Qupe: 'Ayni Nehirde' kapu mix

[kapu]

Still, tons of editing and automation needed ...

[Obelix]

How did you get the snare drum to jump through the speakers so well ?

[kapu]

How did you get the snare drum to jump through the speakers so well ?

1) Check the absolute phase of the snare track - largest peak at snare hit on positive side. If not, then invert phase.

2) Solo the snare, set the level that peaks are at around -6 dBFS. Then set your monitor levels (listening volume) so that you can work comfortably. Mute snare.

3) Solo the overheads. Pan overheads hard left and right (you can adjust the width later), and drive their output into a sub group, aux track or bus or whatever it's called in your daw or console. Set the balance (with track level faders) so that you hear the snare and kick roughly at center. Set the level to snare peak at around -6 dBFS. Mono the overhead aux.

4) Listen snare and overheads together. Then invert phase of overhead aux. Snare becomes stronger or weaker. Go for the stronger sound.

5) Compress overheads. Set ratio to 8:1. Attack and release as fast as possible. Set threshold so that gain reduction is around 5-10 dB on snare hit. Release longer until you hear no compression distortion (if there is too much of that). If compression took all life, adjust the attack just a little longer. Goal is to suppress snare transient from overheads.

6) Compress snare track. Set ratio to 4:1. Attack 40-80 ms and release 160 ms. Set threshold so that gain reduction is 5-10 dBs. Goal is to emphasize the transient with that slow attack. Bring level up (with make up gain) about 5-10 dBs. You can add gate after the comp. With attack as fast as possible, hold around 160 ms and release 320 ms, reduction about 6-12 dBs.

This is just one approach (used here). Derived from live applications. Goal is to make it good, not natural (leaving it bad).

[Konek]

Hi Kapu! I liked your mix, nice work with vox, cool sounding guitars.
Some resonanses at low end( 0'51 for example) slightly spoil the picture
Cheers!

[Olli H]

Sounds great to me. Energetic mix.
I wonder if it's just a bit too kick driven groove. Maybe in verses the kick's role could be lesser.
I like those vox effects

[Olli H]

1) Check the absolute phase of the snare track - largest peak at snare hit on positive side. If not, then invert phase.

Good points, but why should the largest peak be on positive side?

[kapu]

1) Check the absolute phase of the snare track - largest peak at snare hit on positive side. If not, then invert phase.

Good points, but why should the largest peak be on positive side?

Human brain is supposedly more sensitive to sound pressure building towards the ear drum. Especially in transients (possible danger in nature). Speakers are usually designed to move the membrane towards you at the positive potential, and they are usually more sensitive in that direction. This is usually taken into consideration with larger PA-systems, but the principle should work at any level. I've tested my systems transient response with needle pulse and flipping the phase, and there is audible difference in sound, but honestly can't say if it's that important. But most certainly there is no damage done when maintaining absolute phase. It's more like a gut feeling, that "this is the correct way."

[Olli H]

Interesting point, but maybe it applies more to big systems where air is also moving. At least near the speaker. Don’t know.

I tested with some cd’s and inverted the phase back and forth and didn’t hear any difference in my small systems, nor in headphones. I also looped just kick sound playing same sample twice, but the other was inverted. I didn’t hear any difference. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not thing to be taken care of. It was just my ears and my system.

I think I try to study the issue more just to find if that’s something one should check in routine level.

Thanks for the info.

[kapu]

Interesting point, but maybe it applies more to big systems where air is also moving. At least near the speaker. Don’t know.

I tested with some cd’s and inverted the phase back and forth and didn’t hear any difference in my small systems, nor in headphones. I also looped just kick sound playing same sample twice, but the other was inverted. I didn’t hear any difference. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not thing to be taken care of. It was just my ears and my system.

I think I try to study the issue more just to find if that’s something one should check in routine level.

Thanks for the info.

Inverting needle pulse test signal usually makes the overall tone a bit darker. I think the idea is of preserving low frequency transients when summing (mixing) multiple signals, to achieve constructive phase correlation on the positive potential. Upgraded the mix a bit, also.