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Quicksand First Mixdown
#1
Here's my first mix and master of Quicksand.

Update: I've uploaded 3 more mixes, the first being just a quieter master of the inital mix, the second is a mix with some arrangement changes and some tweaks of the original mix, and the third being the second mix without arrangement changes.


.mp3    Quicksand Inital Mix New Master.mp3 --  (Download: 3.37 MB)


.mp3    Quicksand Mix 2 No Arrangement Changes.mp3 --  (Download: 3.33 MB)


.mp3    Quicksand Mix 2 Arrangement Changes.mp3 --  (Download: 3.29 MB)


Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer

Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
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#2
sounds great! my only take is that to automate the reverb- pull it down- at the beginning of the vocal line and at the last part. good job!
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#3
Nice job on the drums. Guitar solo sounds really great too
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#4
Thanks for the comments guys, my new mixes are in the top post of the thread.

An explanation of my mixes:

For the drums in these mixes I scrapped the original kick and snare tracks and replaced them with samples from EZDrummer. I wasn't a fan of the tom close mics so I scrapped them and used the overheads as they had a much nicer capture of the toms and blended well with my samples. The only treatment the overheads got was a High Pass filter at 150 Hz to kill some low end resonance from the floor tom.

Bass wise on all three mixes I used the CLA guitar plugin from Waves with the amp sim in that on crunch. It gave me a cool mid range definition on the bass and prevented it from getting too muddy in the mix. That was followed by a Pul Tec emulation to pull out some 200 Hz from the bass to help it out in the mix. On the newest mixes I used a subtle chorus for some flavor.

The main rhythm guitars were run through Guitar Rig, I used the Cool Plexi model with a treble booster and some spring reverb to give it that old school vibe. The lead guitar is a blend of the close mic and the far mic of the original guitar sound with a Waves Doubler 4 and octaver.

The vocals are run through a Waves Scheps 73 Neve emulation with some drive. The lead vocal has a spring reverb and a mono slap back delay for some vibe. Backing vocals went through the same neve emulation but with less drive and a CLA Vocals plugin for some minor compression and effects.

Overall there was a Waves SSL Buss Compressor doing a little gain reduction on the loudest sections and a Waves J37 Tape saturation plugin to glue it all together but for the most part none of the individual tracks were compressed. In mastering I used a Waves Redd console master section for some drive, a Tokyo Dawn Records Kotelnikov mastering compressor to reduce 1 dB of gain, Waves Aphex Vintage Exciter to add some sheen to the top end, T-Racks Soft Clipping, and an L1 Limiter to boost the level a bit.
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer

Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
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#5
The transients are killing my ears if that makes sense
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#6
(03-09-2016, 05:22 PM)takka360 Wrote: The transients are killing my ears if that makes sense

Not really, could you explain?
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer

Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
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#7
The transients on the lead vox and overheads mainly .
experiment with the vox with a real fast attack to smooth .
Also the nasty high frequencies in the oh you could
try to remove with a multiband com with single bands.
It will smooth the mix out .
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#8
(03-09-2016, 07:15 PM)takka360 Wrote: The transients on the lead vox and overheads mainly .
experiment with the vox with a real fast attack to smooth .
Also the nasty high frequencies in the oh you could
try to remove with a multiband com with single bands.
It will smooth the mix out .

Definitely will have a look at that, I was trying to use as little eq and compression as possible but I'll try some leveling on the vocals.


Cheers,
Dcp

PS: what arrangement did you prefer?
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer

Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
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#9
You was trying to use as little eq and compression as possible ? why
The original,i think anything else is pretty pointless myself
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#10
(04-09-2016, 12:18 AM)takka360 Wrote: You was trying to use as little eq and compression as possible ? why
The original,i think anything else is pretty pointless myself

I didn't really find anything too bad with this set of tracks, the kick, snare, and tom close mics didn't really do much for me so I used samples for the kick and snare and the overheads for the rest of the kit. My samples were pretty processed on their own and the rest of the track was pretty well the way I wanted it to sound. I did obviously mess around with some reverb and delays but otherwise I wanted to just see what I could do with some minor automation and effects.
Mixing is way more art and soul than science. We don’t really know what we’re doing. We do it because we love music! It’s the love of music first. Eddie Kramer

Gear list: Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, Mbox Mini w/Pro Tools Express, Reaper, Various plugins, AKG K240 MKii, Audio Technica ATH M50x, Yorkville YSM 6
Reply