Quick Mix and Master of Good Time

[dcp10200]

I put together a quick mix of this track for fun. A full mix and further refinements are coming soon. What do you guys think of the track so far?

Update: I did two more refined mixes and masters of the track (See masters 2 and 3). Masters 2 and 3 have the no gated reverb on the snare, just on the toms, the bridge and ending are the only sections with lofi vocals , and master 3 has the guitars drop out during the chorus along with having a lofi drums.

Mastering wise I went for a warmer sound on masters 2 and 3.

[Mixinthecloud]

Haha. Interesting take on the vocal. It might work better if it resolves to something normalized though. Some other interesting work on the octaver on the lead guitar. The space you used is very big, maybe a bit too big, but not bad. I'll be very interested to hear where you take this.

[dcp10200]

Haha. Interesting take on the vocal. It might work better if it resolves to something normalized though. Some other interesting work on the octaver on the lead guitar. The space you used is very big, maybe a bit too big, but not bad. I'll be very interested to hear where you take this.

Thanks for the feedback!
I was toying around with a lofi vocal for certain sections of the track, so I just used some distortion and a filtering plugin to get it really telephonic.

The reverb your mostly hearing is actually the room mics on the drums, drum ambiance 2 is really big and sounds like it has a compressor on it to exaggerate the room. I did put a gated reverb on the toms and snare as well, I'll probably just put it on the toms. The reverb on the vocals and guitars was a 600 ms plate reverb.

As for the octaver, it's actually Waves Doubler 4 Voice, I used the octave down on two of the voices inside the plugin. I found it works similar to an Octavio without the fuzz. I used the same effect on a song by a local band I was recording and mixing for recently and figured it would work for this track as well.

Cheers,
Dcp

[dcp10200]

2 new mixes of the track in the first post

[Mixinthecloud]

2 new mixes of the track in the first post

You are having way too much fun with these!
Your ideas are great and something tells me you could be just getting started. As with anything, sometimes it is knowing when NOT to add something that is the real genius. You've got some awesome technical chops and I'd surmise you are a guitarist. Keep it up, I'll keep listening.

[dcp10200]

2 new mixes of the track in the first post

You are having way too much fun with these!
Your ideas are great and something tells me you could be just getting started. As with anything, sometimes it is knowing when NOT to add something that is the real genius. You've got some awesome technical chops and I'd surmise you are a guitarist. Keep it up, I'll keep listening.

Thanks, and actually my main instrument is Alto Sax, I used to play Tenor Sax in my high school Jazz band. Guitar is more of a hobby instrument. I'm fresh out of Recording school but I've been volunteering at my local cable access TV station as a audio engineer for about 5 years where I learned the basics of audio production.

Anyway, I'm feeling you on the when and when not to add things. I was really feeling an over the top 70's vibe on the track and now after listening to the mixes, it really ends up taking away from the vibe of the original track haha!

In the mean time, I'll just be tinkering in the background with the mix, so far the crazy octaver has been removed, now I'm just using the plugin to double out the lead guitar subtly so it doesn't sound so naked. The auto wah on the guitar stabs I've automated in and out so that they don't get too obnoxious.

Thanks again mate.

[Mixinthecloud]

I hope you left the doubler in for some sections of the solo. It had some effective application. The auto-wah is a great addition too. 5 years is a long time to volunteer. I hope someone starts paying you soon.

[dcp10200]

After moving on from this song for awhile and mixing some other tracks on the site, I came back to it last night for fun. This is entirely new mix and master of the track from a more mixbuss heavy approach.

I first set up my 2 buss processing with a test tone metering out at -18 dBFS. The chain for the 2 buss is: Waves NLS Neve master section---> Waves Vcomp--->Waves Puig-Tec EQPA1---> Waves Kramer Tape on 15 ips and Overbias--->T Racks Soft Clipper. When I finished setting up my 2 buss I went to work with the actual tracks.

The amount of compression on the mix was controlled by driving the individual elements into the the processing on the 2 buss rather than processing the tracks induvidually and working from there, I did compress the vocals, and bass with an LA2a and LA3a emulation to smooth them out a little more, but for the most part the rest of the tracks are unprocessed.

The drums are run through the Klanghelm IVGI saturation plugin for some added character and a Waves Puigchild 670 for some punch. The snare and toms have some reverb on them.

For the bass I added a very subtle chorus to fatten it up a touch and used some sidechain compression triggered from the kick with the stock Reaper compressor.

On the guitars I really only used some subtractive eq to clean them up a little. for the guitar solo I added a Waves Doubler with the octaver blended in lightly and some reverb and delay. The main guitars are run through some spring reverb. The staccato guitar has an auto wah effect on it aswell.

Mastering was just some minor eq, compression, and limiting.

Please leave your comments and critiques below and enjoy!