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Cognizance Mix Overview and Challenges

Since this is pro tools ten uh I apologize if it crashes a few times because pro tools ten crashes a few a lot so and you as out there who are familiar with worth dealing with pro tools ten you should know there's a there's a there's another way and that other ways pro tools eleven so going to open up a session by a band called cognizance and oh, but that going a second we'll let you hear the song of course this is ah really cool band that, uh are from england and there's there's a lot of cool stuff about this recording uh if, uh many faceless fans out there know alex routing here is he played drums on this recorded it at my drum room and men what a phenomenal drummer than I had the pleasure of flying england to track the rest of everything my buddy tommy jones the videographer flew out there with me you're about to see a lyric video of knives will be a music video that he made for them and then remixed it and there's some guest vocals from frank mullen from suffocation who's you know ...

it's a classic dude and I've got a guitar solo on it is well, so there's a lot of cool stuff on it but on a kind of go through this song like I said, pro tools is going to crash um surprise psychic abilities um I want to go through this song it's an example of how tio how to control some brutally fast technical death battle because you know we just did a super super low tuned uh break down any kind of techie kind of gente stuff uh new natalie almost knows talk about some death metal you know a lot of you guys like to work on the fast stuff and that is what this is alex rude anger playing it not as I think he can probably play a little bit faster but it's up there and this is also I believe I don't forgive me for not remember this but uh this is either in standard or an e flat like uh this is not in summer this is not in a fake to me yeah I agree guitar sound I think guitar sound better in standard tunings so I just don't remember this is e flattered dia but I believe this is standard I could be wrong is some if anyone from cognizance is in the chat room feel free tio feel free to correct me but yeah this uh this video I'm going to play you guys also was just released on metal injection yesterday and it is pretty cool but ok so you weren't here for the first song so does he have a you have a pad and piece of paper can we get him one um okay like you to write down two lists everyone's doing this having the internet do this and stuff basically list number one is uh and here comes thank you by the way uh list number one is what do you think the challenges would be as you're as you're so we're going toe you were playing whole songs like ah and so any list out what do you think challenges would be about particular things in here in this mix so we can talk about it and then also if there's any well how did you do that? You know there's something in particularly liked but uh we'll compare if we'll compare the challenges will see if if we agree about them we're so switching back to the keynote and uh well you check out the song by a cognizance hopefully everyone of the internet is taking some notes it's uh saying there's another thing that pro tools ten you knows how many applications suddenly are open it does this thing where it checks for new software automatically and if you say no no doesn't really work and opens up a web browser it's kind of weird uh it's it's the cancel that doesn't actually cancel so here you succession of flesh cognisant way wait so real quick before you talk about that just want tio plug my buddy uh tommy jones you guys thought that was a cool lyric video which I think it is because most lyric videos or crap uh the way I should hit tommy up he's a video hammer studios it's worked with everybody just testament certification death angel are among the most recent but uh he worked with youtube and here with with me when I was in god forbid and he did awesome work yeah he's the best yeah, I would love to work with him again for yeah he's worked with, uh lots of people have done stuff with you know, the melissa cross videos has done so for lamb of god I mean, the list goes on and on and on and he just like me like we both took enough of a liking to this band to just kind of try to make something work for them so you know, he made this video as a fearless leader video I've seen probably yeah, same here e I mean it's pretty much a music video eso anyways, it has felt like tommy deserves a little mention but all right, so quick let's ah let's talk about some of the the, uh well, you best think the challenges in this mix would be like and and not about the how do you do certain things but let's talk about what you guys think would be hard about it let's start with with you um one question would be giving the tom sand out without masking other stuff and not having him some like paper cup that is definitely hard. I always have trouble with it. Yeah waken talk about how to get around that uh that it's definitely an issue especially when you have double bass going because double bass masks you're tom's uh well, that is something I definitely had to deal with in this mix and there's another one due later where a lot of tom and double bass action going on at the same time. So yet that's one thing about you meant anything that you think if this was well, this came across your computer and you had to mix it I mean with music style of music is extremely busy there's three billion notes happening right there. So it seems to me like the you know, making it sound like having a lot of articulation and having a release seemed tight and everything fit in there not be a mess seems like be kind of hard. Uh and another thing is the vocal style is it doesn't it's not very dynamic right? It's just tryingto stepped out yeah is what it is but to make that sit in the right place it seems like that would be kind of challenging too because it's kind of lives in one spot it seems and so I mean, those are the two things I would initially think would be kind of challenging it was interesting is so I think that part one of what you said about making you know, with the music this busy uh giving everything its own so in space that begins in the production process uh, you know, tweaking riffs uh, you know, in a I didn't need to tweet too much with these guys because they are really good like they write well and their guitar players pretty phenomenal so it's not like I had to go in there and, like, change their risk I mean, they clearly know what they're doing you can yeah, they totally know what they're doing so but like, you know, little production decisions like well to help to help make something come out clear or to not be muddy or whatever that that that begins in the production process and you may have to make those those types of decisions when you're recording it so that when you go to mix like it's, especially with this kind of stuff that you you've already got some of the challenges just balancing the frequencies you don't need the music working against as well and interesting that you say that about the vocals because this vocal chain that we've got now is the third one that I tried like I went through to other rejected vocal chains it was very, very hard to get them to sit their yeah on still able to hear everything so yeah, I mean it's pretty much like one pitch the whole time and that's a stylistic thing you know, I've been in bands where that's you know that's what you do so yeah sometimes though it's easier than others that the music's not as busy it's not, you know there's not as if the music that is busy and the riffs aren't as important than it's not as big of a deal but you've got alex routing er where every single every single drum hit is important and mapped out there nothing random there's nothing random guitars and everything's there for a reason so it all needs to be heard at all times. So yeah that's a challenge about you unidentified uh both really to the drums for one the snare definition because there's there's a lot of blasting and really quick stuff going on. So, um if you want like you join incorporate samples into this mix at all, you definitely do some automating in those fast parts that the sample you know because you're heroes such a detect that same sound being triggered a whole bunch of times in a row you know, too too close together they're so that snare I'm sure it took some work just to have it hit hard in the slower parts and then also sound believable in the faster parts and on another thing ah also relates to the speed but it's basically getting the low end right between the base and the kick because again the bpm is very high I don't know what the song was that but I've only two thirty five u s o those those kicks air real fast in there and you know the higher the b p m the less the last time there is between double kick hits for for the low frequencies to make a whole cycle um so yeah so that the b p m of the song definitely kind of dictates somewhat you know how how you can actually sculpt the low end and may I'm guessing on this song maybe you relied on the base a little more for the low end then you did the kick itself you know it's gotta have some but when it was being that fast you have your hands tied a little bit kind of have to by the way this is what I'm talking about with brussels ten but yet you kind of have to but I'll show you guys specifically what I did but yeah you don't want the bass guitar tio overtake the low into because also in this case it will mess up the definition of the of the actual guitars um so yeah those are they're huge challenges and also the other thing is with a drummer like this you don't want to go too far into sample city anyways because he's so good way I mean we took a play you guys like the room tracks and all that stuff we took the time to get really good drum tones and teo, you know, to make the most of having him there is and he's not just some ciampi's like the best so uh you don't want tio just rely on the sample tricks to bring it out you wantto bring out as much as you can of the rial drums and that's a challenge and I think it looks like I like to play pretty high tune snare drums to us here not really looking for like this big, heavy handed like, you know, two hundred hertz wack out of your snare demi moore just well, like capture the detail what it's doing and I'm not sure that would even be appropriate for the parana wouldn't work about the internet any uh and the challenges that they would see. How would you do you go about dealing with the ghost of some snare drums in relation to samples that's one we'll get to that, estaba says I think a big challenge will be getting base kick and guitars to set well, which is sort of what we talked about in the last with the last song that's kind of but the biggest issue with every single medal mix, right? So we'll talk about that okay and I'll show you guys with my challenges were with this one um and my challenges on this mix were for did not sound like total robots uh and what I mean by that is not that this was recorded with a drum machine er edited to hell and back because it wasn't a lot of this is pretty natural the drums or not really grated I mean he played to a click but we decided to not you know you don't need to do that so but still at this speed you have end this genre you do have to use samples to cut through and less time between hits like you said this stuff can start to sound like you know, like basketball or typewriter or whatever um so the challenge is to keep it still sounding sounding semi rial and then maintaining clarity I mean this is fast stuff and it does not let up and it's not just fast tremble picking on one note there's a lot going on at the same time so maintaining that clarity then because of the vocals kind of being in that one spot frequency wass they just so happened to be in a very similar spot as the guitars in this situation so that was tough and then of course my solo was really tough but so they do with the mix but then the uh and then in death metal bass guitar is way harder to deal with because because you know it's a lot faster and uh you still want to be alone in my opinion still want to be able to hear it uh but not have it be overpowering so those are my challenges with the mix and uh I say we go through them real quick I will when I really quick this might take a little while but any before I started getting into this anything else from the chat room in particular that uh guys there's a lot of questions about e q kickin bass and guitar like just how to get those things to fit together a lot of the same question ok that's fine hand what second before you go on just uh and I show this slide again uh there's going to give these guys a shameless plug um because I think they're awesome and I want to get them signed and I want to work with them again so you know, if you guys liked any of this uh you can help me getting them signed by sharing, sharing this stuff with your friends just like you would share any other metal band and this is I'm not trying to do this like I support my friend's band actually really do like this stuff and think it deserves to be heard so there is there online contact uh you guys care can check it out if not we'll tell you, just talk about the mix. And if so, we'll talk about the mixed anyways.