HIVE

$5 chinese headphones into StealthPlug (which I also use to record guitars), a $80 SX Jazz Bass, and some Hamer guitar with two humbuckers I bought for about $60, and since I don't have speakers or a treated room I use visual metering to mix mostly, aside from using shitty headphones.

All in all since I consider music ultimately a hobby I never invest in it, so I just make sure to change strings sometimes and that's about it. I did buy some software, tho.

The strings used on Machine Heart are 1.5 year old (guitar) and 3 years old (bass).

Sounds good nevertheless. Are you using a digital effects prog for the guitar?
Your mastering and recording is quite good for the "shitty" stuff you're saying you have.

Yeah, I will attach my whole reaper file once all is done. I use a freeware JCM900 plugin from simuanalog suite, and I also use EQ before amp to make certain frequencies sing, and kill others. Past that I don't mess with the EQ of guitars too much.

Also I use a pretty heavy gate because I have way too much noise in the signal.

For bass I use split tracks for low and high end and compress them independently.

So in order to achieve the mix you've heard, this is essentailly my line of logic:

1) Arrange music in such a way that it does not clash tonally (split octaves among instruments you use) and only use same notes on multiple instruments to create a specific texture - which is what I have done with the lead guitar + synth
2) Split bass guitar into two tracks, one that deals with the low end (and gets ducked by kick) and one that gives the nice "ring" you can hear from the bass, also adds a ton of clarity, basically treat those two bass tracks as separate instruments

3) Remove the midrange from drums to make place for guitars and synths
4) Since sampled drums are already fairly compressed, clipping them with a utility like gclip is better than compressing them most of the time, so do that
5) Keep guitar processing simple - add an EQ before amp, add an EQ after amp, but that's about it, couple with a gate if needed, no need for extravagant stuff

My mixing and mastering is more down to logic than it is really to "hearing things" because I know I can't, with the shit gear, I use visual metering A LOT.

And btw, if you know you're gonna have a ton of noise the best you can do is mask it in some way, like having cymbals always go with guitars (which is kinda what I do)

Well that's intensely smart. Congratulations. You're also somewhat an engineer.

I'll have a listen at your song with headphones too just to check the noise

I am listening to my guitar tracks right now, and there isn't much noise because after years of doing things like this, I've grown accustomed to
1) using short mutes (long mutes will eventually lead to noise)
2) reapplying strums - even if I would prefer notes to sustain for longer, if I know it'll cause noise, I will just hit the strings again
This means that due to years of conditioning regarding how to avoid noise, I've started composing in ways that avoids noise xD

Actually, I can send you the guitar tracks if you want to listen to them outside the whole song.

BTW, my guitar playing is actually fucking terrible. And since I have a 6 string guitar tuned to OPEN G (of all things), that means I don't have a lot of high notes, so I have to use pitch shifters all the time, this degrades the quality of the guitar raw track, but also gives it a very interesting touch.

Also my lowest string is flabby as fuck, because its unfretted note is only 3 semitones away from the E1 found on the bass guitar's 4th string.

I could have not told!
And I really was thinking you might be playing better than me too
You're a pretty damn good illusionist.

Well, the thing about a dense production like this is that you can hide a fuckton of things behind the mechanical drums + synth combo. And you can introduce some groove by playing like shit too so it's not all bad. Lead guitars actually add a lot of character here exactly because I played like shit, and because it contrasts teh machine-like nature of synths and drums.

BTW, guitars only version has finished rendering - this literally has only things I have played, spliced, pitch shifted, etc, there's no drums or synth in this. So you can hear how ugly it really is outside the mix.

https://www.hiveworkshop.com/pastebin/d03607d33573e2c152e56b16f36dee3814506/

It's quite OK man.
I see you keep the rhythm well in comparison to moi

I kind of actually like this version more xD

...or I am just good at quantizing and copy-pasting xD Most of the parts are moved to match the beat, and then spliced together to kinda sound like someone played that.

So, then you are a versed illusionist

That's what happens when the appeal of music making is not playing, but rather composing + producing. I just want to think of an idea, get over playing as soon as possible, then mix it in. I actually hate playing lulz.

It's work on all sides. Most painful it's the recording and playing until you get it right.

or you can just record a "kinda ok" performance and hack it together somehow xD

Yeah, but clipping has to be hid somehow else you can hear it as cheap samples. And that's extra work