Ambitions - Dags mix

[Dags]

Firstly, let me congratulate all those who have already had a crack at this song.
Listening to some of the mixes presented I thought to myself "it shouldn't be *that* hard to pull together a decent mix of this song"
I was wrong.


After my third night of trying to make sense of it in the end I gave up trying to satisfy all my requirements of what I wanted to achieve and just went for "can I hear everything well enough? good. print it"

When you start making tiny volume adjustments to tracks, then to others, then take something out altogether and raise the fader until it sounds good then go back and re-adjust the first thing you changed over and over it's time to quit!

This track (probably this entire genre) needs to come with a health warning about listening at high volumes for prolonged periods of time

Let me know if the cymbals are overly bright as my ears have gone into protection mode and it's hard to judge whether they are too loud or about right against the guitars.

Dags

[takka360]

Hi Dags
Can i hear some iffy frequency in the bottom end.
I think the cymbals are very low and the snare sounds a bit dull.
I like the vocal sitting in the mix nice.
The guitars sound ok to me i just think the bass and drums are a bit muddy sounding.

[Dags]

I can hear some iffy frequencies throughout the song!

I'm not a metal or hard rock afficionado, so I haven't got used to having my ears split apart by 3, 6 and 9 kHz.
I'll rest for a couple of days then try to get a bit more snap into everything.

I probably have too much distortion on the bass which is blurring the lower end, or I need to change the HPF cutoff.

Glad the guitars came out OK - the EQ dips across them to cut out everything that wasn't working look like comb filters.

Thanks Takka!

Dags

[takka360]

I'll rest for a couple of days then try to get a bit more snap into everything. Yes mate you can do better i think.
Like me at the moment im trying too hard and not resting my ears.Some mixes i do i think are ok but when i listen back
the next day i think what crap.You have to leave it for a few days and go back as i think you can bust your guts and get
no feedback at all on here.I have a friend Steve Bolton who toured with the who in 89,i played him my mix of rise up and he
said mixes dont come much better so i dont care anymore about feedback from people that know nothing anyway mate.
As i told you weeks ago there is no secret to anything in this life its just hard work.
Mike dont even give feedback and its his site not that i think he is some kind of god but he does know his stuff and should give more feedback.
Most of my mixes a crap but i know where i am going and the are getting better.
What i think i shall do is work on a mix for a good few days and then post as its so easy to just bang a mix out and post it up.
I see a few people are no longer posting on here anymore that give great advice.

[takka360]

I had a play around with the chorus delay thing Dags and i notice it would work it would need eq tho.ive loaded a file for you as a giude using the plugin.
Also listen to the hat,thats what it does

[Dags]

Thanks mate! I'll grab it when I get to work & use it as a reference.

Heh I know what I did wrong with the snare. I was trying out a crunchy pre-delay small room effect on it as an experiment to give it a bit of grunge. I'll work on a slap chorus option instead

[Dags]

Took to the previous mix with a scrubbing brush and soap and a trial at some slap chorus fx on top snare (as aux send rather than direct)

compressor to steady the level of the incoming snare
room: 0.4s room 16ms pre delay 450Hz shelf -12dB 10kHz shelf -9db
chorus: 2Hz rate 15% intensity
stereo spread reduced to 50%

Probably have too much pre delay or level of FX return too high?
Uncertain how 'noticeable' to make the effect

And I can see why others have opted to use drum replacement for kick and snare with this song. Very problematic.
I'll see if I can get the snare in particular to sound a bit more evenly played later on.

Oh, I found that somehow an accidental increase in the volume level of the bass distortion had occurred - a click in the wrong place without me noticing. That would explain the horrible mess in the low frequencies in the previous effort. Damn

Note to self: always open up the tracks to show automation and scroll through them all to make sure nothing looks weird.

Speaking of automation, I have attached a screen grab of the tom buss volume automation I carried out to try to keep them balanced. Looks like a cross-section of some funky landscape

Dags

[edit as reminder to self - remove some mids out of bass and take down 1 - 2dB, if snare still muddy seek out more HF for snare attack maybe copy-paste best snare to other parts of song, drop 100Hz thump of kick by 1dB or so and raise overall level if buried]

[JohnSmith]

Estimated Dags,

I'll have an "look" at your mix today, as i finished mastering Fergessen ! (After a huge week working on 3 different records)....
Just a quick explanation to "takka"s previous message, which was quite enoying to read : Mike has a job too, maybe a family, and it would be respectful, at least, not to comment about his presence or not on the site, giving advices and commenting mixes as much as you would like. Just keep in mind that without him, you would'nt even write one post here. So please, a little respect won't hurt.
And for the other people who are not that much present here, maybe you could also think they do have jobs, families and external activities...
I would love myself to comment every mix i hear, but it's also my work mixing and mastering, and i can't afford spending most of my time here.

Sorry Dags if i write that little "out of the subject" message here, but i know you understand perfectly what i'm talking about.
I'm not gonna take Mike's place, but a little moderation would be appreciated, and not only by me takka... The world does not gravitate around your whishes, even if they are fully understandable. (We all whish our mixes to be commented and learning new things, but humility is the main quality to have in a job like ours... do think about it please...)

Respectfuly my dear friend Dags !

[Mike Senior]

Mike dont even give feedback and its his site

I could provide some pertinent feedback now, but it's probably best kept under my breath...

Posting feedback, like everything else on this site, does take me time, I'm afraid, and that must be my spare time given that nothing here actually pays me anything -- in fact, the web-hosting charges actually mean I'm paying out for the privilege, especially since I upgraded to a dedicated server to cope with the demands of this Discussion Zone.

However, there's still one sure way of getting in-depth mix feedback from me on demand, if you're dead set on it...

[takka360]

I do respect Mike for his skills and what he has done with this site but i do think he can speak like he has done and dont need you doing it for him
Xabix,all i said is he could leave more people feedback how is that a lack of respect ? Have you ever heard of a brown nose as it comes to mind here.