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+---- Thread: About This Multitrack (/showthread.php?tid=571)
About This Multitrack - Mike Senior - 30-11-2012
You can find the multitrack files for this project in the 'Mixing Secrets' Free Multitrack Download Library.
Before posting a mix, please read The Three Commandments!
Please post your mix as a new thread, rather than as a reply to this sticky.
Please post your mix as a new thread, rather than as a reply to this sticky.
Here's some more project info you might find useful:
- About The Raw Multitracks: This is a lovely characterful multitrack recorded at Tiny Telephone studios by renowned engineer Oz Fritz. The production is mostly based around a full-band recording featuring drums, upright bass, electric guitar, pedal steel, and scratch vocal.
- The drum miking features stereo overheads, stereo room, two mono rooms, and close mics for kick (front, back), snare, hi-hat, and two toms.
- There are two mics on the upright bass, and a DI feed has also been recorded.
- The piano is miked in stereo.
- The guitar line-up comprises the main electric and pedal steel parts and additional overdubs for acoustic guitar and another electric -- the latter dual-miked (close, distant).
- The scratch vocal was later rerecorded as an overdub.
- The drum miking features stereo overheads, stereo room, two mono rooms, and close mics for kick (front, back), snare, hi-hat, and two toms.
- Challenges You're Likely To Face: Although you've got great performances here, and lots of really engaging sounds, there are still some things to consider at mixdown.
- There's a reasonable amount of spill between the drums, piano, bass, and scratch vocal particularly, so keep your ears open for unexpected knock-on effects of any processing you apply to just one instrument.
- There's a lot of low-end rumble to the kick sound here, and while it's great to hear, you may need to work a bit to give it enough room in your mix, depending on what you do with some of the other parts.
- It sounds like the drummer hits one of the tom mics at 2:42, so you might want to snip that out.
- The overheads are very widely spread in stereo, which may cause problems if mono-compatibility is important to you.
- The levels on the first bass mic in particular are quite uneven, with some notes really booming out.
- Because of the spill (or lack of it!) setting the distance of each of the instruments and getting them to blend convincingly may require a bit of work.
- There's a reasonable amount of spill between the drums, piano, bass, and scratch vocal particularly, so keep your ears open for unexpected knock-on effects of any processing you apply to just one instrument.
- Some Mixing Tips: Although I've not mixed this particular track myself, here are some suggestions that come to mind:
- I'm not sure you need the full overheads spread in stereo, so I'd probably pan the channels slightly inwards for a more representative transition into mono.
- Because of the kick-drum's rolling LF, I'd high-pass filter a lot of the instruments here.
- If you can't get a good bass sound using mostly the DI and second bass mic, I'd suggest putting in a fairly tight notch on the first bass mic around 71Hz, where the main resonant peak appears to be, and following that up with multi-band compression or dynamic EQ if there's still an unacceptable degree of level inconsistency.
- If the lead vocal feels too upfront to you, then before reaching for effects, try shelving out a couple of decibels of the vocal spectrum's top octave with EQ.
- I'm not sure you need the full overheads spread in stereo, so I'd probably pan the channels slightly inwards for a more representative transition into mono.
If you have any other general questions about this multitrack, just reply to this post and I'll see what I can do.
RE: About This Multitrack - Wesley Morgan - 30-11-2012
I will also listen to any mixes posted here and post my comments from an artists point of view.
RE: About This Multitrack - WesleyMorgan - 15-07-2014
You should also listen to the original mix to get a sense of my vision of the song. THis will tell you what parts I thought were more important than others.
http://wesleymorgan.bandcamp.com/album/backroom-in-tulsa