15-06-2015, 11:13 PM
just to keep you on your toes 
......
v3
there's some distortion coming thru the vocal, is it in the tracking? she's also still too sibilant, but you need to be careful how you work this, it needs to be crisp but without the attendant sibilance....kind of ribbon mic to get the feel of the genre, and more warmth is needed too - this sounds like a cheap China condenser - thin and sparkly. even if it is, you need to try and aim for a warmer delivery while retaining presence, something akin to the Coles 4038. her vocal is too narrow, it needs widening a little; you seem to be relying on the verb here and it's not working [in that respect]. the vocal needs to be REALLY nice in this song if it's going to connect because it's so exposed and wants to be delivered with a good degree of proximity(?).
NB: mp3 won't help your case with the sibilance...it will tend to expose it more - psychoacoustics stuff.
the upright is lumpy....one minute it's banging, the next it drops right out.
the upright is too forward in the depth field, IMO, for this genre.
the big challenge will be to keep the guitar clear in the mix and balanced nicely with the piano. the piano's sustain coupled with it's verb in the stereo domain will necessitate some careful control.
that was with the bookshelf rig...now the Ovation II's then i'm off to bed:
i'm missing the binaural experience, which is positively essential in this genre. if you want a reference, i'd strongly recommend adding some Diane Krall (married to Elvis Costello) to your CD arsenal, she's a stunning vocalist and awesome pianist too, for that matter. any of the sloppy jazz numbers would do you well for that personal, up-front vocal and it will help you hunt for the vibe in this sort of material. check how the piano is worked into the sound stage too....it's a great lesson in the art of mixing [this genre]. she was on Jools' a few weeks ago, such a treat. the guitar, and indeed the piano, don't sound placed for the right illusion that i'd expect. letting the stereo reverb do the job won't cut it i'm afraid.
i think you need to hunt for some better separation between the bass drum and the upright; i won't call it a kick, because it's not kicked...more caressed on to the skin with unadulterated smoothness and decorum. this is why it's going to be difficult to get it working with the upright. however, once you get the upright behaving itself and better balanced, it should enable the bass drum to be shaped together and fine tuned. the problem is, that down in this neck of the woods there's so little room to flex EQ so a decent compression strategy will be called for along with it.
but you are dead right.....for this genre the mix should be wholly transparent and i think you were well on the way to achieving that.
Boinggggg...."Time for bed", said Zebedee.
PS: FWIW, I think you are having difficulty judging treble for some reason, there appears to be a common denominator across your mixes i've so far auditioned? if your monitoring environment is soaking up the treble (most domestic environments are heavily skewed this way), it will tend to encourage brighter mixes....and you will miss other's bright mixes also. or another problem could be the tweeter's lack of headroom or low grade crossover filters, assuming your monitors have a tweeter....but i think you need to explore it. must mention though, SPL will severely affect our perception of bass and treble relative to the mid range, so this needs to be taken into account. anyone listening at a higher SPL than you originally mixed at will experience a subjective change in bass timbre and the treble will appear subjectively brighter [relative to the mid range]. i was auditioning at a modest level.....about conversation and fairly low on the cans....any lower and i'd have struggled, sort of thing.
hope it helps..
......v3
there's some distortion coming thru the vocal, is it in the tracking? she's also still too sibilant, but you need to be careful how you work this, it needs to be crisp but without the attendant sibilance....kind of ribbon mic to get the feel of the genre, and more warmth is needed too - this sounds like a cheap China condenser - thin and sparkly. even if it is, you need to try and aim for a warmer delivery while retaining presence, something akin to the Coles 4038. her vocal is too narrow, it needs widening a little; you seem to be relying on the verb here and it's not working [in that respect]. the vocal needs to be REALLY nice in this song if it's going to connect because it's so exposed and wants to be delivered with a good degree of proximity(?).
NB: mp3 won't help your case with the sibilance...it will tend to expose it more - psychoacoustics stuff.
the upright is lumpy....one minute it's banging, the next it drops right out.
the upright is too forward in the depth field, IMO, for this genre.
the big challenge will be to keep the guitar clear in the mix and balanced nicely with the piano. the piano's sustain coupled with it's verb in the stereo domain will necessitate some careful control.
that was with the bookshelf rig...now the Ovation II's then i'm off to bed:
i'm missing the binaural experience, which is positively essential in this genre. if you want a reference, i'd strongly recommend adding some Diane Krall (married to Elvis Costello) to your CD arsenal, she's a stunning vocalist and awesome pianist too, for that matter. any of the sloppy jazz numbers would do you well for that personal, up-front vocal and it will help you hunt for the vibe in this sort of material. check how the piano is worked into the sound stage too....it's a great lesson in the art of mixing [this genre]. she was on Jools' a few weeks ago, such a treat. the guitar, and indeed the piano, don't sound placed for the right illusion that i'd expect. letting the stereo reverb do the job won't cut it i'm afraid.
i think you need to hunt for some better separation between the bass drum and the upright; i won't call it a kick, because it's not kicked...more caressed on to the skin with unadulterated smoothness and decorum. this is why it's going to be difficult to get it working with the upright. however, once you get the upright behaving itself and better balanced, it should enable the bass drum to be shaped together and fine tuned. the problem is, that down in this neck of the woods there's so little room to flex EQ so a decent compression strategy will be called for along with it.
but you are dead right.....for this genre the mix should be wholly transparent and i think you were well on the way to achieving that.
Boinggggg...."Time for bed", said Zebedee.
PS: FWIW, I think you are having difficulty judging treble for some reason, there appears to be a common denominator across your mixes i've so far auditioned? if your monitoring environment is soaking up the treble (most domestic environments are heavily skewed this way), it will tend to encourage brighter mixes....and you will miss other's bright mixes also. or another problem could be the tweeter's lack of headroom or low grade crossover filters, assuming your monitors have a tweeter....but i think you need to explore it. must mention though, SPL will severely affect our perception of bass and treble relative to the mid range, so this needs to be taken into account. anyone listening at a higher SPL than you originally mixed at will experience a subjective change in bass timbre and the treble will appear subjectively brighter [relative to the mid range]. i was auditioning at a modest level.....about conversation and fairly low on the cans....any lower and i'd have struggled, sort of thing.
hope it helps..
Beware...........Cognitive Dissonance!