Catching the Dino! (Queen's Light by Dino on the Loose)

[dcp10200]

Not often do I find Jazz Fusion multitracks on free mixing sites like this, and after hearing a couple of mixes on here I decided to give it a shot.

[The_Metallurgist]

OHHHHH YEAHHHH, these dynamics are rockin' the house! love um.

credit to Jesper for making the tracking available. sweet.

[dcp10200]

OHHHHH YEAHHHH, these dynamics are rockin' the house! love um.

credit to Jesper for making the tracking available. sweet.

Thanks for the comment, to be honest I did actually use a fair amount of compression on this mix and master. The dynamics are actually more so due to me dropping the level of the drums and bass during the solos, using limiters on peaky sounding tracks as to not overload the master buss comp, and using multiple compressors to share the work. If you listen to this on small speakers you can really hear the compressor really hitting those snare transients and the slap bass.

Saturation and parallel compression were also a big help in gluing the mix together and giving the drums a punchy sound. Using Waves Redd Console emulation to drive it into some grit and some tape saturation to smooth out the high end allowed me to get the results I ended up with, I also used the Softube Drawmer S73 multiband compressor and Waves RComp to tackle dynamic leveling on my mix buss, I took off at most 1.5 dB of compression with the Drawmer to control the tonal balance and the RComp was pulling around 2-3 dBs of compression as more of a smoothing comp.

Mastering wise I used 3 dBs of gain reduction with the TDR Kotelnikov with the sidechain filter engaged at 250 Hz so I was really only compressing the snare and cymbals to make them fit. After that some minor Eq and harmonic excitement followed by 2 dBs of soft clipping and a limiter to bring it up to K14 roughly.

The lesson to learn here is implying dynamics, most of the time even if you don't compress a song too hard but don't use volume automation to extenuate the dynamics in the playing or arrangement, it still sounds compressed and one dimensional. That being said if the dynamics aren't in the playing in the first place it's a lost cause altogether, nothing can truly save you. If you have a recording like this with lots of player dynamics you can get away with adding some heavier compression to bring out the nuances of the performance and then automate the volume of said performance more freely to add some interest to sections and still seem like there's plenty of dynamics. Have a listen to the Tool album 10,000 Days, in actuality there's a decent amount of compression going on there but because of the dynamic playing of the members of the band and the use of odd time signatures, key changes, crescendos and decrescendos, and clever volume and tonal automation, the album seems very dynamic.

I'm probably butchering alot of information here (it's currently 2 AM where I lie and in the middle of a really humid night) but I hope at least some of this makes sense.

Cheers and sorry for the rambling,
Dcp

[Cudjoe]

OHHHHH YEAHHHH, these dynamics are rockin' the house! love um.

credit to Jesper for making the tracking available. sweet.

Thanks for the comment, to be honest I did actually use a fair amount of compression on this mix and master. The dynamics are actually more so due to me dropping the level of the drums and bass during the solos, using limiters on peaky sounding tracks as to not overload the master buss comp, and using multiple compressors to share the work. If you listen to this on small speakers you can really hear the compressor really hitting those snare transients and the slap bass.

Saturation and parallel compression were also a big help in gluing the mix together and giving the drums a punchy sound. Using Waves Redd Console emulation to drive it into some grit and some tape saturation to smooth out the high end allowed me to get the results I ended up with, I also used the Softube Drawmer S73 multiband compressor and Waves RComp to tackle dynamic leveling on my mix buss, I took off at most 1.5 dB of compression with the Drawmer to control the tonal balance and the RComp was pulling around 2-3 dBs of compression as more of a smoothing comp.

Mastering wise I used 3 dBs of gain reduction with the TDR Kotelnikov with the sidechain filter engaged at 250 Hz so I was really only compressing the snare and cymbals to make them fit. After that some minor Eq and harmonic excitement followed by 2 dBs of soft clipping and a limiter to bring it up to K14 roughly.

The lesson to learn here is implying dynamics, most of the time even if you don't compress a song too hard but don't use volume automation to extenuate the dynamics in the playing or arrangement, it still sounds compressed and one dimensional. That being said if the dynamics aren't in the playing in the first place it's a lost cause altogether, nothing can truly save you. If you have a recording like this with lots of player dynamics you can get away with adding some heavier compression to bring out the nuances of the performance and then automate the volume of said performance more freely to add some interest to sections and still seem like there's plenty of dynamics. Have a listen to the Tool album 10,000 Days, in actuality there's a decent amount of compression going on there but because of the dynamic playing of the members of the band and the use of odd time signatures, key changes, crescendos and decrescendos, and clever volume and tonal automation, the album seems very dynamic.

I'm probably butchering alot of information here (it's currently 2 AM where I lie and in the middle of a really humid night) but I hope at least some of this makes sense.

Cheers and sorry for the rambling,
Dcp

Hi Dcp all in all very interesting reading and good mix, well done.

[dcp10200]

Hi Dcp all in all very interesting reading and good mix, well done.

Thanks Cudjoe, can't wait to hear the next version of your mix!