After hearing Jeff's mix of this track I downloaded the files for the track and started to go to work on this track. As Dave has mentioned numerous times this set of multis is squashed beyond recognition, needless to say I didn't touch any sort of compression here at all besides a Waves Linear Multiband Comp to even out the low end when """""""Mastering"""""""" this.
For this mix I went for a Video Game Chip Tune vibe with alot of the instrumentation, the bass, rhythm guitars, and the synths were all run through a bit crusher via Guitar Rig. Really since pretty much everything was pretty mangled it only made sense to roll with it and I actually liked the way it turned out.
The drums were pretty interesting as well, The stereo drum loop I ended up muting out for most of the song with exception for the intro and the middle section and mangling with some telephonic eq and distortion for effect. On the "acoustic" drums I added a stereo reverb to the snare to give it some width and on the drum buss I used an upwards expander to give the kit some more punch and drive the track a little more.
There was a shout added by me at the build to the final chorus to give it that late 80's/early 90's vibe an towards the end I moved the Lo-Fi recitation towards the end of the solo guitars so that it could be heard easier.
I did use some Eq and saturation in mastering and a limiter just to bring it up to level but otherwise it's the mix turned up abit.
Cheers,
Dcp
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
(14-09-2016, 04:04 PM)dcp10200 Wrote: For this mix I went for a Video Game Chip Tune vibe with alot of the instrumentation, the bass, rhythm guitars, and the synths were all run through a bit crusher via Guitar Rig. Really since pretty much everything was pretty mangled it only made sense to roll with it and I actually liked the way it turned out.
The highlights of this mix are the creative FX on the tracks -- some interesting thoughts there. Liked the reverb on the telephone voice, in particular. And the bitcrusher. I had an 8-bit audio output on my computer in the 80's -- it did that "effect" by default
15-09-2016, 01:00 AM (This post was last modified: 15-09-2016, 01:07 AM by dcp10200.)
(15-09-2016, 12:06 AM)jeffd42 Wrote: The highlights of this mix are the creative FX on the tracks -- some interesting thoughts there. Liked the reverb on the telephone voice, in particular. And the bitcrusher. I had an 8-bit audio output on my computer in the 80's -- it did that "effect" by default
Thanks Jeff for stopping by! The reverb was pretty much me trying to emulate the intro to Number of the Beast hehehe . The bit crusher is deffinatly a cool effect for this kind of stuff, being a fan of classic game consoles played a role in using it as well. Those old 8 bit soundtracks are pretty fun to listen to and I can just imagine trying to record any sort of audio to those old machines would be quite the task. As I mentioned back on your thread I noticed that the low end of my master was pretty flabby sounding so I made a master with the same plugins with the low end boost backed off abit.
Cheers,
Dcp
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
Here's another new mix, this time I high passed the bass at 80 Hz and rode the level of it through the track to make it fit better. I also added an exciter to the kick to give it some cut in the mix and did another mute automation at the guitar solo.
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
16-09-2016, 10:01 PM (This post was last modified: 16-09-2016, 10:06 PM by dcp10200.)
And here's the final mix! Some parallel compression was added on the kick and snare, a Leslie emulation on the background vocals , and I used some parallel compression from an 1176 blue stripe emulation on the lead vocal and then though an LA2a emulation to get the colour of the transformers and tubes.
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
Very creative, lots of great ideas going on here. Reminds me of the old extended play 12" singles that artist used to release years ago. Just wondering if it's a little over done though, the songs structure overall may be compromised a little. but hey that purely subjective.
Great use with the bit crusher, unique but for me very effective especially on the synths.
I think I prefer Mix #2 overall, the vocals seem abit cleaner and defined. I don't use emulation plugins too often and when I do they are in super light doses, for me they can tend to over do it abit. I think all this old studio gear they try to emulate, were much more transparent than we care to remember. Once again this is subjective.
(17-09-2016, 07:26 AM)Dangerous Wrote: Very creative, lots of great ideas going on here. Reminds me of the old extended play 12" singles that artist used to release years ago. Just wondering if it's a little over done though, the songs structure overall may be compromised a little. but hey that purely subjective.
Great use with the bit crusher, unique but for me very effective especially on the synths.
I think I prefer Mix #2 overall, the vocals seem abit cleaner and defined. I don't use emulation plugins too often and when I do they are in super light doses, for me they can tend to over do it abit. I think all this old studio gear they try to emulate, were much more transparent than we care to remember. Once again this is subjective.
Great work, enjoyable listen
Dave
Thanks for the feedback Dave!
Can't say I really agree with you on emulation plugins as that's mostly what I end up using for compression and general tone shaping on my mixes but that's your opinion. For me straight digital compressors often compress and compress only. They don't give any sort of added colour to the sound (well, being clean and perfect is what they're intended for, but you know what I mean ).
I think it comes down to me liking distortion and dirt in my mixes, although on my final mix I did only use the 1176 on the vocals with the mix on 20% and the LA2a is basically just there. I did use RVox on the vocals on all versions of the mix but only as a gate on the first 2 versions. The final version has RVox gating and compressing the vocals a touch, that maybe causing some of the clarity to be taken away.
As for the arrangement changes, I wasn't really a big fan of most of the drum loop, it really just seemed to clutter up the "acoustic" drums on here. So I just automated it in where necessary to break up the track and augment the the back beat on the normal drums. The intro is actualy inspired by ZZ Top, more specifically the intro to the song Sleeping Bags, the drum loop has the same sort of vibe to that track (also I love ZZ Top ). I can see where you're coming from on it kinda breaking the format of the track and how the artist intended but for me the vanilla arrangement makes the track seem to drag a tad.
Cheers,
Dcp
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
(16-09-2016, 10:01 PM)dcp10200 Wrote: And here's the final mix!
Like the final mix. Came together well. Does feel like the "extended mix" version of the track. Agree with the comment about it dragging a bit otherwise ... I went back and forth on cutting one of the final chorus repeats myself.
. The bit crusher is deffinatly a cool effect for this kind of stuff, being a fan of classic game consoles played a role in using it as well. Those old 8 bit soundtracks are pretty fun to listen to and I can just imagine trying to record any sort of audio to those old machines would be quite the task. As I mentioned back on your thread I noticed that the low end of my master was pretty flabby sounding so I made a master with the same plugins with the low end boost backed off abit.
). I can see where you're coming from on it kinda breaking the format of the track and how the artist intended but for me the vanilla arrangement makes the track seem to drag a tad.