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My "Rainy Day II" mix
#1
Well, that was challenging. Had this been an actual gig, I would have spent time aligning the downbeats, but since this is just for fun, I mainly focused on the overall balance. My mix doesn't translate perfectly to mono, so headphones are recommended for listening. Hit me up with questions/ comments/ concerns. Thanks for listening.

Jeff


.mp3    Rainy Day II.mp3 --  (Download: 12.03 MB)


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#2
Wow! This was quite the surprise to hear, lots of interesting effects going on it sounds like.

First off, what was done to the acoustic guitar? It sounds like there is a low pass filter used fairly aggressively and that it was panned to the left with a delay sent the right. Whatever it is, it creates quite the unique sound for it!

Second, the drums and by Zeus, particularly the snare! I'm very curious on what's going on. I like that the snare is brighter and cracks like an egg but I think the drums as a whole are too bright. I don't know if it's possible to keep the snare as it is while taming the rest of the set given the recordings I provided but I think it would be to the benefit of the mix. Also, on the second part, it sounds like there is a gate in effect that opens the hall mic on each kick and snare hit. I found this very distracting and would rather have heard it either open or closed the whole time.

Third, what was done to the backing vocals? I feel like they mesh together very well and am a bit jealous of it ;].

Overall, I'm conflicted on whether I like it or not but there are more things that I like than not. I think the mix is too harsh and over-compressed but at the same time the space feels very packed and intense. I like the reverse delay on the electric guitars and felt that your use of effects in general contributed to the atmosphere rather than just exist as cool sounds. I find myself less happy with and wanting to remix my version of the song after hearing mixes like this on the forum so thanks for contributing!
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#3
I think the overall idea is OK. I think you're afraid to make things louder and reduce the overall dynamic range of the track. Don't be, you'll be super surprised what happens when you bring up the low end and push vocals louder. This song has crazy good mood if you can keep the rain over the top of the vocals. I suggest downloading the Youlean loudness meter (https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/) and working on bringing up the overall loudness and lowering the dynamic range until things start to pop. If you can't get your dynamic range under at least 12 LU (and you should be under 10 LU probably) I feel like you have major issues if you're trying to appeal to modern music listeners.
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#4
(23-06-2019, 05:43 AM)rageix Wrote: If you can't get your dynamic range under at least 12 LU (and you should be under 10 LU probably) I feel like you have major issues if you're trying to appeal to modern music listeners.
I do not think this song was written to appeal to the "modern music listener," and that squashing it wouldn't do it justice. BTW my dynamic range is 11.8 LU.
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#5
(22-06-2019, 08:21 PM)GinghamJones Wrote: Wow! This was quite the surprise to hear, lots of interesting effects going on it sounds like.

First off, what was done to the acoustic guitar?

Second, the drums

Third, what was done to the backing vocals?

I find myself less happy with and wanting to remix my version of the song after hearing mixes like this on the forum so thanks for contributing!
Hi GinghamJones,

Thanks for taking the time to listen and to comment. It's always great to get feedback from the artist! So, to answer some of your questions:

The acoustic guitars got a bit of compression. AcousticGtr1 was panned center, AcousticGtr 2 & 3 were panned hard left, and 2DT & 3DT were panned hard right. All five tracks were sent to a buss. The "delay" effect you are hearing was created using InPhase Live (Waves) and delaying channel 2 by 11.25ms. Not much was done EQ-wise. Just a couple of dips and bumps here and there. And a touch of wet room reverb.

The snare was hit with a pretty aggressive gate (fast attack and pretty quick release. I flipped the phase because it was getting some cancellation from one of the other drum tracks (can't remember which one, maybe the overheads.) Then some EQ & compression, followed by KClip (Kazrog) which acted as a limiter. I let the DrumRoom tracks do the rest of the dirty work. The overall drum sound is definitely bright. I've got a low shelf at 130Hz on the drum buss, but I guess it needs something else. If I go back, I'll try to bring out some of the bottom end.

The BackingVox got super-processed. I wanted them to sound as ominous as possible. Each sub-group (1, 2, 3, & 4) was panned at varying degrees of center, left, and right. Each sub-group was sent to its own buss, where is was heavily compressed and hit with MicroShift (Soundtoys) for some extra spread. Then those four busses were sent to another buss and hit with Little AlterBoy (Soundtoys) in quantize mode with a little drive followed by some saturation echo.

As far as the overall mix, I agree that it is over-compressed. I used the "rear buss" method, because I felt like the mix was a bit too thin, but I think I over did it. I am glad, however, that you were ok with my choice of guitar effects. I am a guitarist myself, so I tried to be as tasteful as possible.

Anyway, thanks again for providing your feedback. Let me know if there's anything else I can answer for you.

Best regards,
Jeff
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