17-10-2015, 11:50 PM
Okay, so here's my take on this one.
First, I want to say up front that I worked really hard on this mix. As soon as I started to hear its potential, I was determined to try to do a good job on it, partly to see just what I was capable of when I truly set my mind to it and try to give this mix some real punch. So I've uploaded two files. The rough mix (faders and maybe panning but no fx and no automation) and what I ended up with.
This mix presented me with several problems.
1) kick, snare, hat tracks obviously MIDI derrived and perfectly flat and even and lifeless along with a composite drum track that is rather lacking and also off center.
2) Guitar lines that, as I felt, could use more articulation. That's what happens when you drive your amp too hard, it compresses all your notes and takes the dynamic contrast out of your playing. Those high notes were also somewhat hard to get to blend in properly.
Fixing these two required an insane amount of automation, in addition to the little tweaks I did elsewhere. I probably spent 10-12 hours on this alone, in some cases going more or less note by note. For the guitars, I tried a compressor but there wasn't enough to grab onto. An expander gave inconsistent results for much the same reason. I tried Alloy's transient shaper but didn't like what it gave me and that left me with the hard way. If I had been better with loops and MIDI, I probably could have cut that in half with easier processing of the drums but that's what it is.
3) I have yet to figure out exactly how to handle piano type sounds in tunes such as this. I think I did okay but still feel it could be a bit better.
4) Once I got all that done, the tune itself sounded pretty good dry but the vocal didn't mix so had to figure out how to get them to fit together. I did no pitch correction on anything. I felt that doing so would take away from the performance.
I finished off with an API master bus compressor to help tie it all together.
Anyway, total time invested is probably a bit over 21 hours but worth it in the end, I think. Sometimes to get what you want, you just have to spend the effort. Doesn't always work in a commercial environment but this is just practice and experience so well worth the time to go through the full exercise.
Anyway, comments welcome...
First, I want to say up front that I worked really hard on this mix. As soon as I started to hear its potential, I was determined to try to do a good job on it, partly to see just what I was capable of when I truly set my mind to it and try to give this mix some real punch. So I've uploaded two files. The rough mix (faders and maybe panning but no fx and no automation) and what I ended up with.
This mix presented me with several problems.
1) kick, snare, hat tracks obviously MIDI derrived and perfectly flat and even and lifeless along with a composite drum track that is rather lacking and also off center.
2) Guitar lines that, as I felt, could use more articulation. That's what happens when you drive your amp too hard, it compresses all your notes and takes the dynamic contrast out of your playing. Those high notes were also somewhat hard to get to blend in properly.
Fixing these two required an insane amount of automation, in addition to the little tweaks I did elsewhere. I probably spent 10-12 hours on this alone, in some cases going more or less note by note. For the guitars, I tried a compressor but there wasn't enough to grab onto. An expander gave inconsistent results for much the same reason. I tried Alloy's transient shaper but didn't like what it gave me and that left me with the hard way. If I had been better with loops and MIDI, I probably could have cut that in half with easier processing of the drums but that's what it is.
3) I have yet to figure out exactly how to handle piano type sounds in tunes such as this. I think I did okay but still feel it could be a bit better.
4) Once I got all that done, the tune itself sounded pretty good dry but the vocal didn't mix so had to figure out how to get them to fit together. I did no pitch correction on anything. I felt that doing so would take away from the performance.
I finished off with an API master bus compressor to help tie it all together.
Anyway, total time invested is probably a bit over 21 hours but worth it in the end, I think. Sometimes to get what you want, you just have to spend the effort. Doesn't always work in a commercial environment but this is just practice and experience so well worth the time to go through the full exercise.
Anyway, comments welcome...
Old West Audio