Diesel13 - Colour Me Red

[Dr.Gerry]

I just love this song!

Sorry.....I guess I should provide more helpful comments....!

I'm still a newbie at mixing - I have been doing it for about a year now, but on and off. I used to be a roadie, and I play instruments, so I consider myself relatively musical. Mixing and producing was a bit of an obsession of mine when I was a kid, but it never panned out, but it still fascinates me. So anyway, here's my mix (and I hope it is allowable to post more than 1, because I have tweaked it a bit to remove the glaringly obvious error, so I have added the 2nd (well, third, but that's between me and my wife!!).

As a newbie, things I struggled with were :
1. The drums. I bought Waves 'InPhase' back in the days when I was inexperienced enough to think I could buy an instant mix-fix in a plugin...! and as you can hear, I still haven't mastered it. The snare sounds a bit wrong, unless you 'squint with your ears' (and I claim copyright on that expression!) and then you can sort of imagine it's a rattly-chain snare....but not really.
2. So many vocal tracks! aaarrggh! - what to do with them! Just Pan and Wave, boys, pan and wave.....it nearly worked.
3. EQ The mix-that-shall-not-be-named (see previous wife comment) I thought was quite nice until my wife (the final arbiter of taste and style) told me it was 'horrible - it sounds like someone has sat on it', and that would have been so much easier to take if she had said it in a Monty Python voice, but she gave it to me dead-pan.....ouch!. So I got back to work on what was V2, but on reflection I think it has too much high frequency. The V1 mix sounded great in the car, but I haven't listened to the others yet, but I'm hoping they work.
4. Compression - to use or not to use. That is the question
5. Bigness......I can get LOUD......I can sort of sometimes get CLEAR.....but how the heck do I get BIG? Actually, there's an opening for a plugin.....

Things as a newbie I thought I got alright, but yet I may be completely wrong, so please feel free to correct me...
1. The bass. I just love a chunky bass and I try to make a chunky bass sound whenever I can......even if it doesn't necessarily fit the song......which is wrong of me....
2. The vocals. Despite my vodka-inspired 17 plugins on the lead vocals, it doesn't sound too bad I thought.....and no, it wasn't quite 17, but it was a lot of vodka. Why not - lets face it, if you make it big in music, half the people who hear your work will be drunk in pubs. You have a RESPONSIBILITY to get shit-faced and check your mix. Just remember not to be too heavy handed when making adjustments! I might turn that into a 17 part video series (see what I did there...?).....Mixing Drunk.......top tips......$34.95 per month to watch me mix off my face!
3. The overall levels. You can hear every instrument at some point (although you have to squint with your ears again to hear the keyboards). That's something that I try to always do.

So, I hope those comments give you some idea of my approach to the mix. I figured that if I am going to be part of this community, I may as well try to make my posts and comments helpful. Sorry for the length of this post.....

[Roy]

My usual disclaimer is that I'm listening on earbuds. I feel like i should just put that in my sig.
Here's what jumps out at me. (V3). In no particular order.
-The acoustic at about 11 o'clock is pretty loud. I think it takes away from the snare and also emphasizes the "rattly-chain snare" sound. Plus I can't tell if the snare is centered or panned underneath that acoustic but I'd center it. Personally the snare song didn't bother me too much besides some occasional peakiness at about 4k and 7k. I didn't use the bottom snare mic in my mix. Also, notice that the acoustic is louder in the intro so watch how the song loses some intensity when the band comes in. Same goes for the vocal Mmmms.
-There's some annoying frequencies on the second rhythm acoustic that can be tamed in the high end.
-The BGVs could be balanced better. It feels like one or two vocals just pop out.
Some things that I did when I did some mixes of this was to break them down into parts. The BGVs in the middle of the song are essentially low, mids, highs. So I grouped the sections together and then it was more like mixing 3 vocals and not 12. Send the lot to a bus and eq/compress to taste. Another time I mixed the song I just balanced the BGs in another separate session and bounce a stereo mix so I didn't have so may tracks to look at in the main mix.

The good stuff:
-The drums sounds work besides the snare. Centering it and losing the bottom mic would help focus it and drive the song and probably clean up the acoustic. (if you are using it there's a lot of bottom in the top mic on the multitrack.) The cymbals have a nice "weight" to them.
-The bass feels good. I think it could have more bottom, but then again, earbuds. I think this is a song that could have a little too much bass than not enough so I'd err on a little more. Don't overdo it though. Just a hair.
-The vocals sound good. They do get obscured by the acoustic so I wasn't to say he could come up in the mix but he might be fine if the acoustic comes back. Maybe less reverb. It softens them up a little too much.
-I'm not sure on the electric guitar. It feels nice back in the mix but there are probably times you could ride it up sometimes.
-Yeah, I can hear everything but it feels a little disconnected. Personally, I'm not sold on hearing every instrument distinctly. I know general wisdom is make sure everything is heard but I'm more of the mindset that things can be slightly obscured or even muddy as long as it congeals as a sound. Case in point in this song is the Rhodes. It never really needs to be heard but just add some thickness to the chorus. You have it at a good level I think. It actually may want to come back a hair.

I wrote too much. My coffee hasn't kicked in.
That said it all sounds pretty good. There's really only some minor tweaks that need to be done to take it up another level.

[joelonsdale]

Great vocal sound! The snare sounds pretty feeble though - perhaps ditch the under-snare mic and boost the snare track at around 160Hz for some BEEF! Then perhaps TURN THE BASS GUITAR UP - there's a great big gaping bass-shaped hole in the mix! Your post is hilarious, so if nothing else, mixing has taught you to write really well!

[loweche6]

I think you've fairly well spotted your own flaws here Dr. G.

To help with some bigness, look up "parallel compression" and Mixing more on busses than on individual tracks (you still have to do surgical stuff on the individuals, but you make your color pallet with Buss effects, imho).

And squinting with my ears, your snare does sound damn close. It could do with a fair bit more body (lower mids).

I like your levels. They are very nice. I also think your acoustic could be a bit beefier since it featured so prominently. It may be a bit thin for the level that it is sitting at. It sounds a touch "plastic-y."

Your BG vox could definitely come up.

You're pretty damned close man, keep it up!
Draper

[Dr.Gerry]

Thanks Roy. That's really excellent feedback, thank you. I'll go back and try to put your ideas into practice. I would have loved to have turned the bass up a bit more, but I am usually a bit scared of making things a bit too boomy, but I guess with a bit more practice and skill on the EQ I'll eventually get the hang of it...hopefully!

Hope your coffee has started working!

Thanks again.

[Dr.Gerry]

Thanks Joe. I wondered about dropping the bottom snare. I'll give you suggestion a try, right after I get a bass-shaped shovel and fill the hole!

Glad you liked my post! When I start rambling it's hard to stop me!

Thanks again.

[Dr.Gerry]

Thanks Draper. I'll give parallel compression a bit of a bash and see how it goes. Judging from the other comments, looks like you're right on the mark with your suggestions.

Thanks again

[Dangerous]

Quite a nice sounding mix Dr.Gerry,

A couple of this stand out for me. I think the 17 plugs and vodka has done the trick nicely on the vocals. Well Done. I'm not sure whats happened to the snare. It's almost missing in action. I don't remember too many phase issue with the drums, so maybe this has something to do with it. The mix for me is a little weighted to the left due to the guitars. You may find a better balance by having the guitar parts play off each other left and right of the stereo field.

As with your struggle #5, "Bigness......I can get LOUD......I can sort of sometimes get CLEAR.....but how the heck do I get BIG? Actually, there's an opening for a plugin....." Less is more in this regard. Clutter will choke a mix and close it down. I guess it all comes down to arrangement and balance and creating that illusion of space.

As for your Chief "arbiter of taste and style" I would continue to trust the good wife There's not a mix that I have posted without the wife's final approval. I usually throw her the headphones and watch for her reactions whist listening. If I'm getting strange head jerks, crazy evil looks and screwed up facial expressions, I know I'm in trouble before I even get a comment. But when I get a good or even great response, well thats it! I'll throw it out there. When and if she ever starts to dance around the room, well, that will be the day I'll know I've made it and I can then quit my day job

Anyway thanks for the post, an enjoyable listen and a good laugh at the same time.

Dave

[wesleyamltd]

What's up Doc?

My observations of ver 3

Try bringing up the bass guitar because its completely absent.

If you can't replace the snare with a program like Trigger or Drumagog then get rid of the snare bottom track, it does nothing for the song.

Levels are decent. Back ground vocals are subdued.

As far as dealing with multiple tracks, like the many bgv tracks, treat then like any other instrument.

Just because there is a shit load doesn't make them any less important.

To get BIGNESS you need to get D E P T H in your mix.

Depth is achieve by thinking about your mix from a three dimensional perspective. Volume is vertical, Panning is horizontal and Reverb, time based effects and eq are front and back. This may be over simplified but I hope you understand.

Good luck.

[Roy]

The other thing I'll add is that about the room mic. I don't know if you're using it but if so it takes a little work for it to work with the other drum tracks. It'll definitely adds some of that bottom snare mic into the mix. So consider dropping it if it's adding something you don't want. Also, to minimize the perception of the bottom snare I muted both snare mics during the verses where he's just hitting the kick. It tightens up the drum sound a little and removes those sympathetic snare rattles from the listener's mind.