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Painted Skies (First take on this)
#11
Well, to me, being a pro also means to be able to say no. Let's be honest: who would agree to charge the same price to mix these tracks while you gonna spend dozens of hours just with the edition to make it acceptable ? Sure you can spend hours to make it sound good, but not for the same price.
Or you can say : ok I will charge the same but I refuse to spend more time than I usually do.

Of course small local band need support and materials for communication. But I don't think it's fair to make them believe they sound fantastic when they just suck and need to practice a lot more.
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#12
That's fair, but CLA or Michael Brauer could afford to say no. A lot of "pro" or, more aptly, working engineers can't afford to be as discriminating. If this band approached me to mix this song I'd give it a shot. I mean, a lot of us have on this site for free. And I bet the band would be happy with a lot of the results. I'd never listen to it again but I'd do it.

What it really comes down to is budget and expected results. If a band approached me with a rough mix of the song I'd be honest and tell them what it needs or what should be done. And, personally, I'm not big into doing a lot of fixing so they'd get what they played but if they want or need a product then that's fine I'd work with them and say here's what I can do for x amount in y amount of time. I can't make the song better and I can't make them play better but I can make it sound better. Or at least palatable. And maybe that will inspire them to work at it some more.

I'd be upfront and honest but hey, it's a service industry and I'd be willing to work with a band to get the best product out there.
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#13
Don't worry (except the fact we're ruining Shul's thread :p , sorry buddy !), we're more or less on the same page Wink

(if you want to continue this discussion, go MP)
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#14
It's cool. I figured we pretty much see eye to eye. But I like playing devil's advocate.

Shul's cool. He knows we mean well.
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#15
(25-12-2016, 07:23 PM)Mandubien Wrote: I've listen to the tracks.... and decided not to spend time on this one... Drums are absolutely not in place and vocals are totally out of tune !

To me, it's a non sense to try to mix this. The band should have used programmed drums, and spend more time to get better vocals. The "fix in the mix" definitively won't work here.

About your mix Shul, I think you can be way more agressive to get a more "in your face" sound, especially the guitars which sound very distant.

I can hear you tried to fix the kick as much as you can, but still.... not listenable for me (not your fault at all ! )

Lol yeah I agree they are not the best tracks.
If you ask me, this was recorded in one take .. perhaps guitars and vocals where added in a later time.. but the drums sound like they were taken in one take and that's it. I doubt they re-recorded that or that they "punched" in somewhere. I believe this is a band that is just starting out and barely has any experience with recording. Drummer is not used to playing with a click track. I noticed he tried to get in sycn several times to later get out of time. Perhaps he didn't used the click track at all... either or the double kick is very inconsisten and that's what is throwing him off.

Now the way I would approach this situation if a band came and lacked recording skills... In the most nice manner I would tell the drummer that He needs to practice with a click track. I'd say "this is just gonna be a demo.. let's just leave it at that. When you guys improve we can record the real thing" ... I mean no one wants garbage for a song.. so I'm sure they would accept the terms of it being a demo. For example this files are a fair demo quality recording. It gives them experience in the recording side of the project as well as another perspective of the overall result in the song. Sooner or later when they compare with other records they will forsure see that they need to improve their playing skills.

Fair and square I would take this job and I would mix these stems. Obviously low quality in the oven=low quality out the oven as well.
I'm sure at some point they were like "you can fix that right?" so it's less pressure for them in a way but is more pressure for the mixing engineer.. now if the recording engineer doesn't give a crap he won't mind recording this.. but Some people actually do. I'm sure these guys did the best they could Big Grin and therefore I mixed this with a lot of respect. I came out of a band in which none of us had experience.. I mean my drums where not off beat like this but none the less... at some point we did say "oh but you can fix that right?" .. and the recording engineer said yeah LOL. End result was a mess.. and I had to mix all my self because I was gonna put the "fix" time that our recording/mixing engineer wouldn't. Our songs came out okay.. not pro quality but above average.. I've heard worse

anyways... Yeah I did fix the most important parts of the kick. Fixing everything is impossible because that would mean fixing tempos in guitars and bass and even vocals.. so I just fixed important parts in the kick. As for the guitars since drums are not playing in sync with the tempo.. I felt a more soft/ pleasant to the ears sound would be more compensating for that aggressive off sync drum beat. So in a way is "i can't stand those drums" and at the same time "the guitars are so soft" so in a way (i thought) it would take the attention of the drums and focuse more on the guitars.. which are not that bad of an arrangement.
Yes the vocals have tuning issues.. but I didn't fix that because the drums where the ones causing the most trouble in my opinion. So in the time I worked with these .. i just focused on fixing the drums. Like you already know.. you can't fix everythig in a recording.

Thanks for the comment and no I don't mind those comments.. comment away... the more stuff we talk about the more we learn.
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#16
(25-12-2016, 07:57 PM)RoyMatthews Wrote: To be fair, part of practicing how to mix is how to deal with difficult mixes.

I think the rhythm guitar on the right has a little too much low end and it kind of dominates that side of the image. Maybe consider swapping the pan of the rhythms so it's on the left and off sets things like the riffs and floor tom which are on the right as well. If that makes sense.
The vocal feels too dry which might be what the style dictates but I'd err on the side of a little more "excitement" and ear candy mostly to distract from the rest of the track. Things to get the band and listener interested and hide the warts.

Agreed.. the right side has more low end.. I didn't pick that up when I posted this.. that's why listening on headphones once you think you have the mix is very important just like listening in mono.
And well I could have used more reverb yes.. But I believe I manage a good vocal sound in context with everything else Lol.. this was hard.
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#17
(26-12-2016, 03:57 AM)Shul Wrote:
(25-12-2016, 07:57 PM)RoyMatthews Wrote: To be fair, part of practicing how to mix is how to deal with difficult mixes.

I think the rhythm guitar on the right has a little too much low end and it kind of dominates that side of the image. Maybe consider swapping the pan of the rhythms so it's on the left and off sets things like the riffs and floor tom which are on the right as well. If that makes sense.
The vocal feels too dry which might be what the style dictates but I'd err on the side of a little more "excitement" and ear candy mostly to distract from the rest of the track. Things to get the band and listener interested and hide the warts.

Agreed.. the right side has more low end.. I didn't pick that up when I posted this.. that's why listening on headphones once you think you have the mix is very important just like listening in mono.
And well I could have used more reverb yes.. But I believe I manage a good vocal sound in context with everything else Lol.. this was hard.

Since that comment I downloaded the tracks and checked out the song. I didn't realize it's only 2 guitar tracks with a number of mics so that makes it a little tricky too. I don't feel like the multiple mics really help. They seem to have some big issues.

Yeah. Your vocals are fine. Actually on their own the vocal tracks are probably the best recorded instrument on the song.
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#18
(26-12-2016, 04:11 AM)RoyMatthews Wrote: Since that comment I downloaded the tracks and checked out the song. I didn't realize it's only 2 guitar tracks with a number of mics so that makes it a little tricky too. I don't feel like the multiple mics really help. They seem to have some big issues.

Yeah. Your vocals are fine. Actually on their own the vocal tracks are probably the best recorded instrument on the song.

Yeah I didn't find much use for the really dark mics.. but it could be used for a bit of low end. I personally prefer using eq on the cleaner ones.

and yes vocals are the best track.. Bass is a pain to fix though..
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#19

Yeah I didn't find much use for the really dark mics.. but it could be used for a bit of low end. I personally prefer using eq on the cleaner ones.

and yes vocals are the best track.. Bass is a pain to fix though..
[/quote]

The bass is like a drone and difficult showcase in the mix.

I should of had more discrimination when mixing the guitar tracks and abandoned the ambient mics to focus on the main guitar mic tracks.

Plus I should have mixed in mono as well. All good points you've made here in this thread.

I think your mix is a little crispy on the overheads but that could be my ears. Overall solid mix for what its worth.
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#20
(25-12-2016, 07:23 PM)Mandubien Wrote: I've listen to the tracks.... and decided not to spend time on this one... Drums are absolutely not in place and vocals are totally out of tune !

To me, it's a non sense to try to mix this. The band should have used programmed drums, and spend more time to get better vocals. The "fix in the mix" definitively won't work here.

About your mix Shul, I think you can be way more agressive to get a more "in your face" sound, especially the guitars which sound very distant.

I can hear you tried to fix the kick as much as you can, but still.... not listenable for me (not your fault at all ! )
if you want to work with it,you ll have to deal with recordings like this,check my mixing of this song
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