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Post by indiehouse on Mar 16, 2018 8:28:33 GMT -6
Hey dudes, I'm mixing a fem rock set and having trouble with a few stage mics. Everything sounds ok for the most part. This particular show had a choir perform on stage. I didn't track, but the sound guy set up 5 mics for the choir - 2 left, 2 right and 1 center. The 2 on each side are really different sounding mics. One is dark and muddy and the other sounds hi-passed to like 300 or something crazy. Sounds thin.
Anyways, the biggest challenge is the drum bleed. I'm getting more drums than choir. I don't know if the choir wasn't projecting or something. I'm thinking that they weren't real confident in the material (it was a one off show with minimal choir rehearsal), coupled with poor mic placement and inexperienced singers. If I compress, I can bring up the choir some, relevant to the drums. But then that makes the drums real smacky sounding, which could be cool at real low levels. But to really bring up the choir, I gotta bring that level up, which then gets that drum sound all up in my mix. That coupled with the slap delay effect you get by mic distance from the drums to the choir mics. Then, if I wanted any verb on the choir, that gets all over the drums (as well as everything else that's bleeding - gtr, main vx, bass) as well.
Any advice on how to deal?
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Post by swurveman on Mar 16, 2018 8:48:03 GMT -6
Can you bring the choir in and re-record them? Seems to me that's the best solution instead of trying to fix a horribly messed up tracking job.
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Post by Blackdawg on Mar 16, 2018 9:10:45 GMT -6
yeah if you can't get the choir retracked, Id flip the balance. Tuck the choir behind and around the set. The drums sound will be way more important. Use the choir as a slap/reverb for the drums.
If the client wants more drums explain the situation.
Another option if you have RX6 is to try and DeBleed it and then time align the drums with the choir mics. I've never had THAT good of success with the DeBleed feature..but worth a shot.
Time aligning them might be worth it unless its a huge difference.
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Post by M57 on Mar 16, 2018 9:12:24 GMT -6
This probably won't work because the bleed is not going to be time-aligned or in phase with the direct mics, but maybe you could invert a few of the direct mics and mix that with the chior mics with the idea of cancelling the most egregious drums?
Best is to re-record the chior if at all possible - it doesn't have to be all of them if you can use some of the original chior tracks
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Post by indiehouse on Mar 16, 2018 9:50:46 GMT -6
Re-recording is not an option. I don’t know these people. Just a couple of peeps in the band who hired me to mix (and film the set). I’m a hired gun. I might try duplicating kick/snare tracks and align them with choir mics, then flip the phase to see if I get any cancellation. That sounds interesting.
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Post by Blackdawg on Mar 16, 2018 10:23:43 GMT -6
Even just time aligning the kick and snare to a pair of the choir mics would help. Id also do that, just use 2 mics if you can of of the choir. Pick the best two and run with it.
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Post by christopher on Mar 16, 2018 10:48:29 GMT -6
It probably won't work but I would try make a ducker on the choir that is triggered by drums. If it's too choppy, then bury it in a wash of short delays and reverbs to smear the ducked parts, play with panning. Best of luck.
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 16, 2018 11:15:33 GMT -6
Have you actually asked the people you know in the band if retracking the choir is possible? Perhaps invite them over and play the existing choir tracks for them?
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Post by indiehouse on Mar 16, 2018 13:46:35 GMT -6
Have you actually asked the people you know in the band if retracking the choir is possible? Perhaps invite them over and play the existing choir tracks for them? That's not gonna happen, unfortunately. I understand that there was some tension between the band and the choir director. The band wanted more rehearsal time than the choir director wanted to give. In the end, I think they just got a couple of hours the night before and day of the show.
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Post by svart on Mar 16, 2018 13:51:50 GMT -6
Are there close mic'd drums? (EDIT: I see you mention snare and kick tracks so I assume so..)
You can do a drum submix and feed that into the sidechain of your choir track compressor to try to duck the drums out of the choir mix. You can EQ the sidechain some to try to isolate the worst offending regions. Super fast attack and vary the release to not pump so much.
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Post by schmalzy on Mar 16, 2018 15:27:12 GMT -6
Are there close mic'd drums? (EDIT: I see you mention snare and kick tracks so I assume so..) You can do a drum submix and feed that into the sidechain of your choir track compressor to try to duck the drums out of the choir mix. You can EQ the sidechain some to try to isolate the worst offending regions. Super fast attack and vary the release to not pump so much. I was thinking of something like this, too. I use a limiter to make the snares less pokey and transient heavy in the overheads when it's just too much. Maybe sidechaining a compressor to kick/snare would help here by softening the attack of the drums. Maybe multiband compressor sidechained to kick and snare could help the midrange of the vocals stay untouched when it's ducking the kick and help push down cymbals but leave lows and mids steady when cymbals get out of hand? Good luck, indiehouse!
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Post by notneeson on Mar 16, 2018 18:52:07 GMT -6
Tough one. You could try using transient designer to pull attack out of the drums in the choir mics, see if it helps the balance without stepping all over the choir.
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Post by EmRR on Mar 16, 2018 21:04:48 GMT -6
I'll bet on the best result being a mix of every option you can think of, each just barely doing anything, all adding up to something larger.
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Post by jazznoise on Mar 17, 2018 2:54:54 GMT -6
I'll bet on the best result being a mix of every option you can think of, each just barely doing anything, all adding up to something larger. Yeah, a lot of small moves would be the way to go. Series and parallel compression on the choir mics to improve the balance, probably some dynamic EQ and some ducking. Hope for the best, but I think it's important in these scenarios that people manage their expectations. It's past the point of prevention and if they can't fix it by retracking the choir then it's down to the laws of physics.
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Post by spindrift on Mar 17, 2018 19:10:55 GMT -6
And don’t beat yourself up over a crappy set of tracks/performance either. It is what it is and there’s only so much one can do.
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Post by johneppstein on Mar 17, 2018 20:49:53 GMT -6
Have you actually asked the people you know in the band if retracking the choir is possible? Perhaps invite them over and play the existing choir tracks for them? That's not gonna happen, unfortunately. I understand that there was some tension between the band and the choir director. The band wanted more rehearsal time than the choir director wanted to give. In the end, I think they just got a couple of hours the night before and day of the show. Any chance of going around the director and talking to the members themselves? Or it the director simply won't co-operate, ditch his choir and hire another to dub the parts? What's the guy's problem and why is he acting unprofessionally over an issue that could kill the project?
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Post by Blackdawg on Mar 18, 2018 20:12:31 GMT -6
And don’t beat yourself up over a crappy set of tracks/performance either. It is what it is and there’s only so much one can do. So much this.
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Post by Tbone81 on Mar 18, 2018 20:55:29 GMT -6
This might have been mentioned already but maybe a dynamic eq on the choir, with a sidechain fed from the drum bus. Might help remove some unwanted frequencies.
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Post by svart on Mar 19, 2018 9:31:36 GMT -6
And don’t beat yourself up over a crappy set of tracks/performance either. It is what it is and there’s only so much one can do. So much this. Except that no matter what, the last person who touches it is always the one who gets blamed, unless its the mastering guy, then it's still the mixer's fault.
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Post by spindrift on Mar 19, 2018 10:49:43 GMT -6
Except that no matter what, the last person who touches it is always the one who gets blamed, unless its the mastering guy, then it's still the mixer's fault. I know. I’m not saying this is IndieHouse’s situation, but I tend to take mixing personally and then beat myself up when it still sounds like crap after 3-4 hours of surgery...then the next project comes in and it sounds amazing by just pushing faders up. There is SO much to be said by who what and how it was tracked when it comes to mix time. And I understand that Indie is trying his best to salvage an already compromised recording...hence the question. My comment is as much a reminder to myself as it is a caution to others. I watched Ed Cherney and Don Was track Jose James and his band live in Capitol Studio B last weekend. You walk out in the studio and it already sounds amazing! Ed kept saying that it’s super easy when you have these players and their instruments....and he is right! But you still have to know your stuffs to capture that all properly.
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Post by notneeson on Mar 19, 2018 11:05:49 GMT -6
Except that no matter what, the last person who touches it is always the one who gets blamed, unless its the mastering guy, then it's still the mixer's fault. I know. I’m not saying this is IndieHouse’s situation, but I tend to take mixing personally and then beat myself up when it still sounds like crap after 3-4 hours of surgery...then the next project comes in and it sounds amazing by just pushing faders up. There is SO much to be said by who what and how it was tracked when it comes to mix time. And I understand that Indie is trying his best to salvage an already compromised recording...hence the question. My comment is as much a reminder to myself as it is a caution to others. I watched Ed Cherney and Don Was track Jose James and his band live in Capitol Studio B last weekend. You walk out in the studio and it already sounds amazing! Ed kept saying that it’s super easy when you have these players and their instruments....and he is right! But you still have to know your stuffs to capture that all properly. I setup a session for my partner who is producing, got sounds, then came back in later in the project to mix at his request. Long story short the artist authorized my mix work but then got cold feet after the fact, wants to use his guy even though he's happy with the overall sound. So, I'm still getting paid, but it doesn't sit right with me. Why? Ego, pain and simple. It's annoying to work hard on something, do a good job (no one is debating this part), and be thwarted by external factors. It is also a regular occurrence in this business.
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Post by indiehouse on Mar 20, 2018 7:42:37 GMT -6
And don’t beat yourself up over a crappy set of tracks/performance either. It is what it is and there’s only so much one can do. Yeah, for sure! That's kind of where I landed with it. I mean, even if I could go back and retrack, I'm only getting paid so much for this gig. Unfortunately, turning chicken shit into chicken salad wasn't in my budget. If only there was a plugin for that.
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Post by indiehouse on Mar 20, 2018 7:50:59 GMT -6
Except that no matter what, the last person who touches it is always the one who gets blamed, unless its the mastering guy, then it's still the mixer's fault. And this is exactly the other side of it. I hate having my name attached to less than stellar work. Reputation is vital, and when people listen back, they aren't going to say, "gee, that sound guy didn't place that mic properly." Nope. The buck stops here. So, I gotta walk the balance between what I'm getting paid, the hours I'm putting into it, and what I'm willing to have attached to my name. This is largely audio for video (there is a dance troupe component going on while the band is performing), so I'm not producing an album (even though it's an hour long set). So, I kinda feel there is some room to fumble. But it's a tough pill for me to swallow.
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Post by Blackdawg on Mar 20, 2018 8:14:45 GMT -6
Except that no matter what, the last person who touches it is always the one who gets blamed, unless its the mastering guy, then it's still the mixer's fault. And this is exactly the other side of it. I hate having my name attached to less than stellar work. Reputation is vital, and when people listen back, they aren't going to say, "gee, that sound guy didn't place that mic properly." Nope. The buck stops here. So, I gotta walk the balance between what I'm getting paid, the hours I'm putting into it, and what I'm willing to have attached to my name. This is largely audio for video (there is a dance troupe component going on while the band is performing), so I'm not producing an album (even though it's an hour long set). So, I kinda feel there is some room to fumble. But it's a tough pill for me to swallow. always tough to swallow that pill..But do able.
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Post by svart on Mar 20, 2018 8:19:46 GMT -6
Except that no matter what, the last person who touches it is always the one who gets blamed, unless its the mastering guy, then it's still the mixer's fault. And this is exactly the other side of it. I hate having my name attached to less than stellar work. Reputation is vital, and when people listen back, they aren't going to say, "gee, that sound guy didn't place that mic properly." Nope. The buck stops here. So, I gotta walk the balance between what I'm getting paid, the hours I'm putting into it, and what I'm willing to have attached to my name. This is largely audio for video (there is a dance troupe component going on while the band is performing), so I'm not producing an album (even though it's an hour long set). So, I kinda feel there is some room to fumble. But it's a tough pill for me to swallow. Agreed, and kind of where I was going with my statement. It's hard to work on things that pay, but will be seen as "less than stellar" work because in this industry, word-of-mouth is the most powerful advertisement you can have. Unhappy customers, no matter what the true issue is, aren't going to mentioning you to others and may even tell others to steer clear of you. it's a tough decision to make when you're not a "name" that can get work and screw up once in a while and still get work.
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