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Color Me Red Mix by John Fueston
#1
Comments are greatly appreciated.
I found the intro to be a little jarring- it sounded as if the second stab chord from the acoustic guitar was a bad edit because it stopped so abruptly. So I copied and pasted the first stab chord over the second.
I also muted the drums over the intro, but added a double cymbal crash (using the overdubbed cymbal tracks) to lead into the full band section.
For vocal processing I used a Haas delay 9ms left and 15 ms right (learned from a Bobby Owsinski online course), and very small amount of slapback delay, plate reverb, and Lo-Fi distortion.
I used a small amount of Lo-Fi distortion on the drum buss too, in order to add some energy.
Mixed in Pro Tools HD 12.6.

11-6-16 Update:
I made changes based on the feedback given here (thanks guys!) and have posted mix 1.1.
The following are the changes made:
Decreased lead vocal by 3 db.
Added a small amount of Abbey Road Reel ADT to the lead vocal to give it more stereo imaging.
Added a telephone effect to the lead vocal during the outro where the e gtr distortion is happening.
Changed EQ on the BVs to cut bass and add air.
Used 1176 on the descending electric guitar in the B sections and decreased its volume- so it did not stick out so much.
Added some plate reverb to the acoustic guitar.
Increased the volume of the banjo.
Muted the first cymbal crash, which I had added in the mix 1.0. The drums now start on beat 1.
Aligned the kick and snare to be in the center and not towards the left.
I used beat detective to tighten up the rhodes part (did this in mix 1.0 too, just forgot to mention it with the initial post).

Any comments on mix 1.1 are greatly appreciated!

Thanks to Mike Senior for agreeing the give feedback on my mix as a Patreon benefit. I look forward to your comments. Please use the latest edition of my mix for the critique. Thanks!

Mix 1.2 Update (11-25-16):
Thanks to Mike Senior for the helpful comments on mix 1.1!
I have made the changes to mix 1.2 based on those comments.
Please use this latest mix 1.2 for the contest.
I put a limiter on the aux track for the acoustic guitars and banjos so the transients didn't stick out so much.
I added more harmonic distortion to the electric guitars in the B sections so they fit the style better. I also decreased the low mid eq on these guitars.
I tried to make the lead vocal less lo-fi, but still fit the style of the song. I took off the micro delay effect and increased its volume.
For the background vocals, I added an 1176 behind the LA-2A already present to catch more of the transients sticking out. I also added a desser to tame the Sh sounds.
I increased the levels on the bass guitar and kick drum to beef up the low end of the mix.
I also decreased the volume level of the opening cymbal hit.
Thanks to everyone who has left comments.


.mp3    Colour Me Red Mix 1.0 John Fueston.mp3 --  (Download: 7.61 MB)


.mp3    Colour Me Red Mix 1.1 John Fueston.mp3 --  (Download: 7.61 MB)


.mp3    Colour Me Red Mix 1.2 John Fueston.mp3 --  (Download: 7.61 MB)


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#2
Yeah, the intro on this one is weird. Both the acoustic and drums cut before the song kicks in. I feel like they added the section after they recorded the song.

I'm not a fan of the distortion that comes in on the right side. I'm not sure what it's doing.
The vocals are a little too loud. I think if they were back some more the mix would appear louder and have more energy.
The BGVs could be thinned out some more to fit into the mix. There are a lot bassy vocals in that section and they can be tamed.
The "bridges" (quieter sections) sound good. Everything is well balanced. The first fill guitar part sticks out. I like the effect on it though.
I feel like I'm missing the banjo part but maybe it slipped past me.

Oh and the acoustic in the intro has an annoying buzz I've never noticed it before.

Good job
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#3
Thanks for the helpful comments Roy! I will work on those items when I do a mix revision.
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#4
Hi John, congrats on your first post here, I'm making this critique as I listen along to your mix. I agree with Roy on most of the points he made on your mix so I won't bother rehashing them.

One thing I did notice is that the Haas Delay on the vocals is that while the vocals do sound wider, they don't really gain anymore depth or fullness, they're slightly leaning to the left (it's just a side effect of the delay) and "Stereo" sounding but without the fullness that a doubler, chorus, or ADT (Artificial Double Track) would give to the vocals. I would just stick with a plate style reverb and a slapback delay for effects and use some compression from an LA2a emulation (Cakewalk has a free one on sale till November 7th) and some saturation to beef them up.

The double cymbal crash is more jarring to me than the stock intro IMHO, that silence is supposed to be there and without it, the intro sounds quite strange. A more effective way to make the intro work is to use a telephone filter with some distortion and a touch of reverb to make the acoustic more distant sounding. Leave out the drums until the cymbal hit starts and make sure that the acoustic is low, when the drums come it the volume difference will make the intro make more sense.

Hope this helps and 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
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#5
Thanks for the specific feedback Dcp. That is just the kind of info I need to help me improve. I will try out some of your suggestions with my mix revision.
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#6
Interesting mix, but why are kick and snare on the left ? Vocals sound great, a little more air on background vocals and thats it.
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#7
Thanks for the feedback Obelix. The snare and kick sounded a little left in the overheads. I thought I compensated enough with the spot mics, but maybe not enough. I will address that and the BVs in my mix revision.
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#8
Hi John,
Listening to your latest mix ,sounds good a little on the wide side can hear a fair bit happening in the side channels overpowering some focus in the centre channel.
The bass guitar could come up a touch maybe being masked by the electric guitar around the 120-200hz area.

Cheers Big Grin

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#9
Thanks for listening Thedon and for the helpful comments.
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#10
This is a great song to mix because of how well it was recorded and level of musicianship brought to the table.

What I hear in your mix is the following.

The cymbals are washy and are in front of nearly everything.
When they are hit, they take over the focus of the mix.

If you have any compression on the overheads try removing or use the "parallel" technique.

The bass guitar is subdued and overall bass presence is lacking energy.
Start with the bass guitar first and then work your way to the kick drum and then the master buss if all else fails. This can be a challenge because, adding more bass frequencies to a mix has the potential of fogging things up resulting in a muddy production.

I personally would like to hear more depth from the mix in general.

Experiment with panning and reverb to place the instruments where you would like to hear them in the stereo field.
Think three dimensional. Volume is vertical, Panning is horizontal and Reverbs and Eq will place things either forward or to the rear.

I hope this was helpful.

Best.
My Original Music

"One often learns more from ten days of agony than ten years of contentment."

Pro Tools 12.6/Studio One 3 Pro
Studiolive 16 Series III
Yamaha HS5/HS8
Console 1
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