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Never stop dancing EJ :)
#1
James May - "Eliza Jane" - JELmaster

This is a wonderful song. Recorded beautifully Smile

I did first think about tuning the vox but decided against it. There is something human that goes away when tuning a vocal, especially in indie/alternative styles such as this one (I guess in pop it fits well enough, but I think indie/alternative sounds better when it doesn't sound machine-perfect Smile )

I don't mix vocals much. You have to be super-delicate with vocals (probably because vocals are inherent to being human and therefore have a narrower range it must fit into to sound correct) and I find it more forgiving to mix instrumental music (I just think there's a lot more room to play with when mixing instruments. Maybe because it's not 'hard-wired' into our minds what they should sound like, as vocals are)

Anyway, I ended up deciding I wanted the vox to be quite close up front and dry, without separating it too much from the music.
I actually made the vocals as the last thing, after having done the instrumental version first.

The song is overall quite bright. I do have a level of tinnitus, but I'm not sure if it's just my personal taste (I like bright music) or if it's a degree of actual hearing-damage that makes me opt for bright spectra in most of what I mix/master.
But it might not fit the taste of everybody (I generally aim for a 3-degree spectrum overall, although I've noticed that jazz typically sits around a 6-degree spectrum (which just sounds very dark to my ears))

The bass-guitar may be a bit too 'boomy'. I'm not too sure though, it could just be my sound-setup that exaggerates some frequencies and/or creates resonances.

The drums are quite punchy, but that's a deliberate choice. I find that often when playing music loud, if it's quite heavily compressed, the drums tend to lose their punch (even though it may be there at low volumes)

So to make sure they 'oomph' even when the song is played at high volume, I kept the bass-guitar on the low side. This may not really be to everybody's taste. I know a lot of indie/alternative have low-level drums, or kind of un-defined drums, to create these typical big-reverb sound-scapes, or psychedelic sound-scapes, that signifies some indie/alternative styles.

On the other hand, I didn't want the overly dry rock-drums that is used in some rock-styles, where the sound tend to be more snappy but without body.

I electrified the acoustic guitar-tracks, but not too much, just to give them some indie/alternative-crunch (I actually learned that trick from an 'unplugged' concert Hole did in the 90s, which wasn't really very unplugged at all haha Smile (they did use acoustic guitars, but with built-in pickups (and therefore plugged) rather than mic's set up on stage, and therefore had a sound much closer to typical distorted guitars))

I didn't do anything to the Hammond, but runs that one clean through the mix (I mean, it's a Hammond, nothing I can do to it would make it better Smile )

I compressed the vox a bit and eq'ed it to try and get it crisp and airy. I find for some songs the vox sounds great when drowned in reverb and coming from behind the instruments, but in this one I really liked the sound and felt it sounded best when kind of leading the instruments, sitting in front of them. So I kept it fairly dry, but not completely.

I cut off the deep end (to kill the low-end rumble) but tried to keep the vox from getting to 'phone' like (It can sound great for fx, but generally I don't like a full song to have a 'phone'-like vocal-track)
I wanted the vox to remain full (to keep that fully human sound Smile )

It's a really good sounding vocal track clean actually, so I didn't really want to mess too much with it but just keep it flat in terms of spectrum (although I did brighten it up to get it to pierce through the mix a bit more)

I noticed the song shifts tempo quite a bit halfway through (speeds up), but I didn't change that in any way.

In terms of plugins I used a range of compressors, reverbs, EQs and other things.

(Speaking of plugins, I hope it's ok I just plug a plugin of my own design called "Otto" Smile http://jelstudio.dk/JELSTUDIO_software.html I didn't use it in this particular mix, but have used it in other mixes I posted on this site)


.mp3    James May - \'Eliza Jane\' - JELmaster08.mp3 --  (Download: 11.94 MB)


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#2
Interesting. It doesn't sound too bright. I'm just not big on the overall aesthetic, I don't think it fits this particular song. It sound like you're bending the song to fit your own style, rather than finding the best style for the song. Also, the vocal reverb is simply too cavernous.
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#3
(09-04-2017, 09:19 PM)Damian Oakes Wrote: Interesting. It doesn't sound too bright. I'm just not big on the overall aesthetic, I don't think it fits this particular song. It sound like you're bending the song to fit your own style, rather than finding the best style for the song. Also, the vocal reverb is simply too cavernous.

Hi Damian Smile

I'm glad you mention it's not too bright. I wasn't sure, but thought I might have given it too much treble.
Especially when doing longer sessions I can't always tell if ear-fatigue makes me push the brightness harder than what's good.

More than once I've come back to an older mix only to find I lost ear-neutrality mid-way in the mixing process.
It's a sliding process that often gets me when mixing/mastering for long continuous periods, like getting snow-blind, or losing sight of the forest for all the trees, or something like that Smile



Yes, I did indeed 'bend' the song to fit my own taste.
I'm not sure I really believe in such a thing as a 'style neutral', or 'color-less', mix/master engineer Smile

I think people are generally best at mixing/mastering the styles they have some level of feelings for, and that artists should really pick their mix/master engineer based on that.
A bit like they idea of 'picking the right tool for the job' Smile (that engineer for that style, and that engineer for that style)

Obviously there are differences and some are better at being all-round than others, but I do believe that most mix/master engineers are, in some way, best perceived of as a kind of contributing artist to the overall sound-result.

For the same reason I also cut out the mandolin and sliding pedal-steel guitar. That was a deliberate choice, and clearly not one you can make if you're trying to stick strictly with the artist's intentions (Of course James May hints in his post, in the top of this sub-forum, that we can go ahead and make some artistic choices to this track, so I felt like it was ok to experiment a little and not worry too much about deviating Smile )


So having said all that, I'm not sure I could mix country in the same way an engineer with lots of country-work could, even if I tried. I favor a specific sound (I guess we all do at some level) so I'm probably always going to, even if trying not to, end up close to it to some degree.


About the reverb. I did experiment with dry vocals and I did like the sound of that, so I actually cut down the level of the reverb to keep it very far down in loudness (obviously not enough) so it didn't sound too obvious that the vox has reverb. I aimed for it to be more like a background thing that wasn't too 'visible' during most of the singing, to give the sense that the vox is dry during the singing-parts while having some atmosphere during the non-singing parts.

I tried short reverbs too, but they became even more obvious, so I ended up going with a very long tail to try and make the dry vox and the reverb two distinctly different items. But obviously that didn't work as intended when you comment the reverb like that Smile
Personally I really like big and long reverbs though, so we're probably back to the personal-taste bias-thing as mentioned above.

Thank you very much for your comment. The part about the brightness was especially good to hear (As that, in my experience, tends to be less style-dependent and therefore more important to get correct. Where as long or short reverbs can more easily be written down to personal taste)

Thanks again Smile
JEL
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