If You Say - my mix

[juanjose1967]

My third mix here on this forum (and in my life ). I've tried to make each instrument sound better than in my first two mixes and also to apply what people suggested, so here's the result.

As usual, advice and suggestions are welcomed! If you don't know your flaws, you'll never know what to improve!

Thank you for your time

[thedon]

Hi

The intro sounds lovely ,the accordian could come up in intro, the vocal can come down a little and sounds harsh somewhere between 550-800hz.

From 00.50 the snare sounds boxy around the same frequency between 550-800 hz and the wind insrument that solos at 2.05 is at a good volume for the solo ,may require automation as loud throughout the rest of song.
Maybe the strumming guitar can be a little fuller in the mid bass. Hope this helps as im learning as well thanks to this great site !

[juanjose1967]

thanks!!! one of the things I really need to learn is to identify the frequencies where the problem lies, but I guess it will take some time and practice! But anyway, now I know what to improve and I'll post the song again with the modifications you suggested.

Yes, it's a great site indeed!!!

[juanjose1967]

Alright, here's the song again.

Instead of automation for the accordion and clarinet, I've tried to sidechain them to the vocal track and lower them 2 or 3 db (I got to practice everything!)

The vocal harshness has been slightly improved. I don't know if it's enough but I was starting to ruin the sound of it, so I left it like this. The same thing with the snare.

But the guitar sounds better now with more mid bass in my opinion (you gave me a good piece of advice!)

[thedon]

Yes fantastic big difference for the better !
You can probably bring the vocal up a touch now.
Now you have got that sorted maybe you could slightly pan the ,accordian ,clarinet as the mix almost sounds mono.
Maybe experament with adding slight chorus or delay to widen up the guitar and accordian. Have a listen to the other mixes and hear what they have done.

Thanks.

[Olli H]

If this is your third mix, then it's very good.
I agree with thedon, that vocals could be little higher in the second mix.

Nice way to find balance is to listen at very low levels. And then maybe do another quick balance test by listening at quite high levels. Then after small pause compare those two versions at natural listening level. And they are probably quite different.

Acoustic guitar has some harshness. Maybe you've overdone it. If you solo the guitar and listen it at high level, you'll hear easily the annoying sounds. If we could send picture here it would be nice to share some settings and compare. I just checked what I did: I had used hi-pass at 200 and three cuts (274 Hz,1100 Hz,2440 Hz). And for DI cut at 3180 Hz.

And always if there's DI and normal mic for one instrument, it's worthwhile to try to delay the DI signal just a little bit. I had delayed 20 samples.

Cheers, Olli

[juanjose1967]

Thank you Olli!

Unfortunately I don't keep my project file, so I can't tell you how I eq the instruments. But I'm sure that there were a lot of things that I didn't pay attention to at that time and now I do.

By the way, you mentioned about a balance test... how do you do that? I've mixed a couple of songs here and people were telling me that the balance was no good and I don't know how to check that. Lately I've been using a spectrum analyzer and when I see that all frequencies reach a certain level, then I consider that it's ok... but I'm not sure that I'm doing it right.

If you tell me how to do it, then I can take another step further for better mixes :-)

[stoman]

As for balancing, try this:

1. Dial in the basic volume levels and pan positions
2. Switch to mono!
3. Adjust the frequencies by ear (i.e. get rid of disturbing frequencies).
4. When everything sounds good, switch back to stereo and see if anything needs to be tweaked.

BTW, the most important rule when using an EQ is NOT to use it unless you have to.

Regards,
Steffen

[juanjose1967]

Thank you Steffen! I will try that!! This has been a quite valuable advice for me!

[Olli H]

Steffen had written some good points while I was writing my ideas. Especially that mono thing is very good. And also the idea not to use EQ if you don't hear problems.

But here's what I wrote:

=============

I'm not pro, so I can't give any definitive answers, but here's my suggestions. At least what I do.

If your room is not best possible, buy best possible headphones for mixing. To me it was huge difference in my learning curve when I bought Sennheiser HD 600 headphones. Now I know what kind of sound many grammy winning mixers would hear if they listen my mix. I do have three different studio quality headphones and they all are suitable for different purposes, but only with HD 600 I can do mixes that translate quite well. When mixing, it's not a question which headphones sounds best, but which you can trust.

Always try to find a good reference, when mixing. If not sure what reference to use, pick something from here: http://www.digido.com/media/honor-roll.html
Compare your mix to the chosen reference track at the same RMS level. The same RMS level is important. (I use free TT Dynamic Range Meter.) Bring the track to your DAW so that you can easily adjust the listening levels. Normally about -10dB level.


COmpare your mix to chosen reference at different listening levels, and with monitors and headphones.

Use some kind of frequency analyzer, and compare your mixes to your well chosen references. With analyzers it's easy to see if overall frequency balance is totally wrong. But it can't help you with balances between instruments.

After ten minutes of mixing, I lose totally the sense of frequency balance. Every now and then I listen totally different high quality music, just to clean my ears.

I don't think that the purpose of reference CD is to imitate any sound, but more to give some kind of perspective how is your mix doing. But if you happen to have some spare time, chose two references and make two different mixes by imitating each single detail as much as possible. And then afterwards compare your two mixes.

So these were some thoughts by one longtime hobbyist who's hair is turning gray. If any one has more suggestions to this topic what to do, it would be nice to hear.

CHeers, Olli