04-07-2013, 04:19 AM
Erjee,
I can get behind the kick being too subby. I did actually try a blending of two different sine waves and a sine and triangle. Essentially because it sounds to me that the Bass Guitar sits around D (and I believe the key to be some kind of D) I used 36.71Hz to generate that low fundamental. I'm personally a huge fan of E which sits at 41.2Hz. Anyway, the problem that I found when trying this was that the kick took up too much sonic space. Even with some clever sidechaining on the bass it was not enough. In v2 up there the kick is sidechaining, the Overheads, extra drums, bass, and all the guitars. The whole idea is to get more of the click of the kick out for the smaller speakers and by letting the bass rule the low end much more than the kick. Really, the entire kick is a whole system of compromises to get where it is. Now, I've listened to this on my monitors, Neumann KH120A. My 2.1 system, currently a pair of Tannoy 501a and a SVS SB12-NSD. My headphones, AKG K271MKII. My car, some kind of Pioneer speakers and a couple of 10" Kenwood subs (the system is actually surprisingly good sounding). The final is actually like a $25 pair of Cyber Acoutics tiny easily distorting speakers. If I can get a mix to sound reasonable out of those it probably works. Amazingly on every single one of those the kick does what it is supposed to each time. It is not the prettiest sounding kick I agree, but I cannot really think of a better way to do the kick
Okay, you're talking about the Rhythm Acoustic Guitar. Gotcha. So, the notion on this was to make the piano more audible. While it doesn't have much input on the rhythm of the track I found that by pushing the percussion up more in the mix gave the rhythm I felt that was necessary. So, what I did was put basically make the acoustic guitar very wide. The main part that can be heard is actually in the left channel pretty much all the time. It is not very up front in the mix because I wanted the overheads and percussion to be more prominent. Much like the kick though regardless of the system I've listened to it on, I can still easily pick it out. I guess it is a taste kind of thing with it though. I've said this before and I'll say it again if I have a chance to feature something other than a guitar I will. In this case I gave the piano a bit more presence.
I'm not entirely sure with the lead vocal. Here is where more compromises come in. See, the problem with giving more presence to the vocals in the lower mids makes the bass and the piano harder to hear on smaller speakers. The other big problem I found with the vocals was the fact they were too darn bright. The biggest saving grace to them was that they were not excessively sibilant. The actual processing chain I did to them goes like this; 4.7KHz bell boost, 10KHz bell cut, De-esser (actually over de-essing), 15KHz shelf boost, 200Hz HPF, Compression. I could lower the HPF about 100Hz or use a 1-Pole filter, but that ultimately causes more issues. So, like the kick it is a compromise to make a better illusion in terms of everything. If made the vocals too much brighter I'd be in direct competition with the percussion and overheads. If give more emphasis to the bottom of the vocal then I start directly competing with the piano and bass. If I overemphasize the mid range then I start competing directly with the guitars. It really turns into quite a delicate balance to get them to fit where I feel they need to fit. A quick note about the panning. See, if I start using the panning to do the mixing then I run into the problem of the mix sounding like crap in either mono or very narrow stereo systems. I feel it is very important to focus on working with the mono of the track.
Again it is just a bunch of compromises to create an illusion which most mixes are. I really do appreciate the comments though. I'm seriously at a loss though to think of other ways of approaching this mix. I mean I can think of a few other ways of doing it. For example replacing the kick and the snare with different samples entirely. But then more questions pop up about how to handle different parts of the track. Really this song turned into a series of compromises to get it sounding about right.
I can get behind the kick being too subby. I did actually try a blending of two different sine waves and a sine and triangle. Essentially because it sounds to me that the Bass Guitar sits around D (and I believe the key to be some kind of D) I used 36.71Hz to generate that low fundamental. I'm personally a huge fan of E which sits at 41.2Hz. Anyway, the problem that I found when trying this was that the kick took up too much sonic space. Even with some clever sidechaining on the bass it was not enough. In v2 up there the kick is sidechaining, the Overheads, extra drums, bass, and all the guitars. The whole idea is to get more of the click of the kick out for the smaller speakers and by letting the bass rule the low end much more than the kick. Really, the entire kick is a whole system of compromises to get where it is. Now, I've listened to this on my monitors, Neumann KH120A. My 2.1 system, currently a pair of Tannoy 501a and a SVS SB12-NSD. My headphones, AKG K271MKII. My car, some kind of Pioneer speakers and a couple of 10" Kenwood subs (the system is actually surprisingly good sounding). The final is actually like a $25 pair of Cyber Acoutics tiny easily distorting speakers. If I can get a mix to sound reasonable out of those it probably works. Amazingly on every single one of those the kick does what it is supposed to each time. It is not the prettiest sounding kick I agree, but I cannot really think of a better way to do the kick
Okay, you're talking about the Rhythm Acoustic Guitar. Gotcha. So, the notion on this was to make the piano more audible. While it doesn't have much input on the rhythm of the track I found that by pushing the percussion up more in the mix gave the rhythm I felt that was necessary. So, what I did was put basically make the acoustic guitar very wide. The main part that can be heard is actually in the left channel pretty much all the time. It is not very up front in the mix because I wanted the overheads and percussion to be more prominent. Much like the kick though regardless of the system I've listened to it on, I can still easily pick it out. I guess it is a taste kind of thing with it though. I've said this before and I'll say it again if I have a chance to feature something other than a guitar I will. In this case I gave the piano a bit more presence.
I'm not entirely sure with the lead vocal. Here is where more compromises come in. See, the problem with giving more presence to the vocals in the lower mids makes the bass and the piano harder to hear on smaller speakers. The other big problem I found with the vocals was the fact they were too darn bright. The biggest saving grace to them was that they were not excessively sibilant. The actual processing chain I did to them goes like this; 4.7KHz bell boost, 10KHz bell cut, De-esser (actually over de-essing), 15KHz shelf boost, 200Hz HPF, Compression. I could lower the HPF about 100Hz or use a 1-Pole filter, but that ultimately causes more issues. So, like the kick it is a compromise to make a better illusion in terms of everything. If made the vocals too much brighter I'd be in direct competition with the percussion and overheads. If give more emphasis to the bottom of the vocal then I start directly competing with the piano and bass. If I overemphasize the mid range then I start competing directly with the guitars. It really turns into quite a delicate balance to get them to fit where I feel they need to fit. A quick note about the panning. See, if I start using the panning to do the mixing then I run into the problem of the mix sounding like crap in either mono or very narrow stereo systems. I feel it is very important to focus on working with the mono of the track.
Again it is just a bunch of compromises to create an illusion which most mixes are. I really do appreciate the comments though. I'm seriously at a loss though to think of other ways of approaching this mix. I mean I can think of a few other ways of doing it. For example replacing the kick and the snare with different samples entirely. But then more questions pop up about how to handle different parts of the track. Really this song turned into a series of compromises to get it sounding about right.