Pedaling Prince Mix: Johnny Lokke - Whisper to a Scream

[Pedaling Prince]

Sounds great oldschool - reminds me of some 70s records I really like.

Considering that was the sound I was going for that's high praise, particularly coming from you who totally tromped me in the way you handled the guitars on this thing. Thanks!

Your very selfrestrictin approach to mixin makes it sound like that I think, when we only have 100% to mix into and guitars can easily fill evrything, especially this kind of music, I dont think its cheat to use compression and something I read in a great book: maximum illusion with minimum voltage, meanin as loud as can be with as little metering as is possible.

Well, it's not like I NEVER use ANY kind of processing or compression; processing, when used creatively, can produce some interesting effects. For example, in my mix of Kevin Reeves' "It's About Time" (not yet on the site) I used the same gentle compression I use on most vocals but during the CHORUSES I HAMMERED the compression on the vocal to lift it up in loudness against the verses for dramatic effect; it worked very well.

My problem isn't so much the use of the tools as the ABUSE of them. Compression has its legitimate uses to solve problems on individual tracks and help even out and lift vocals for intelligibility and presence, but I eschew it's use entirely in mastering at mixdown because I believe you need to achieve the sound you want in the mix itself then trust in that regardless of how "quiet" the final mixed down recording might turn out to be. After all, if the listener would rather your music be louder they always have the option of turning up their volume. And artists and producers that insist on "loud" recordings forget that the listener also has the option to TURN DOWN a recording as well; you just CAN'T control volume in the recording for that very reason, so all this "loudness war" thing is just foolishness.

I've done SOME mixes that were VERY creative, in some cases even adding SOUND EFFECTS (there will be some of those coming up pretty soon ). I do tend not to edit tracks for the most part as I'm always trying to shoot for the artist's original intent as much as possible, but if I happen to get a really good idea how to enhance something with a sound effect or subtle arrangement change I'm not averse to doing it.

I dig the guitar sound in this version, very true very honest, but it takes up enormeous amounts af VU as you boost lowend so much, leavin lesser space for drums and bass.

Yeah. In retrospect, particularly after listening to your awesome take on those guitars, I probably pushed the low frequencies a little too hard, which likely accounts for their bloated, stodgy, constrained sound. I thought it sounded pretty good, though now that I've heard your version I wish I still had the original mix project so I could try to liven then up a bit.