05-04-2018, 01:46 PM
Hello Monk:
Thank you for listening to my mix and for your input.
I will like to provide you with answers to some of your points here
"There's a really nasty treble during the intro that stings my ears. You need to be able to hear such events". - Nasty term can be subjective. What you consider nasty I consider it pleasing and attractive. Maybe our monitoring environments differ and I have a dull monitors (I don't) or you have overly bright monitors.
"I found the amplitude gain out of the intro too dramatic." - Great!!! that is the idea. Did I got your attention? Good... mission accomplished.
"You made a good decision to drop the arpeg' synth" - No comments needed here. ARP can be awesome sometimes, not this one.
"The howling guitar is just a little too much out of the action for me...These instruments offer a lot of sonic interest and flavour to the song but only if given enough inclusion. Feel it with your soul." - I placed on the right channel, counter playing the arpeggios on left channel. In my opinion is secondary to the lyrics so it should be subtle but there. I feel the lyrics with my soul, a swell guitar not that much.
"Some of the notes of guitar 2 get lost. The player leans quite heavily on the upper register. I tamed that part so I could bring up the lower elements" I agree, more riding the fader will be needed. Mea culpa.
"Could it be just a fraction brighter (Acoustic Guitar) to better help my perception of proximity (without it going too far the other way)?" My idea was to make it come and go and not be the focus. I want the front real estate for my lead vocals in the verse and then bring the vocals in to a bigger room in the chorus.
"It's all a little too hot for me on the master buss though. I'm also sensing some distortion from it. Let me control my own gain levels please, so if I want to feel those dynamics (which you've currently excessively reduced!), I can crank it up and not have my speakers panic unduly. As it is, the mix (mastered this way), would be uncompetitive streamed to AES guidelines. It's a BIG problem in this forum because it screws with people's perceptions." - Okay, here we go. The loudness of this track is - 9 LUFS which is similar to many commercial CD releases after the loudness war. I used Daft Punk "RAM" CD as reference here. Its it a wide LU range?.. No. Its pop not classical or jazz. Is it loud? Yes it is but not as loud as any of the Top 40 hits you may listen right now in the radio. If I intended to stream online this mix, I would have take it down to -16LUFS. Until this forum gets level normalized, there is no need to follow AES standards, nobody follows them in the mixing circuit anyways and you also have the option to lower your volume too if you don't want to break a speaker cone. I am in favor of dynamic music but this level is intentional as training in how to get things loud but still punchy and clear. You don't want to loose your job with a quiet mix for the clients, and my peers here are my clients. You can read their comments, they like it and I love that.
Take care Monk. See you around.
Thank you for listening to my mix and for your input.
I will like to provide you with answers to some of your points here
"There's a really nasty treble during the intro that stings my ears. You need to be able to hear such events". - Nasty term can be subjective. What you consider nasty I consider it pleasing and attractive. Maybe our monitoring environments differ and I have a dull monitors (I don't) or you have overly bright monitors.
"I found the amplitude gain out of the intro too dramatic." - Great!!! that is the idea. Did I got your attention? Good... mission accomplished.
"You made a good decision to drop the arpeg' synth" - No comments needed here. ARP can be awesome sometimes, not this one.
"The howling guitar is just a little too much out of the action for me...These instruments offer a lot of sonic interest and flavour to the song but only if given enough inclusion. Feel it with your soul." - I placed on the right channel, counter playing the arpeggios on left channel. In my opinion is secondary to the lyrics so it should be subtle but there. I feel the lyrics with my soul, a swell guitar not that much.
"Some of the notes of guitar 2 get lost. The player leans quite heavily on the upper register. I tamed that part so I could bring up the lower elements" I agree, more riding the fader will be needed. Mea culpa.
"Could it be just a fraction brighter (Acoustic Guitar) to better help my perception of proximity (without it going too far the other way)?" My idea was to make it come and go and not be the focus. I want the front real estate for my lead vocals in the verse and then bring the vocals in to a bigger room in the chorus.
"It's all a little too hot for me on the master buss though. I'm also sensing some distortion from it. Let me control my own gain levels please, so if I want to feel those dynamics (which you've currently excessively reduced!), I can crank it up and not have my speakers panic unduly. As it is, the mix (mastered this way), would be uncompetitive streamed to AES guidelines. It's a BIG problem in this forum because it screws with people's perceptions." - Okay, here we go. The loudness of this track is - 9 LUFS which is similar to many commercial CD releases after the loudness war. I used Daft Punk "RAM" CD as reference here. Its it a wide LU range?.. No. Its pop not classical or jazz. Is it loud? Yes it is but not as loud as any of the Top 40 hits you may listen right now in the radio. If I intended to stream online this mix, I would have take it down to -16LUFS. Until this forum gets level normalized, there is no need to follow AES standards, nobody follows them in the mixing circuit anyways and you also have the option to lower your volume too if you don't want to break a speaker cone. I am in favor of dynamic music but this level is intentional as training in how to get things loud but still punchy and clear. You don't want to loose your job with a quiet mix for the clients, and my peers here are my clients. You can read their comments, they like it and I love that.
Take care Monk. See you around.