some deaf idiot said the higher the average levels, the better, and the notion caught on, killing the music in the process. I'd gladly find the son of a gun that started the loudness war and crucify him, if it were doable at all. Such overly pumped up sounds come through no different than advertisement soundtracks, which are force fed propaganda pie (have a slice of lie, aye!) and deserve to be called noise. Anything below, say, 6dB peak-to-rms seems as flat as a sheet of paper, to me. That is already little breathing space and definitely insufficient for a lot of audio material so treat it as a guideline only. You might say metal isn't very dynamic, which is true, but it also means it's easy to kill the little that's left. Remember: more compression = less dynamics; too much compression = no dynamics at all = noise. Hold 'em compressors on a tight leash and make art not (loudness) war
