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Pray For The Rain mix
#1
Here's my first crack at this song, and my first post here. A bit about myself: I aspired to be an audio engineer out of high school 25 years ago and attended the now defunct College for Recording Arts in San Francisco. I didn't pay my dues enough in terms of working for free, so I moved on to earning a living doing boring things not related to music. Since then, technology has brought the studio to the comfort of our homes and now I'm giving it another go (before my ears get too old). For the last month, I've started picking up free tracks and mixing them. I'm a few weeks into learning Reaper after struggling with Audacity a couple of weeks prior.

The mix: Well, I kinda went REO Speedwagon on this one, drenched in reverb and compressed with high attack on many of the tracks. It has it's own pleasant character (to my ears), but I may have squashed the life out of it. Another issue I'm trying to sort out is my de-essing strategy not playing well with the "air" track I'm mixing back in with the vocals. The "air" track is fed pre-FX from the vocal track and compressed at a much higher rate. It matches up on most of the sibilant consonants, but sounds really screwy on some, especially F's. Also on the todo list is a more creative panning strategy and giving each guitar its own space, and the mids really start building with multiple layers of guitars.

Any feedback from fresh ears out there would be appreciated.


.mp3    Nerve 9 - Pray For The Rain.mp3 --  (Download: 13.15 MB)


.mp3    Nerve 9 - Pray For The Rain V2.mp3 --  (Download: 13.15 MB)


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#2
Hi Parnellij - thanks for mixing the track ! Your mix has a good vibe to it. I hear what you are describing with the vocals - not sure what to suggest though, other than maybe cutting a bit of the air. Other minor points of feeback would be high end on cymbals (or volume) seemed a bit pronounced, ride cymbal was poking through a bit for me, and maybe the snare a little boxy - subjective stuff !

Anyhow, I hope that helps!

Cheers

Thomas
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#3
After 5 months of mixing, I thought I'd revisit my first project and apply everything I've learned on a new mix, so V2 is a whole new mix from scratch. I used the Audio Assault Head Crusher Free plugin extensively throughout the mix to compress, saturate and warm up the tracks, especially drums. I highly recommend picking it up if you haven't yet. I tried out the Led Zeppelin trick of adding reverb to the drums and compressing after. I'd say that worked quite well, makes them sound bigger than life.
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#4
Hi Parnellij

I like your second mix a lot ! The energy build up to the guitar solo was great.

My comments are pretty minor - verse guitar and bridge guitar seem a little bit hot vs the lead vocal. I could also say bright vs the vocal, but I think I would try lowering the volume first. Also, the vocal tone sounds good, but maybe a little over de-Essed.

Thanks again

Tom
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