I'd Rather Be Drinkin' (jtbStudio)

[jtbStudio]

Listening to the raw tracks, nothing really jumped out at me as needing attention. The drums didn't work for me, so I replaced them, and a great-sounding snare and kick made all the difference. I got Slate's Trigger during a special, and even with another $50 for an iLok, it's still far and away the best money I've spent for my mixes.

I spent a bit of time evening out the snare hits, but not too perfectly. As Mike said in his podcast, the loose feeling is part of the song's appeal, and having perfect snare hits would take something away from that.

The preview track felt a bit flat to me, so my main aim when mixing was to inject some energy into the song. The solos pop out more, and the instruments go nuts quite nicely in the background during the outro

The only thing I'm maybe not happy about is how the vocal is sitting in the mix. It doesn't feel right, but I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong. I've been experimenting with compressing vocals a bit harder than I usually do, and this one's peaking at around 10dB, across 2 compressors, but it seemed to be appropriate for the song. I suspect the problem is with the delay/reverb. I might take another listen in a few weeks

[Roy]

It sounds pretty good but, yeah, the vocals are a little weird. There's something artificial sounding about them and it does sound like it might be partially related to the effects on it. Also, the high end eq might make the 'weirdness' stand out more. I'd take everything off of the vocal and start from scratch working the sound in the mix with the rest of the instruments

[Dangerous]

Adding to RoyMatthews comments, I'm wondering if it's a reverb choice somewhere. It seems to be affecting the whole mix in a small way. The keys and guitar solo highlights this for me.

Also sounds like the maybe a little too much ~100-200hz in the mix. Just sounding a bit full in this area.

Dave

[jtbStudio]

Adding to RoyMatthews comments, I'm wondering if it's a reverb choice somewhere. It seems to be affecting the whole mix in a small way. The keys and guitar solo highlights this for me.

Quite possibly I tend to put a lot of processing on vocals, and with all reverbs and delays and widening and what-not, they're bound to conflict sometimes

I've been reluctant to rework the vocal since I also do a lot of automation on it, which would have to be redone, but I think the rest of the track has come out rather well, so it'd be a shame to spoil it with problems on the vocal track (especially given it was such a good performance). Just a bit busy right now...

There's no reverb or anything like that on the master, just a bit of stereo widening, but there's a lot of processing on the solo tracks, which probably have the same kind of problem the vocal track has

Also sounds like the maybe a little too much ~100-200hz in the mix. Just sounding a bit full in this area.

Also entirely possible. All my gear's overseas, so I'm mixing on earbuds and I may have overcompensated a bit too much. There's a tiny scoop in that area on the master right now, so it just needs a touch more.

[Roy]

I'm stuck on earbuds too. It sucks but I'm getting more and more used to it.

[Dangerous]

Hats off to anyone who can mix on earbuds

[takka360]

Phase problems .Funny enough I done a mix on ear buds the other week and it translated really well

[jtbStudio]

Phase problems .

Thanks, that's just what I needed to know. People have pointed out phase problems in my mixes before, but I couldn't hear what they were referring to. This time, I could hear the problem but didn't realize what it was although I was on the right track when I thought it was something to do with the delay/reverb.

It turned out to be a delay that had the wet signal too high (-8dB) - I took it out completely, which makes the vocal a bit dry, but I think it still works. Having the vocal clearer made the solos sound a bit dull, so I also had to push them up in the mix a touch - funny how that works It's never easy - sigh...

My newly-attuned ears also heard a similar problem with the solos. I had widened the stereo by adding a 5/9ms delay to the left/right channels (for some reason, I always use odd values), but bumping these up to 6/10 seemed to lessen the problem somewhat. I also cranked the overall delay on these tracks down a bit. I suspect these multiple delays I keep piling on are interfering with each other and causing the phase problems people keep pointing out to me

I tried scooping a little more out of the bottom end, as per Dangerous' suggestion, but even 0.25dB made things sound wimpy. This is surely because I'm listening on earbuds, since I have to run things a little hot on the bottom end to make it sound OK there, but for this genre, I'd rather err on the side of too much bass rather than too little.

I'm pretty happy with how this one sounds now. Thanks to everyone who commented.

Funny enough I done a mix on ear buds the other week and it translated really well

Yah, the problem is it's a crap-shoot. Because you can't hear properly down there, you don't know what's going on, so sometimes you might get lucky and it all works out, but sometimes it doesn't. I just reference a lot and hope for the best. Can't wait to be reunited with my studio...