After listening to my mix today in my car, (the ultimate monitor,) I want to make another pass with a little bit less kick and some de-ess on the vocal.
There's something weird going on with this mix on my laptop. I'm using DP8, and usually offline bounce down to stereo once the mix is done. But with this mix, (my first with thunderbolt Apollo Twin and t-bolt satellite Octo,) The computer goes critical when I offline bounce and bogs down to a crawl, taking hour+ to bounce a 5 minute song. I ran the mix down live to a stereo audio track instead. There must be some issue I'm not aware of happening with this setup at this time.
M57 You asked for some mix critic. Its all taste depended, so no offending here, just my taste.
1. Kick drum. To me for a folk song your kick has a to big transient. I would pull out top end as well as taking down the transient. I miss some 30 HZ ooonmph in the kick, just a tat of it - that I can feel it rather than hearing it.
2. Base You mixed Base Guitar over Kick, I like when both get meshed up and glue together as once. Most often both get some low end EQ. My goal is that kick and base act more felt - as heard.
3. I like your snare sound, I would just use a more natural space for the verb.
4. Lead vocal is too one dimensional, try some 30-40 ms stereo delay in front of the reverb.
5. I loved your cymbal sound. They are the pain in my ass in my mix. I do not get them right.... you nailed them....tell me....
In General. I miss depth and dimension in your mix, and maybe this is the hardest part in learning how to mix. I still learn every day, and it never stops, because every mix is different.
Was your gain-staging proper?? If not sounds get small, special ITB.
Once again my advise is to make extensive use of Magic AB. If you do not have it... buy it. Magic AB is my life saver.
Ok, so even though I didn't have the time for it, I got really curious about this song and I gave it a go in between today's schedule. First, I'll echo everyone and say: amazing voice, man!! Nice song, very well tracked.. All I missed was something to help the payoff of the chorus, arrangement-wise.
Regarding the mix, I didn't have time to listen to any other mixes, so I just hope I don't make a fool out of myself! And if I do, I hope to learn something from it. RMS should be about right, but i didn't print the rough, so i could really compare..
It was really fun mixing it. I don't get to mix this genre often and I really enjoyed it. At times, I found myself just listening to the music. Niiice!!
M57 You asked for some mix critic. Its all taste depended, so no offending here, just my taste.
1. Kick drum. To me for a folk song your kick has a to big transient. I would pull out top end as well as taking down the transient. I miss some 30 HZ ooonmph in the kick, just a tat of it - that I can feel it rather than hearing it.
2. Base You mixed Base Guitar over Kick, I like when both get meshed up and glue together as once. Most often both get some low end EQ. My goal is that kick and base act more felt - as heard.
3. I like your snare sound, I would just use a more natural space for the verb.
4. Lead vocal is too one dimensional, try some 30-40 ms stereo delay in front of the reverb.
5. I loved your cymbal sound. They are the pain in my ass in my mix. I do not get them right.... you nailed them....tell me....
In General. I miss depth and dimension in your mix, and maybe this is the hardest part in learning how to mix. I still learn every day, and it never stops, because every mix is different.
Was your gain-staging proper?? If not sounds get small, special ITB.
Once again my advise is to make extensive use of Magic AB. If you do not have it... buy it. Magic AB is my life saver.
mrholmes, Thank you SO much for giving it such a critical listen. I'm taking most all of your suggestions to heart.
1. Kick: Yes, it is a genre thing, and I pretty much agree that the Kick is too big. I assume when you say transient you are talking about the way that it spikes the meters more than anything else. I rolled of the bottom, so I'm sure there's probably nothing at 30 hz. Do I really need to move air down there? I mean, that's a lot of energy that you don't hear - and as you say, it's folk.
2. Bass: when you say I mixed the bass 'over' the kick, you're talking about EQ wise, right? Yes, I did that intentionally - I read somewhere recently that this is a good thing because it let's each find it's place in the mix, so I thought I'd give it a try. There are some things I like about it, but if I'm understanding you correctly, I can also see the advantage of blending them, so to speak.
3. Snare: I like the snare sound too, but I wish it was a little more forward in the mix; I'm not entirely sure how to do that - partly because of the cymbal sound that I'll get to later.
4. Vocal - I went for au naturale (light EQ and compression with just a dash of verb sauce) with some reservations. My thinking was that dry would stand out and in front of all the other more processed stuff.
Cymbals: My 'secret' technique for cymbals was to color the tom mics (which were bleeding big time with everything) with the cymbals in mind, knowing that I was barely going to use them anyway. Then I'm pretty sure it was a matter or fiddling with them in conjunction with the ride ...and hat mic, which was really close to the crash. Really, I felt like it was a balancing/blending act where the sweet spot was the spot that 'avoided' all the individual 'problems' the most.
I can't really tell you if my gain staging was proper, 'cause I don't know what 'proper' is. I can tell you that the channel faders are quite aways from parity, with the exception of the lead vocal, which is pretty close with the occasional automation that takes it up above 0.0 db for a few moments hear and there.
Thanks again - great comments and awesome suggestions.
Man, does it sound different than the others! I must have used more toys to cover up my deficiencies. I did not know what to do with those tom tracks; I gated the snot out of one and dramatically EQed the other for sonic character, using both quite lightly.
It is different from the others so far.. and thats a really cool thing.
I keep saying it, but, each of these mixes , makes me see the strengths and weakness in the song. Great learning experience for me.
This mix is really interesting from the point that most of the stuff is centre and centre left.
When the song first playing, I felt for sure, the Les Paul Solo, would appear on the RHS , but it was left.
Interesting to hear the drums up the centre as well.
I thought the toms balance, for most of the song was good... Tom errors still there though.. 8)
I thought the bass and kick level were good for each other, perhaps a little hot.
I thought the backing vox levels were great!
I thought the hats were hot, and a bit pointy.
A lot of reverb and that gives it a cool vibe, but perhaps a little cloudy (HPF perhaps? dunno)
The artist in me, would like the solo guitar panned RHS if I was sitting next to you... 8)
I am a broken record... each mix, makes me hear the song differently....
First thing, this one is reversed pan... which is always a good way to hear the song differently.
I thought the treatment of the Les Paul Solo, with the depth it got, was really cool and spooky, and just about perfect.
I thought the softness of the bass guitar, was great and I really dug that.
I thought the placement and depth of the snare was really cool, at the start.. and then I was waiting for it to come to the front in the first or second chorus, which would have been unreal...and here is the thing, this is a great example of how someone mixes something in a way, I just probably wouldnt have tried, but as soon as I hear it I think " man ... thats a cool thing and I could use it artistically like this......" unreal stuff...
Wide drums.... probably too wide for me.
Toms prob still there.... 8)
I also thought the vocal was probably a couple dB too hot.
but really cool, and as I said... I got plenty out of it, as I have of everyone elses...
Damn, gonna cost me a few drinks in the states I plumb reckon..
thanks again... its so wonderful people are putting in time on this...I will return the favour for each and everyone of you if you ever want me to.
Ok, so even though I didn't have the time for it, I got really curious about this song and I gave it a go in between today's schedule. First, I'll echo everyone and say: amazing voice, man!! Nice song, very well tracked.. All I missed was something to help the payoff of the chorus, arrangement-wise.
Regarding the mix, I didn't have time to listen to any other mixes, so I just hope I don't make a fool out of myself! And if I do, I hope to learn something from it. RMS should be about right, but i didn't print the rough, so i could really compare..
It was really fun mixing it. I don't get to mix this genre often and I really enjoyed it. At times, I found myself just listening to the music. Niiice!!
thanks so much for asking about my daughter Rikki, she is doing really great thanks.
Back at 2 of her 3 part time jobs, and is back to university in July. She is driving again, and apart from an overprotective father 8) she is doing great.
She and I actually worked at the same place last Friday night and I was proud as punch. I was playing in the band , and she was working in the restaurant section, we got a photo taken together.. my little girl working at the same place as me... and I didn't even embarrass her 8) much...8)
Again, I got something creative out of this.. delays.
It shows that the song could use something, in that area to help the song shine.
I really liked the snare sound in this mix... care to elaborate?
I liked how you moved the Les Paul Solo to the LHS for that section, that was good mixing I reckon...I was surprised no one had done that before.
Good overall balance of things in this.. and pretty close to how I would put them..
Just the backing vox a little too hot.
great stuff and thanks for asking about Rikki, means a lot.
Here is my revision take on it with the following changes.
1. I did try to make all the changes mentioned by Wiz. I hope its better than in the first round.
2. To my taste, weather I replace the snare or I use the original one. Its some kind of disturbing in this song. I decided to put the snare way back into the drum room.
3. Good to listen a few days later to the mix again. I pulled the lead vocals a few dbs down and took out some S sharpens around 3 khz.
4. I had to kill some of the Ride-hits because they are too much for my taste, and some are inconsistent played. I would have fought with them forever in the mix. I gave my best for a compromise.
5. Took of some 3-4 khz at the Slide-Guitar which made it more pleasing to the ears.
7. I am very happy with the low end now it glues more together. I did hit the tape sim on the mixbus a little harder.
6. May some of you hear that this version of the mix sounds more open, airy and vibey. May some of you think I have used EQ. I did not.
Here is the background story to this:
Yesterday evening I read in SOS an article about the SLATE VCC. To my surprise the writer mentioned that he measured the VCC, and he not only found massive HF crosstalk, even a lot of HF phase issues. I was even more surprised that Developer Fabrice told the writer „that this have been measured on the original console too“
I knew that Chris of Airwindows did not simulated the cornstalk in his Console3 Plug In. But I use it, and I like it for its 50 bucks. I was curious if I can change something about this.
Here is what I did. I opened up an AUX named X TALK I did put an EQ on which had more HF than LF energy and I did use the Freebie-Klanghelm IVIG with its X TALK button cranked, set the saturation low down. Every channel got a tiny little bit of this. This channel is playing low down at −80 in the highs up to −90 dbfs. That was good, but not good enough it still sounded a bit lifeless and not airy like on my console.
I used HF-Spread on the mix bus. With it I get my HF- phase issues simulated! It opens up the mix in a light and pleasing way. Very close to what I know from the A+H console. I do like this openness
Now it sounds more connected, its subtle but its there.
PS: To my surprise thats the first ITB mix which I really like. It translates well also in my car, it sounds good on my old 80s blaster.... cool.
Very cool of you to take a second go at this. 8)
I think the balances are good, the mix is hot... but once I account for that the balances are good, except the snare, I will get to that 8)
I think the mix is better... better is the wrong word... implies the other was worse... this mix I like more... hows that ? 8)
except, the cymbal editing you have done.
I will be straight, I couldnt let this mix go like that. Its quite distracting.
It does however , illustrate to me what you are trying to do.. so thats awesome.
You would need to Edit the drums to achieve it.. actually I am kinda surprised someone hasn't done it so far 8)
You use logic, and the song is cut to a click.
Group the drums, phase lock them and then cut em up and move them around.. find sections of 4 bars that work they way you want cut and paste and then slip edit and cross fade them to make them work.. its what I would do... 8)
That will kill what you don't like about the drums I played, and get a passable out the door mix.
Hope that makes sense, and comes across okay as I know English isn't your first language, please don't read it as mean spirited or derogatory.
again, cool stuff and thanks so much for the efforts
cheers
Wiz
Edit
I forgot to mention the snare... 8)
The snare is a bit to far back, and kinda sounds like a shallower snare than what it is (6 1/2 inch black beauty) which is interesting, in that it sounds like quite a shallow drum now, but its too soft 8)
cheers again
Edit Wiz
Last Edit: May 12, 2015 19:20:50 GMT -6 by wiz: I forgot to get to the snare part again... 8)
Here is my revision take on it with the following changes.
1. I did try to make all the changes mentioned by Wiz. I hope its better than in the first round.
2. To my taste, weather I replace the snare or I use the original one. Its some kind of disturbing in this song. I decided to put the snare way back into the drum room.
3. Good to listen a few days later to the mix again. I pulled the lead vocals a few dbs down and took out some S sharpens around 3 khz.
4. I had to kill some of the Ride-hits because they are too much for my taste, and some are inconsistent played. I would have fought with them forever in the mix. I gave my best for a compromise.
5. Took of some 3-4 khz at the Slide-Guitar which made it more pleasing to the ears.
7. I am very happy with the low end now it glues more together. I did hit the tape sim on the mixbus a little harder.
6. May some of you hear that this version of the mix sounds more open, airy and vibey. May some of you think I have used EQ. I did not.
Here is the background story to this:
Yesterday evening I read in SOS an article about the SLATE VCC. To my surprise the writer mentioned that he measured the VCC, and he not only found massive HF crosstalk, even a lot of HF phase issues. I was even more surprised that Developer Fabrice told the writer „that this have been measured on the original console too“
I knew that Chris of Airwindows did not simulated the cornstalk in his Console3 Plug In. But I use it, and I like it for its 50 bucks. I was curious if I can change something about this.
Here is what I did. I opened up an AUX named X TALK I did put an EQ on which had more HF than LF energy and I did use the Freebie-Klanghelm IVIG with its X TALK button cranked, set the saturation low down. Every channel got a tiny little bit of this. This channel is playing low down at −80 in the highs up to −90 dbfs. That was good, but not good enough it still sounded a bit lifeless and not airy like on my console.
I used HF-Spread on the mix bus. With it I get my HF- phase issues simulated! It opens up the mix in a light and pleasing way. Very close to what I know from the A+H console. I do like this openness
Now it sounds more connected, its subtle but its there.
PS: To my surprise thats the first ITB mix which I really like. It translates well also in my car, it sounds good on my old 80s blaster.... cool.
I was pretty surprised your mix ended so quickly... :-) This said, i forgot to remove noise there, not better.... ;-) I like the lowend *alot* better than in your first version. Also the snare finds it's place *much* better in the new mix. If i understood it correctly, you didn't replace it with a sample in the end because you thought it wouldn't sound right anyway? I am pretty sure this time it's not my ear, but directly before wiz' voice kicks in the first time, it sounds not quite right for me, almost like a short drop out, is this a compressor setting thing? Or maybe i need a new pair of ears really, not impossible...o.O Overall, it sounds much better to me, a nice balance, although totally different from what i did. Therefore i guess it translates better. Cool that you took the time to explain in detail, what you did in your mix. Interesting. Btw. I tried the IVGI and was surprised how good it sounds...now resides in my vst folder for longer.
Here is my revision take on it with the following changes.
1. I did try to make all the changes mentioned by Wiz. I hope its better than in the first round.
2. To my taste, weather I replace the snare or I use the original one. Its some kind of disturbing in this song. I decided to put the snare way back into the drum room.
3. Good to listen a few days later to the mix again. I pulled the lead vocals a few dbs down and took out some S sharpens around 3 khz.
4. I had to kill some of the Ride-hits because they are too much for my taste, and some are inconsistent played. I would have fought with them forever in the mix. I gave my best for a compromise.
5. Took of some 3-4 khz at the Slide-Guitar which made it more pleasing to the ears.
7. I am very happy with the low end now it glues more together. I did hit the tape sim on the mixbus a little harder.
6. May some of you hear that this version of the mix sounds more open, airy and vibey. May some of you think I have used EQ. I did not.
Here is the background story to this:
Yesterday evening I read in SOS an article about the SLATE VCC. To my surprise the writer mentioned that he measured the VCC, and he not only found massive HF crosstalk, even a lot of HF phase issues. I was even more surprised that Developer Fabrice told the writer „that this have been measured on the original console too“
I knew that Chris of Airwindows did not simulated the cornstalk in his Console3 Plug In. But I use it, and I like it for its 50 bucks. I was curious if I can change something about this.
Here is what I did. I opened up an AUX named X TALK I did put an EQ on which had more HF than LF energy and I did use the Freebie-Klanghelm IVIG with its X TALK button cranked, set the saturation low down. Every channel got a tiny little bit of this. This channel is playing low down at −80 in the highs up to −90 dbfs. That was good, but not good enough it still sounded a bit lifeless and not airy like on my console.
I used HF-Spread on the mix bus. With it I get my HF- phase issues simulated! It opens up the mix in a light and pleasing way. Very close to what I know from the A+H console. I do like this openness
Now it sounds more connected, its subtle but its there.
PS: To my surprise thats the first ITB mix which I really like. It translates well also in my car, it sounds good on my old 80s blaster.... cool.
I was pretty surprised your mix ended so quickly... :-) This said, i forgot to remove noise there, not better.... ;-) I like the lowend *alot* better than in your first version. Also the snare finds it's place *much* better in the new mix. If i understood it correctly, you didn't replace it with a sample in the end because you thought it wouldn't sound right anyway? I am pretty sure this time it's not my ear, but directly before wiz' voice kicks in the first time, it sounds not quite right for me, almost like a short drop out, is this a compressor setting thing? Or maybe i need a new pair of ears really, not impossible...o.O Overall, it sounds much better to me, a nice balance, although totally different from what i did. Therefore i guess it translates better. Cool that you took the time to explain in detail, what you did in your mix. Interesting. Btw. I tried the IVGI and was surprised how good it sounds...now resides in my vst folder for longer.
jupp was to lazy to cut the tape his out manually, I do like it.... but its Wiz Song and Yi want him to be happy in the end. Even if it is a just for fun mix..... Yes its very intresting what you can learn for your ITB mixing skills when reading measuert specs of expensive consoles. Without the SOS article I would have never learned that an 4k SSL does ads phase issues to the HF region. To me it explains a lot why we say that consoles sound more like glued together.
Call me crazy, but try for yourself ....when I aded the HF spread, which works with phase, I had the impression the low end benfits from this. I have no explanation for it....
This is the first ITB mix that sets me in doubt about my rack full of HW. I was surprised how good it sounded!
Have to say my ITB mixes have been 44.1 If 96 makes any diffrence ?
Last Edit: May 12, 2015 20:17:34 GMT -6 by mrholmes
As I go over my notes and listen to the other mixes, it makes me want to go back and twiddle some knobs on mine. But I have some questions..
As you can see in my notes (just a few posts up from this one), I'm really focused on the EQ 'ambiance' of the mix. They're ALL significantly different. Sometimes I like mine, and sometimes I don't. Can someone possibly comment on what's creating all these differences? I don't doubt that it's a combination of things like equalization, verbs, compression, but I'm curious to hear people's opinion on what the dominant factors are, and if they can identify them specifically by listening to these different mixes.
Why does everyone practically hard-pan that acoustic guitar? I can't say I'm a huge fan of these super wide stages. I may try and widen mine a tad, but I have to admit I like a tighter stage. Any thoughts on this?
I can easily explain how it came to my "papery", bright, wide-staged type if mix with quite some eq decisions others would probably not make. /edit: Once upon the time...(ok, it got longer than i wanted.../end edit): For longer, i mixed alot in Sonar and never was really satisfied. It got a bit better with their console emu thing in Sonar X1-3 pro channel. So i was curious about Harrison Mixbus and for me it's the shit for mixing ITB. Actually made me so excited about mixing OTB again, cause it just feels like this. The tool and it's limitations makes much of the sound of my mix. I concentrated on what i wanted to achieve with the mix and what i thought it could be. I sat everything exactly as of wiz's instructions and mixed from there. Therefore my mix is hard panned just the overheads 45 exactly in mixbus. I did not change pan because i actually already liked the rough mix. After i got the drums&bass working with just eq and volume adjustment, i went to the acoustic and was surprised how quiet it was, i wanted to make it sound shimmering and light and a bit fragile, pling, and actually liked it. It had some soft rock, pop quality to me, not like folk, country, rock or blues stuff. From there i got the idea to give this mix not a dark but bright and good mood pop type of hifi quality without beeing pop. Like building up a nice tension between sound, the song meaning and wiz's voice that is so rich and has this excellent fragility with melancholic expression at the same time. It was very tempting, because the harrison eq's sounded excellent doing this, and it worked for me. The console emulation does this wide stage thing very easily, in Sonar it would take an extra stereo widener to achieve this and has to be done with caution to not sound totally overdone. I do alot of eqing in mixbus like i would do live mixing, fast, quite intuitive and by ear no analyzer behind the eq etc... Also this time. Quite different than in other DAWs. It definitely was the cheapest most valuable tool i bought in the last years in terms of software. I would have needed at least twice as long to mix this in Sonar with a ton of plugins with having less fun and would not be as OK as i am with the outcome. After eqing and static volume adjustment i totally felt no need for any compression or limiting, the needed stuff was already done in the rough tracks wiz provided to us. I wanted to leave it completely open.Well, he left some stuff in for us on purpose, and he is totally right, for a commercial product i definitely should have removed at least the noise obvious at the end of my mix. Took maybe 4 hours overall without any time pressure, where listening, thinking about how i want it to sound in the end and fine tune balancing volumes in the end took most of the time. Listened to it in the studio today and am pretty reliefed it does sound as OK for me on the K&Hs as at home, that's not always the case when i mixed something at home, the tascams i have there are a bit limited in quality. Btw. my own private mixes mostly end up sounding very dark. I am working on this. But wiz voice made me smile when i listened to the rough mix, and maybe that's why i mixed this song like i did. What surprised me, is, it got quite more positive feedback than i expected, i was aware of, that it is very different to what wiz sounds like if he mixes himself and probably what most customers in this genre of music probably would expect. Also i am not the hero with verbs and try to keep it simple, work with limitations on purpose to stay focused on the sound vision i have and don't get lost in possibilities. I would not have been surprised to get some hard critics (like the blues brothers at the country venue...) I like every bit of critics like mrholmes comments on my verbs and wiz' view on the mix. I learn alot from each comment in these discussions and the workflows and decisions of others in their mixes. Very valuable. Many things to think about and try out by myself....
Ok, so even though I didn't have the time for it, I got really curious about this song and I gave it a go in between today's schedule. First, I'll echo everyone and say: amazing voice, man!! Nice song, very well tracked.. All I missed was something to help the payoff of the chorus, arrangement-wise.
Regarding the mix, I didn't have time to listen to any other mixes, so I just hope I don't make a fool out of myself! And if I do, I hope to learn something from it. RMS should be about right, but i didn't print the rough, so i could really compare..
It was really fun mixing it. I don't get to mix this genre often and I really enjoyed it. At times, I found myself just listening to the music. Niiice!!
thanks so much for asking about my daughter Rikki, she is doing really great thanks.
Back at 2 of her 3 part time jobs, and is back to university in July. She is driving again, and apart from an overprotective father 8) she is doing great.
She and I actually worked at the same place last Friday night and I was proud as punch. I was playing in the band , and she was working in the restaurant section, we got a photo taken together.. my little girl working at the same place as me... and I didn't even embarrass her 8) much...8)
Again, I got something creative out of this.. delays.
It shows that the song could use something, in that area to help the song shine.
I really liked the snare sound in this mix... care to elaborate?
I liked how you moved the Les Paul Solo to the LHS for that section, that was good mixing I reckon...I was surprised no one had done that before.
Good overall balance of things in this.. and pretty close to how I would put them..
Just the backing vox a little too hot.
great stuff and thanks for asking about Rikki, means a lot.
cheers
Wiz
Hi there Wiz!
That was fast!! Great to hear Rikki is doing fine! I'm a father too and I could only imagine what it would be like to be in your shoes... Tough for sure. Fifth time lucky, man. Go give her another hug if she lets you..
Here's a pic of minime at the studio..
Back to the mix. Thanks for your kind words! It feels like a huge pad on the back.. Thanks.
The delay was a happy mistake, i guess. I had set it for the chorus and when i got to the verse, it jumped out. so, it was just a matter of automating it to help the lyrics ("beat", "empty house", ping pong on the "come and go", "on and on"..)
I'm not at the studio, so this is off the top of my head. I remember taming some 400/450 ringing on the snare. A tad EQ (some 12k, 1,6k and perhaps a little 200 with the hp on) with a 1073 (waves one), and a needle kissing 1176 rev A (waves as well). Reverb is valhalla room.
The BV were purposefully a bit hot. To try to embiggen (to quote Jebediah Springfield) the beginning of the chorus. It does spoil the intimate sphere of the song, though.
Anyhow, thanks for letting us participate in this. It's really helpful and educational to have your mixes examined by judicious ears!
1. Kick: Yes, it is a genre thing, and I pretty much agree that the Kick is too big. I assume when you say transient you are talking about the way that it spikes the meters more than anything else. I rolled of the bottom, so I'm sure there's probably nothing at 30 hz. Do I really need to move air down there? I mean, that's a lot of energy that you don't hear - and as you say, it's folk.
You say spike, there is to much attack. Try a transient designer to tame the attack down. Than lower the HF stuff and give around 30 Hz + 1 or 2 db gain. I like it if the Kick is more low down, not like in techno-music, but you can feel it a little in your stomach. Its like playing in a band if I find a good spot in the room, without modes, I can fell the kick rather than hearing it. I like this feeling when the kick is in the mud. Listen to some 80s mixes very often th kick is very silent mixed. Or is more felt as heard. Its just my taste try it.
Here you can see what I did to the kick drum. Signal flow is left to right.
2. Bass: when you say I mixed the bass 'over' the kick, you're talking about EQ wise, right? Yes, I did that intentionally - I read somewhere recently that this is a good thing because it let's each find it's place in the mix, so I thought I'd give it a try. There are some things I like about it, but if I'm understanding you correctly, I can also see the advantage of blending them, so to speak.
I find those tips missleading. I read those generalizations on GS too. And it never was in the end what I wanted. Some day my brain told me that its stupid. If I arrange music the base - is the base range. Think of an orchestra the composer cant EQ the base over Timpani. The base range is the fundamental ground we can build the mix on. I try to blend them together. They build the low end... and not one is high and one is low. The base in "Fool me once" was already more felt than heard due to my distortion harmonics... there was no need to EQ around 30 Hz. But I do it very often, special when someone uses a cheap china E-Base.
3. Snare: I like the snare sound too, but I wish it was a little more forward in the mix; I'm not entirely sure how to do that - partly because of the cymbal sound that I'll get to later.
Normally you can give a snare a good amount of artificial harmonics. Often it saves you from using EQ. Too much harmonics, like in my first take, will make the snare sound stressful to the ear.
4. Vocal - I went for au naturale (light EQ and compression with just a dash of verb sauce) with some reservations. My thinking was that dry would stand out and in front of all the other more processed stuff.
I did not use any compression on the vocal because it was already compressed by Wiz. My feeling is, depending on the stile of music, compression on the lead vocal can ruin the song.
Cymbals: My 'secret' technique for cymbals was to color the tom mics (which were bleeding big time with everything) with the cymbals in mind, knowing that I was barely going to use them anyway. Then I'm pretty sure it was a matter or fiddling with them in conjunction with the ride ...and hat mic, which was really close to the crash. Really, I felt like it was a balancing/blending act where the sweet spot was the spot that 'avoided' all the individual 'problems' the most.
Clever Workaround. I was too stupid to do it that way.
I can't really tell you if my gain staging was proper, 'cause I don't know what 'proper' is. I can tell you that the channel faders are quite aways from parity, with the exception of the lead vocal, which is pretty close with the occasional automation that takes it up above 0.0 db for a few moments hear and there.
Thanks again - great comments and awesome suggestions.
Gainstagin is when mixing super important. ITB its even more important, because many plug ins are unforgiving and the sound gets small, tiny and thin. And my gueswork is I can hear this on your lead vocal. In general gain staging means do not hit the input of a plug in too hard. Sure its starts with your first plug in. On console you have on top the input gain trim. In the DAW this would be a gain trim plug in. The Waves SSL EQ has the gain trim knob included, which is a super cool move by Waves. Most stuff is tracked too hot. Before it hits any plug in turn it down. Some people say you can go peaking at - 15 dbfs. UAD officials states for tier plug ins - 18 dbfs.
In my experience even going lower, peaking at -25 to -20 dbfs sounds best ITB with this I am super sure not to override the input stage of the following plug in.
VIDEO LINK DOUBLE KLICK ON PICTURE!
May some of the techs want to comment my super conservative gain staging approach?
Hope that helps? There are thousand ways to mix a song and every mix is different. Its hard to make general statements, except with technical facts like gain staging. It was a lot of try and error.
Before it I always had songs in the session. And that was a true pain in the ..... Magic AB is the best teacher in mixing I ever head. The plug in helped me to develop my own stile, how I like the things to be mixed.
I'm not positive about an exact RMS match, but it's probably pretty close
Like I said, I mix and master metal 95% of the time, so this was a lot of fun to get to work on something totally different for me, and see what happens. The "pseudo-raw"/mix tracks sound fantastic! Great job
Same deal, listened through and noted my first "feelings"
Really dug the Nashville acoustic sound, and thought the guitars sounded really cool overall. Again, guitar player in me wanted the les paul hook in the intro up.. .I am beginning to think thats me, not you guys... 8)
Snare, i dug. As I look at my notes, I keep seeing, "balances real good". Thats a compliment, it means I am not feeling like a need to grab for a fader. Mix is quite 3D and moody, which I really like. Really nice vocal tone.
Notes.
thought maybe snare verb and vocal verb were disconnected a bit, but lost that as the song progressed. Couple of the Tom hits I would ask to be fixed.
Again, its quite the experience, hearing the song presented like this, and it shows there is definitely quite a few ways to mix a cat 8)
thanks again, for doing it and posting, very cool of you
cheers
Wiz
Thanks for the comments, wiz, and sorry I did not reply sooner. I was out of town for a few days.
It's funny... in metal I typically use fairly long, hall reverbs. But any time I mix non-metal stuff (again, pretty seldom), tighter reverbs just sound more "right" to me, so that's what I go with. If I recall correctly, I used a "wooden room"-type verb on most of the instruments, but a plate sounded better on your vocal. I thought it was interesting that when I started listening to the other mixes they were a lot more wet than mine.
Btw, my mix was entirely ITB, and I'm sure if I listened today I'd want to make some adjustments haha. Glad you mostly liked it, though!
wiz So this is my second revision, and it will be my last one, because there are other things to do…..
I did phase aligned all tracks to the snare. That was much better, but to me there was something really odd going on with the cymbals. It confused me, all the time, that I did not had stereo OH. Overall I was not happy with the cymbals. I decided to do something unusual.
I replaced the cymbals with XLN drum cymbals, which do sound very nice.
I hope you like it now. I also made the snare a few db louder, but not too loud. To me a snare is a marching instrument, and it always is disturbing me when people sing about peaceful topics.
Sure it may is far away from perfect, but come on - its just for fun.
Finally got this loaded up in Cubase last night..... what a fantastic voice! Reminds me of Guy Garvey from Elbow (one of my favorite bands)... and also Peter Gabriel. I'm going to try to do a mostly ITB mix so I don't upset my other project going on right now. This is gonna be fun
Wiz, here's my revisit to "Fool Me Once." I don't know what to do about the tom fills, I moved the tom hit in the Resonator solo a little bit, it's still not awesome, and I faded the song to eliminate the one in the back.
But I like this mix, it sounds pretty much like a record to me. I try to serve the song and vocal first, and make a mood that suits the tune and performance. This is not a balance that a live performance would have. Given the miracle of ITB total recall, I could tweak just about anything easily.
I'd be glad to explain any sounds and processes I used on this.
Wiz, here's my revisit to "Fool Me Once." I don't know what to do about the tom fills, I moved the tom hit in the Resonator solo a little bit, it's still not awesome, and I faded the song to eliminate the one in the back.
But I like this mix, it sounds pretty much like a record to me. I try to serve the song and vocal first, and make a mood that suits the tune and performance. This is not a balance that a live performance would have. Given the miracle of ITB total recall, I could tweak just about anything easily.
I'd be glad to explain any sounds and processes I used on this.
thanks for having another crack at it... Its great and I hope people are enjoying the process, I sure am.
I really like that someone faded the track... thats actually why there are so many chorus's on the end, so album time I can pick how long the fade is.. cool that someone did it.. the song needs it.
I really dig how the vocal sits in this... it is very record like, as are the guitars.
I also found the reverb change out of the 1st chorus interesting and cool as well. Again the back vox are really cool.
Would love to hear about how you treated the vocals and guitar on this particular mix? also, whats on the snare?
thanks again for taking the time to mix and post.
I hope everyone is listening to everyone else's mixes when you get the chance, and then provide some feedback as I am sure people would love to hear what others think and not just me... 8)
its really interesting how many peeps are ITB, i thought a few of the OTB console from my dead hands guys would show up LOL 8)
Ok, I gave myself 1 hour..., So 2:00 hours later this is what i have lol, I had no plan in mind what so ever, it was more about throwing ideas than doing a finished mix. I slid right into going for the complete opposite of what everyone else was doing with an overall dry sound, It's 100% ITB(which i don't like 8), I did 0 editing except some clip volume edits, some filtering, very little eq, cuts/boosts did not exceed 2db, no comps used more than 2db of reduction, NOTHING was used on the 2 buss at all, I used only a mono verb, a couple delays, and a couple of effects. I used bypassing to match levels by ear, I tried to make it move, and be a bit active to bring some excitement to the tune, as far as the loudness, i think if anything it may be a bit lower in level than wiz's original? It seems almost everyone made thiers louder despite wiz's request? I think this sounds better the more U turn it up with your volume knob...yaay! 8)
thanx wiz, it was fun, hope you can get a couple ideas from my whirl? cool tune budro 8)
Just downloaded the tracks, and will take a crack at this in the next day or two or three. I appreciate these tracks being made available - it's always nice to work on different stuff, as I'm usually just working on my own tunes.
tonycamphd: Fat kick drum, snappy snare! Actually i learned mixing basics in practise from drummers and bassmen that became AEs, haha, so i like it! Crazy resonator sound!
