Backroom In Tulsa - mix by Olli H

[Olli H]

Great song, great performance, great everything, except annoying noises in acoustic solo guitar. Good challenge, good practice.

First I made mix without listening the original, and after that I checked/stole some arrangement ideas that I had missed from it.

Most of the time I spent with drums, trying to find level, pans and space balance without EQ or other effects. For some reason I went for wide and far drum sound, although that's somewhat contradictory idea in itself.

Everything else came quite quickly after that. I used some automation to bring up the interesting fills here and there.

Although acoustic guitar mic had some noises, I still wanted to bring it up more than amped versions of it. I felt that amped guitar didn't bring any new sonic elements to the song. And anyway, unpolished elements are not necessarily bad in this song.

The low end has some rumbling problems. I tried to fix them, but the fixed version was more boring, so I decided to leave the rumble. So I left that problem to mastering engineer.

[gopener]

Very nice mix Olli!
Great bass sound.I would lower a bit the hi hat though.

[takka360]

Nice strong mix,good work

[thedon]

Fantastic mix Olli
Really nice to listen to.

[sano]

Great mix !

[Olli H]

Thanks for comments!

[Blue Bus]

hi Olli H,

it sounds good. may a rethink on levelling the drums might helpful in my opinion so that the level balances are maintained.
some dessing on the vox will be helpful. also cleaning up the gaps in between vox is desireable.
low end sounds good if the heavy drums is what you were aiming for.
the hi hat gets a bit loud, over powering the instruments a times.

Apart from that its your creativity and if it works for you it works for me.

Regards,
Blue Bus.

[WesleyMorgan]

This is a good mix. It sounds much more present and aggressive than the original mix (which people should listen to at http://wesleymorgan.bandcamp.com/album/b...m-in-tulsa). Sounds like more liberal use of compression to bring all the sounds more forward. It's neither good or bad, just different. As the artist, I might prefer a mix like this one day and the original mix another day.

It's a good thing you listened to the original for hints at the arrangement. You brought up the lead guitar during the second verses. So many mixes here bury those lines. In my mind, the voice is up front and when it is not there are so many awesome moments that can be highlighted happening with the piano, steel guitar, guitar, or drums.

My intention for this recording was to get a sense of space and vibe like I hear on all my favorite Tom Wait's albums. That is why there is so much room sound in these tracks. There is no acoustic guitar per say, but rather my hollow body electric mic'd at the same time in one room while the amp is mic'd in another. The "acoustic" version was meant to have noises in it. I think it is a little too high in relation to the amp'd version for my taste, but not overly so. One thing you could probably try is delaying the amp version 30-120ms behind the acoustic version. Play with the levels to taste. Another idea would be to not overly compress the acoustic version. Compress it just enough so that the peaks are similar, but not so much that you are bringing up all the noise. Then you can compress the electric version a little more. Now you have the transients of the acoustic with the sustain of the electric. That sound becomes more 3d and less flat.

By the way, iZotope RX3 is pretty amazing for reducing noise, clicks, and pops. It also kills as a de-esser and can remove the "rumble" pretty well. I selected everything from 50hz and below and used the gain module to reduce the levels by 12db or so. You can hear the attached version for the difference.

Great song, great performance, great everything, except annoying noises in acoustic solo guitar. Good challenge, good practice.

First I made mix without listening the original, and after that I checked/stole some arrangement ideas that I had missed from it.

Most of the time I spent with drums, trying to find level, pans and space balance without EQ or other effects. For some reason I went for wide and far drum sound, although that's somewhat contradictory idea in itself.

Everything else came quite quickly after that. I used some automation to bring up the interesting fills here and there.

Although acoustic guitar mic had some noises, I still wanted to bring it up more than amped versions of it. I felt that amped guitar didn't bring any new sonic elements to the song. And anyway, unpolished elements are not necessarily bad in this song.

The low end has some rumbling problems. I tried to fix them, but the fixed version was more boring, so I decided to leave the rumble. So I left that problem to mastering engineer.

[loweche6]

Nice job Olli! I like the feel of it! Wesley, I knew I heard a heavy Tom Wait influence. Nothing much to criticize, as it's just making me zone out to the song.

Excellent work.

Draper