28-07-2014, 11:38 AM
(This post was last modified: 14-08-2014, 09:14 AM by The_Metallurgist.)
tuff one. i mixed this in analogue in order to control the blatant peaks and ear-blistering frequencies captured by the digital domain. a Mandolin is especially troublesome, so too an acoustic guitar (the fiddles less so herein because they weren't mic'd up according to convention). clearly, as concluded by the presence of abundant resonances plaguing the tracking (vocal and the big bass especially), the room was far from ideal. the vocal had more notches than a fir tree to try and contain the moles and i was a bit worried that by the time i'd whacked most of them there'd be nothing left! the big bass was impossible for me to shape properly so the outcome is a compromise between control of the bass response, dynamic (which the room had a major role in exaggerating) and tone. probably one of those super examples where "You can't fix a bad room in the mix". but i did my best.
adding further to the challenges, it sounded like some of the tracking was bounced with automation running; a change in the mandolin's levels are quite obvious, for example.
there is one point in the mix which took some care to negotiate. at about 2:08 the mandolin was edited out (you can tell by the unnatural fades in the supplied track), which meant the bleed from the acoustic guitar was no longer present. this, if left unattended, would cause a skew in the stereo field and make a bit of a nonsense in perspective. editing out the mandolin was obviously a post-recording idea rather than an advanced plan within the arrangement. if it had been planned, the acoustic bleed could still sit nicely in the mandolin's microphone which would make the mixing task far less onerous!! naturally, the acoustic bleed in the mandolin tracking was time-aligned to avoid the consequences of comb-filtering in the mix from said instrument by moi. i used only one of the mandolin mic's and ditched the other.
for those of a technical bent, consider the ramifications of automating the level of the mandolin with it's not insignificant bleed from the acoustic contained within it's tracking.
the skin's level automation bore no relation to the groove of the song, which struck me as odd. i have, however, automated it so it will drop back or come forward depending on my vision. i ignored the vagaries of it's tracking in order to preserve my sanity though. and also note i muted out the brushes, one place quite hard; the idea being to remove some monotony and introduce a subtle change in song dynamic.
not a straightforward mix by any means. show me one that is....but it makes for super experience, eh? a lot of love went into this so please go easy on me
thanks in advance for checking it out.
.
.
UPDATE:
new master in post #17 (no changes were made to the mix), following Niel's (aka Voelund) suggestion.
adding further to the challenges, it sounded like some of the tracking was bounced with automation running; a change in the mandolin's levels are quite obvious, for example.
there is one point in the mix which took some care to negotiate. at about 2:08 the mandolin was edited out (you can tell by the unnatural fades in the supplied track), which meant the bleed from the acoustic guitar was no longer present. this, if left unattended, would cause a skew in the stereo field and make a bit of a nonsense in perspective. editing out the mandolin was obviously a post-recording idea rather than an advanced plan within the arrangement. if it had been planned, the acoustic bleed could still sit nicely in the mandolin's microphone which would make the mixing task far less onerous!! naturally, the acoustic bleed in the mandolin tracking was time-aligned to avoid the consequences of comb-filtering in the mix from said instrument by moi. i used only one of the mandolin mic's and ditched the other.
for those of a technical bent, consider the ramifications of automating the level of the mandolin with it's not insignificant bleed from the acoustic contained within it's tracking.
the skin's level automation bore no relation to the groove of the song, which struck me as odd. i have, however, automated it so it will drop back or come forward depending on my vision. i ignored the vagaries of it's tracking in order to preserve my sanity though. and also note i muted out the brushes, one place quite hard; the idea being to remove some monotony and introduce a subtle change in song dynamic.
not a straightforward mix by any means. show me one that is....but it makes for super experience, eh? a lot of love went into this so please go easy on me
thanks in advance for checking it out.
.
.
UPDATE:
new master in post #17 (no changes were made to the mix), following Niel's (aka Voelund) suggestion.
Beware...........Cognitive Dissonance!