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The preview mix.
#1
Kaivalya wanted to ask me a question about this mix, so I thought I'd post it to it's own thread. I mixed this (and eight other numbers) for David's album 'Transience'. Mastering was done by Eric James at Philosophers Barn.


.mp3    DustYouAndMe_Full_Preview.mp3 --  (Download: 5.44 MB)


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#2
Hi,

Here are a few questions about the mix:-

a) You used the resonance to good effect. Do you think it clouds the mix in parts or is it ok to not notch the resonance. For eg:- i notched it abt 7-10db in parts at 145, 173 and 298 hz. Is it too drastic ?
b) your guitar has a sustained feel to it. Is it the compressor or reverb settings working there? What compressor settings did you use for a project of this sort ? Is a fast attack of about 3ms too much ?
c) You also took the edge off the guitar. I tried doing the same but couldn't find a decent compromise. Is it transient designing you employed or just general eq? What frequency did you cut. Did you apply multiband compression on that frequency?
d) Most importantly your mix has certain sweetness to it. The strumming parts just glide into each other. Is it some plugin working there or the eq sweet spot. It has that certain fullness to it. Has it got something to do with the mid range boost 1-3k ?
e) I also find certain eqs to have a smoother output. The stock digidesign eqs in comparison to wave eqs sound a bit tinny. Is that right?
f) How do you get the open tone. Does low pass filtering to abt 80 hz help the cause. As this is a single instrument mix . Would that lead to loss in body. Or may be giving it some air at about 8000 hz upwards.
g) Did you sidechain compress the reverb ?
h) Finally did you use parallel compression. I think it has its uses in this particular mix. What are your thoughts ?

It would be a great help if you answer these questions. Thankyou.

nitin
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#3
Hi Kaivalya,

Given your comprehensive list of questions, and having looked back at how complicated the project file is, I think the best thing is if you have a look at the project file directly. I did this mix in Reaper, so you should be able to check it out whether you're on a Mac or a PC. I used some third-party plug-ins, so I've included screenshots of those in case you've not got them on your system. You can download the Zip archive here.

Coming back to this mix session again, I can tell from the settings that I was still feeling my way sonically (I have a feeling that this might have been the first number I mixed), so I can't say it's the most elegant mix setup I've ever conceived. Rolleyes Still, it's the sound that matters in the end. Incidentally, if you want to read about a similar (and slightly more well-organised) project I did for Mix Rescue, check out Santi Vega's 'Ying Yang'. There's a full Reaper project file downloadable for that one too.

(27-07-2012, 06:50 AM)Kaivalya Wrote: a) You used the resonance to good effect. Do you think it clouds the mix in parts or is it ok to not notch the resonance. For eg:- i notched it abt 7-10db in parts at 145, 173 and 298 hz. Is it too drastic ?

I did notch at 292Hz, as well as dynamically EQ'ing the soundhole boom at 99Hz, but my other notches were higher up at 3.8kHz and 6.2kHz. 7-10dB is by no means too drastic, in my view, just as long as you automate the band gain controls so that the cut only happens when it's needed. You can read about my doing that with Santi Vega too.

Quote:b) your guitar has a sustained feel to it. Is it the compressor or reverb settings working there? What compressor settings did you use for a project of this sort ? Is a fast attack of about 3ms too much ?

All my full-band compression was in parallel, and I had two separate compressors going there: one extremely fast to generally add sustain, and the other a bit slower to do more automatic gain-riding for me. In addition there's a long plate reverb (great for sustain) and a chained reverse/ping-pong delay confection I dreamt up as 'special sauce' for the trippier middle-section.

Quote:c) You also took the edge off the guitar. I tried doing the same but couldn't find a decent compromise. Is it transient designing you employed or just general eq? What frequency did you cut. Did you apply multiband compression on that frequency?

All of the above! Smile This was one of the big challenges of this particular recording for me. I ended up band-splitting and using both fast limiting and dedicated transient processing above 1kHz. Again, though, I automated the limiting to adapt it to its context, as it's too savage a process to simply set and forget.

Quote:d) Most importantly your mix has certain sweetness to it. The strumming parts just glide into each other. Is it some plugin working there or the eq sweet spot. It has that certain fullness to it. Has it got something to do with the mid range boost 1-3k ?

Thanks! Smile (Although I might have to thank the magic mitts of Eric James too!) The UAD Studer on the output buss may be a part of this, as well as the extreme HF boost with URS CSP's high-band (in Pultec mode). The widener and chorus effects may be responsible too.

Quote:e) I also find certain eqs to have a smoother output. The stock digidesign eqs in comparison to wave eqs sound a bit tinny. Is that right?

Different EQs certainly sound different. All the EQ here is either ReaEQ or CSP's Pultec emulation.

Quote:f) How do you get the open tone. Does low pass filtering to abt 80 hz help the cause. As this is a single instrument mix . Would that lead to loss in body. Or may be giving it some air at about 8000 hz upwards.

For 'air' I generally boost higher than that -- 15kHz at least. Here I boosted at 20kHz with an extremely broad shelf, and that's a very common move for me on a lot of home-recorded productions. As for high-pass filtering, I was cagey about filtering anything but the sub-20Hz rumble, simply because high-pass filtering can reduce the LF impact of percussive sounds, and there are percussive effects all over this track, of course. Remember, too, that a filter's stated turn-over point is the -3dB point, so if you filtered at 80Hz you'd probably lose at least 2dB from all the low guitar fundamentals.

Quote:g) Did you sidechain compress the reverb ?

No, but I did use transient processing to avoid the spikes hitting the longer plate patch too hard.

Hope some of that helps, and let me know if you have any problems deciphering that project file -- it's a little bit tangled in terms of the routing. You can read some notes about the way I tend to organise my projects on the Santi Vega project-download page.
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