Crownoise - Sleep by the fire - Need HELP please!

[crownoise]

Heyy whatsup how are you guys (girls???) Doing! This one was hard, think my mix ended up somewhere in the middle of mix/master skillz haha...Please comment and help me out!

[CJ Fuller]

Heyy Crowny, we meet again...
That was pretty good. Seriously. Barely even any flashing red lights on my console ;-) Nah, but seriously, I listened to the whole thing and overall enjoyed the song for what it was. I haven't done anything with the raw files on this so can't pass any technical judgement on how well you dealt with them, but as a song itself came together well.
As far as criticism, there was a kind of woolly thickness hanging around the lower mid range. (Like I'm not guilty of that myself...) I don't know exactly what was introducing it in terms of tracks, but say, if I was mastering this song, I'd be tempted to apply a fairly hefty mid-range cut, sweeping it around until things started to open out a bit. Basically, give it a bit of the old rock-n-roll smile as far as EQ.

[CJ Fuller]

On a second listen, it's probably the bass and guitars... Have you got any high pass/low cut filter on the guitars? Maybe something between 80-150Hz? Then figure where the guitar riff is peaking - at a rough, drunken guess 400-800Hz, and maybe notch the bass down a dB or two there.
To be honest, you had a REALLY tight bass on that JetB track, so if I were you I'd want to go back and see what you did on that, rather than listen to my random guesses...
Also... this band is SO Green Day, aren't they? I just can't think of anything else I'd use as a reference as far as mixing them.

[crownoise]

Heyy Crowny, we meet again...
That was pretty good. Seriously. Barely even any flashing red lights on my console ;-) Nah, but seriously, I listened to the whole thing and overall enjoyed the song for what it was. I haven't done anything with the raw files on this so can't pass any technical judgement on how well you dealt with them, but as a song itself came together well.
As far as criticism, there was a kind of woolly thickness hanging around the lower mid range. (Like I'm not guilty of that myself...) I don't know exactly what was introducing it in terms of tracks, but say, if I was mastering this song, I'd be tempted to apply a fairly hefty mid-range cut, sweeping it around until things started to open out a bit. Basically, give it a bit of the old rock-n-roll smile as far as EQ.

Hey CJ we most certainly do! Yes if you where to compare this to a pro master i also agree it being a bit wooly. But i mean on this song i actually didn't think so much of the master and so on, i just tried to deliver the emotion, cuz it felt like i really could relate to it! Also i am getting bashed from the pros like you and the rest of me having to tiny guitars so maybe that might have been a factor too haha Im really glad that you liked it! I think it is the first mix i've posted here where i get a really "undistorted-overanalytic" feedback ;P haha... thanks alot it really means much, mixing has come my passion and i hope this community grows! I can't wait to hear how you will paint this song I noticed the vocals on the refrain might have been a bit on the edge to bright but atleast it make the lyrics and feeling come thru. I also as always miss the little mouth clutters and so forth, my retina macbook ain't the best on cpu when loaded with subtle distortion plugins haah..../facepalm. But i mean, its never done until you call it a quit and i stopped there and was satisfied. Cheers mate and see you.

[CJ Fuller]

So,

Last night it was around midnight when I listened to this, so it was all on headphones. Giving it another listen on the monitors today and it sounds really good. I think you nailed this one. Love the vocal treatment, love the overall depth of the mix and the stereo imaging. Maybe the vocal is a touch bright for my taste (which you already noticed), but other than that, very nice.

I think the woolliness was the bass - there's a lot of very low, long notes and trapped inside those little padded cans over my ears it had nowhere to go.

I did notice a very faint bit of high end hiss or noise at a few points. I'm wondering - is there a crash cymbal that's been mixed WAY down in there, or maybe only coming through a reverb channel or something? If not, it might just be something on the original recording that a compressor is amplifying. I doubt the average consumer "lo-fi" system would even notice it ;-)

[crownoise]

Hey again CJ fuller nice to talk again ! Thank you so much! I'm really proud of this one and this makes me feel even more confident and happy! The very thing of me only mixing in cheap headphones make me wonder if my mixes ever will translate well in monitors, BUT seems as it sounds good there too!! Awsome . Thanks so much. I have done another mix of Im Alright and i'm pretty pleased with that one too. Would be amazing if you listened to it and gave feedback. Thanks again mate and good luck mixing! It could absolutely be the cymbal i actually dont know, i think it might be the OH's that i added some extra lowmid in to not make the cybals so empty.

[CJ Fuller]

No worries. As far as monitors go, yes, a set of self-amped, flat response near-field studio monitors is of course the gold standard for the home or small professional studio. But if you can't afford that, a set of decent home hi-fi speakers can make perfectly serviceable monitors. It's worth remembering that the original Yamaha NS-10s were actually home hi-fi speakers (and not considered particularly good ones by the audiophile magazines of the day). It was only AFTER they became common in studios that they released the NS10m and started marketing them as "studio monitors".
If you look around for second hand stereos at garage sales, ebay, second hand shops, you can probably pick up something decent but unglamourous for dirt cheap, because there is such a huge supply of old stereos hanging around, and people tend not to value them very highly. Get something with a decent wooden cabinet (not a plastic boom box thing), and if it has removable grilles so much the better - you can instantly look 50% cooler and more professional to the average Joe or Jane ;-) At worst, it gives you an alternative set of speakers to reference your mixes on.

[crownoise]

No worries. As far as monitors go, yes, a set of self-amped, flat response near-field studio monitors is of course the gold standard for the home or small professional studio. But if you can't afford that, a set of decent home hi-fi speakers can make perfectly serviceable monitors. It's worth remembering that the original Yamaha NS-10s were actually home hi-fi speakers (and not considered particularly good ones by the audiophile magazines of the day). It was only AFTER they became common in studios that they released the NS10m and started marketing them as "studio monitors".
If you look around for second hand stereos at garage sales, ebay, second hand shops, you can probably pick up something decent but unglamourous for dirt cheap, because there is such a huge supply of old stereos hanging around, and people tend not to value them very highly. Get something with a decent wooden cabinet (not a plastic boom box thing), and if it has removable grilles so much the better - you can instantly look 50% cooler and more professional to the average Joe or Jane ;-) At worst, it gives you an alternative set of speakers to reference your mixes on.

Well written and spoken, i feel like i always learn from you!, I find it pleasing to hear you thoughts about monitor systems because, i have been studying audio engineering in the past and our teachers was ranting a lot about ns10s. It was only the time when i was studying at one of the finest universities in Sweden when the teachers where saying otherwise. I had a teacher called Jens Bogren who where a mix pro. He had years of experience and was mixing top metal bands like Soilwork etc. He said that nothing comes close to analog gear, but we found out that he almost never used them when he was showing his mixing, because "it takes a lot of time patching etc". Jens did use analog gear in mastering and on busses, he said that no digital compressor can match the sound of analog compressors, here is where i actually agree with him. I think that many digital compressors if not almost everyone takes away to much bass and believe it has to do with that the digital algoritm isn't fast enough relative to the release and starts clamping down on slower elements (wich most of the times are the bass), that is what i found out when using the ssl compressors and the la3a's or the other mixerboars eq , think it was a brit board i can't remember the name of (They had 2 expensive mixerboars and all the rest output gear you could imagine). The punch is also much more prominent in expensive analog compressors because as what i believe they take away "non audible" stuff because of the super hard/100% (speed of light) clipping that occurs via the in/output transformers. This is what gets taken back when a digital mix goes thru the headroom increase when the mastering engineers takes the song thru there gear. Any how i think i went a bit of topic, but i do believe the same as you, that its more important to make the mix sound good from where you are listening, like make it sound good on a cheap set of headphones etc because most of the listeners don't own barefoots, which they had in the university. I think i might know the mixes translate well when mixing with ns10's, i think its because it lacks bass wich makes you more keen on keeping the high end smooth and present which everyone likes. I have tried to mix on small studio speakers alot and i find that my mixes instantly where more liked by the listeners. I think this is because if you focus alot on whats most audible which in this case would become the most "upfront" frequencies (around 3k where the ns10s are very prominent) you get a very "loud" mix that doesnt hurt your ears. Bogren ranted alot about the effect the 3k had and as and effect, he showed a graph of how the ear drops perceived db's on overall frequencies when the audio is turned down and it showed that 3k was dropping of the most for the human ear (i believe its because we must spot danger quickly and most of transients on impact lyes around there). Also i think that mix engineers are (atleast the most of them i think) keen on keeping stuff flat, and if you hear alot of dominent frequencies hence the listening environment you will take that down, most likely with a compressor or eq. So if you hear a lot of bass like i did before with my sennheiser 650 hd, you will either make that to loud or to low relative to every other frequencies, you will effect that. What i find is happening when mixing on smaller systems is that you leave a big room for the bass and make the lower bass be more open and clean in the mix. I have seen many mastering engineers that keep a set of 1 small cube to mix on in mono to have the bass in check or as you might hear more of the high mids/highs.