Blind mix vote thread thing...

Liked D best. Thought the distortion on the kick on A was distracting, and if not for that, might have liked it best. Liked B the least.  That’s a fun tune!

g, made my comparison on the first 8 bars. D is the loudest w/dyamics. They're all about the same loudness. 

I'm thinking the trick is to be LOUD with dynamics on the last, loudest 3-6dB. Maybe less, I'm guessing. Let us know what you did after the poll!

Cool tune, dude.

Once I volume matched a little I liked B.

It has a warmth to it that I like on older records and I think that aesthetic fits this kind of song.

C was a pretty close second, sounds good and well blended, just a little more modern sounding.

A and D I thought were a little too bright and the elements too separated.

Lovely track!

My take is as follows:

A Top end slightly harsh, and bass end slightly overcooked.
B Better balance of low end.
C Best overall balance of kit, bass & other instruments and 'natural' sound - my favourite mix.
D Best vocal clarity, but overall a bit too bright for me.

One thing that threw me personally was the very band-limited snare sound, and the kick could come up a little.

Hope this helps!

Martin

I probably have the most "consumer" ears of anyone who has commented so far. I can't tell you anything other than which one I like best and it is a virtual tie between B and D. If I had to pick maybe B. But, B and D are the best sounding to me. Of course I like the tune. You and I have very similar tastes.

I'd pick B in this instance. Sounds the most natural and relaxed to my ears. C would be a close second.

A and D are too crispy/sizzly/scooped for my taste — the processing is more overt with these two.

FWIW, as I mentioned in the other thread, the differences aren't night and day or anything. This is definitely a matter of personal preference for sure.

Ok, so the results are in and the winner is Mix B by a fairly wide margin. That's interesting for reasons I'll say in a minute, I tried to lay a bit of a trap for you guys but most of you saw (heard?) right through it! This was a really fun exercise for me and one I might do again if you all don't mind. It's helpful because each of you really seemed to understand the sound I'm going for even without me explaining it. That's pretty much the opposite of 90% of people I know in real life where it's like "well, the thing is the harmonica is SUPPOSED to hurt your ears a bit... it's not meant to sound 'good' in that sense" or "yes I know I'm capable of playing a 'better' guitar part, but I didn't want this to be a song focused on lead guitars."

Anyway, on to the results!

Here's my summary of the feedback and the answer as to what was what. I'll start with the lowest vote getters.


Mix A - This was the least loved mix and I expected that based on the previous thread. The comments basically summarized it as scooped, hi-fi sounding (not in a good way), and overcooked. What's also interesting is that it managed to be both flabby and brittle at the same time to many people's ears.

And yet, I made this mix and like it at one point. Why? I think the result of the brain's tendency to like things that sound different. I mixed the whole thing really fast but then spent way too much time on the final tweaking and you really just can't stay objective that way.

Add into the fact that I have tendency to mix out the things that make my own music unique whereas with others I look for what makes them unique. I'm kind of like the anti-Rick Rubin for myself.

"What makes you different? Ok, let's get rid of that!"

It's a tendency I can get over now that I've identified it because I don't do that in my writing or performing, only in released music. Let's mark today as officially the day that I stop encouraging others to neuter my releases and stop doing it myself. 

So Mix A was the mix where I oversaturated the Silver Bullet while also recalibrating the Tegeler Creme to a setting that titled "standard + warmth" in my presets. Yeah, that's what it sounded like! Too much brittle high end saturation and too much boost in the low end.



Mix D - This one only got one vote but it got some love in the comments. I suspect it was a lot of people's second choice who selected Mix B. They're pretty similar as you'll see. For this mix I brought the saturation on the Silver Bullet back down to earth. The settings I was using worked really great for a project I had just finished where the singer had a polite voice with almost too much richness to it. That is not my voice, haha. 

I also dialed back the Presence boost on the Silver Bullet a bit (no db markings but I'd guess maybe 1.5 or 2 db). Pulling the pre-amp push way back in the SB resulted in less signal to the Tegeler. In addition, I went back to my original settings on the Tegeler for the low end. Moved the low shelf boost down from 60hz to about 35hz. 

Comments were mostly positive but one or two folks still felt there was too much separation between instruments. Makes sense since the compression was triggered less frequently on the Tegeler. 



Mix C - Lots of love for this one. This was the Silver Bullet bypassed mix. To me, I still immediately heard the things I hated about it to begin with which was a boxy tone. But I also heard what made people like it in the previous thread once I got over the desire to sanitize my sound. 

Maybe it's just my speakers and all of my headphones, but it just felt boxy to me. Ok, so it's probably my ears and how I hear things plus preferences. 

But what I loved was the natural feel of this mix which leads me to how we arrived at our winner, Mix B.


Mix B - Since this was the least hyped of the mixes, I tried to throw you guys off by putting it after the most hyped mix. But you didn't fall for it! This was the winner by a wide margin.

So after listening to Mix C, I realized that I could get what I liked about that mix but avoid the boxiness by (again) reducing the corner frequency on the Tegeler but also by reverting the Silver Bullet to the same EQ setting I used for two years. Very simple. Air button instead of Presence button. That let the midrange do a bit more of its own thing but it also de-hyped it in a way that could sound flat if you listened to it right after one of the mid-hot versions.

Interestingly, by doing that it also made the drums stick out in a not nice way. Opening up that upper mid room meant the drums no longer had to fight for attention in the 2k range so I also dialed back my RND 551's (drum bus) 2db on the 1.5khz. Which, incidentally, is how I had this particular EQ locked for recordings with this kit/room/style in the past. 

I changed it cuz... why? Different? Who knows.

Anyway, that's how we got to Mix B. 


To Get It Done

Now the question is how to get it releasable. It seems like all it needs is a bit of master bus love which means I can work with Mix B and then just be done with the damn thing. I don't mind going back to the mix if it's the right thing but kinda seems like the remaining issues are overall balance and glue. I might go back and listen to see if I need more ambience on any of the parts now that this thing is a bit less congested, but other than that I'm leaning towards some "at home fake mastering" to get this thing done.



What do you all think? 

I missed the voting but wanted to put my $.02 in anyway. I didn't read the thread until after listening.

Mix A: Crunchy, bright kinda flabby bottom (SB mix from yesterday?)

Mix B: More open, better detail. Easy to hear what each part is doing and where it’s placed. Better bass definition. Very pleasing listening experience. Shows off the production.

Mix C: Bright,but not as crunchy as A. Drums sound really processed, snare is a little papery, though present. Harmonica and guitar kind of fight for attention in the solo. Piano presence is different, more upper mid-range. The whole mix is upper mid-irangey.

MixD: Even more of the ‘mid-range focused’ feel. Feels very “make it stick out on a playlist” as opposed to serving the song. The lack of low-mid makes the bass sound uneven. Feels like what I imagine those plugins meant to simulate speakers would sound like when you hit the NS10 button.


I missed the voting, but MIX B by a mile!!!

Haha, great line.

Interesting about the drums sounding processed. Someone else made a comment about the snare sounding band-passed.

What actually happened is that my drummer and I massively overmuffled his snare drum not accounting for the fact that we were in an already fairly dry room. The drum sounded compressed even in the room. You know the sound. We went with it anyway cuz this wasn't really intended to be a "real" recording.

So there's very little processing on the snare itself although there is about 2b compression happening on the drum bus and some EQ on the same.

The background on these recordings (I've got two) is that the core instruments (piano/drums/bass) were all tracked live in our rehearsal room and this was intended merely as a "teaser" mostly just to have something to post on social media and something to help book gigs. But I also have a plan to "bootleg" our own stuff so I decided to just make it as good as I possibly could.

Did a one take overdub of electric, acoustic, and organ and then a couple passes of a lead vocal. No grids, no clicks, no pitch correction, etc. 

Lesson learned, next time I'll bring in my studio snare and save myself a lot of time in the mix!

Yeah, I have a bunch of snares in my main studio but I don't like leaving them around the rehearsal space for obvious reasons! 

I went with the dry sound but it's not what I was originally envisioning. Next time.

Is there a reason you wouldn’t want to spend $40-50 bucks to get a decent mastering job done after you’ve put so much effort? Doesn’t seem to make sense to do an ‘at home fake master’ after this much time and energy.