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The Dice - jtbStudio
#1
A challenging mix, since while everything was really well-recorded, it's always hard getting a big fat mix, but still have everything clear and audible.

One thing I did that made a big difference was panning the guitars. Originally, I had them hard left and right (as did everyone else, apparently Undecided) which certainly made them sound wide, but there was also a big hole in the middle. So I took a copy of the guitars, pitch-shifted and delayed them ever so slightly, and put them in the centre, at a lower volume, to fill that hole. This gave me a solid "wall of sound" for the guitars, wide but spread more evenly across the stereo field. Even cooler, by automating the volumes of the 3 guitar tracks, and the panning of side channels, I could control the width of the guitars: big, fat and wide, or more focused and centred.

Other people have mentioned difficulties with the snare - it was a bit uneven, not only in volume but also tonally, and I ended up cutting and pasting hits from other parts of the song to make things more consistent. I had trouble getting it to stick out in the song, so I had the idea of side-chaining it into the guitars, ducking them a few dB on each hit, and this made a big difference. However, I ended up having so much stuff going into that side-chain (vox, snare, bass), I'm not sure if I was making the compressor constantly be working, which kinda defeats the purpose Undecided

I recently discovered the value of low-passing tracks on another mix I've been working on. Everyone talks about the importance of high-passing tracks, to clear out the mud in your non-bass/kick tracks, but hardly anyone seems to talk about the other end of the spectrum. Bass and kick tracks seem to have a lot of sonic information in the upper registers that mask out and dull the sound of the snare. I'd already closed off this mix, but a quick test showed that low-passing the bass and kick cleared out a huge amount of space for the snare, and it suddenly became much clearer, especially the "crack" and sparkle, instead of just a dull thud. I'll definitely be doing this in future mixes! Smile

I tried a new technique with the vocals, copying it to another track, distorting it pretty hard, blending it back in, and bumping it up when the vocals needed to cut through a bit more. This helped quite a bit.

I also had a bit of fun with the vocals in the break - some lo-fi processing and swirly delay, to help it fit into the trippy sound of the guitars, with a fair bit of automation of those, and EQ to get each phrase to blend in nicely.


.mp3    The Dice.mp3 --  (Download: 9.6 MB)


Mixing and mastering at jtbStudio.com
My music at JazzTeddyBears.com


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#2
Nice kick drum tone.
Low passing is no different than high passing when it comes to cleaning up the spectrum. The trick is not to introduce some nasty resonant ringing due to lpf/hpf filters or use it to your advantage.
The overheads where recorded with too distant mics and the hihat was too close in this track, it's really hard to mix if you haven't recorded everything by yourself.
Bass seems just right but could have been with more high end since it's played with the mediator (gives more angrier sound for metal/rock).
Toms would have been hipassed more (sticking a bit too much out of the mix).
Down-tuned guitars usually are easier to mix cause they give warmer more controlled tone.
The hardest part is to avoid muddy hissing/howling white noise sound throughout the mix caused by loud guitars and cymbals. I don't know how they achieve such a coherent full sound on the latest releases even on the busiest tracks.
Overall great attempt just like for everyone else.
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#3
(23-09-2016, 09:23 AM)sysrq Wrote: Nice kick drum tone.

Thanks. All my gear is currently overseas, so I'm mixing on earbuds right now Sad, so I'm happy if the bottom end is even just intelligible Smile

(23-09-2016, 09:23 AM)sysrq Wrote: The overheads where recorded with too distant mics and the hihat was too close in this track, it's really hard to mix if you haven't recorded everything by yourself.

IIRC, I had problems with that too, although recording things myself doesn't necessarily make things better Undecided I suppose part of learning how to do all this is figuring out how to do the best you can with what you're given.

Thanks for the feedback. The tracks were pretty nicely recorded, so it was easy to get a good mix, but it's about figuring out how to get a great mix Smile
Mixing and mastering at jtbStudio.com
My music at JazzTeddyBears.com


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#4
Hi there!

I think that the mix would benefit from having a more present bass, and also specially the hi-hat has some harsh highs, at least here in my monitors. Otherwise nice attempt I think, I'm liking the vocal sound!

Best regards, and also hi to everybody else since I just registered Smile
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