Hi! The upper mids feel a bit strong, at least with the triangle playing. Maybe take the triangle a few dBs down? The mix sounds very good, as you always upload very good sounding stuff. ^_^
(19-05-2018, 09:43 AM)kapu Wrote: Hi! The upper mids feel a bit strong, at least with the triangle playing. Maybe take the triangle a few dBs down? The mix sounds very good, as you always upload very good sounding stuff. ^_^
Thanks, the triangle is a tough object in this because you want to hear it in the mix, but its too easy for it to be too much. I reduced it on the master with a parametric, but knew if the triangle was considered too present, I would need to recall and adjust it.
This forum has helped me get to the mixing zone today I'm happy with. For instance, in this song, I'm using a C1 plugin to sidechain duck the bass under the kicks for more presence... I can thank this forum for such guidance.
I don't think it's the amplitude that's the problem exactly, but the fundamental's strong digital resonance smack in the ear's critical listening zone. I've been to hell and back with this instrument. It's harmonics are especially troublesome up in the 10kHz mark and well beyond. I ended up taking a tangential direction, and totally changed it's timbre so it sits better in the mix and doesn't have me wanting to hit the stop button. An audience will be none the wiser.
I had to critically evaluate every element's harmonics and role in the song in order to sort out everything above 1kHz. What makes it difficult, is the density of the arrangement and the fact that instruments come and go all over the place and at different times. All this stuff adds up in amplitude and of course, those amplitudes will tend to mask the triangle, which is also adding amplitude to the already congested space. Listen to the conflict at 30seconds between it and the synth vocoder. What is the triangle bringing to the music that justifies the sum of all these horrible harmonics combining? It makes me want to run and hide.
I'd also, question the musical relevance of having the triangle running as long as it does in the arrangement. Being mindful that the brain quickly loses interest in a sound and goes off on a jolly is one reason to keep it short. The shorter the better I'd say. Then, when you want it to run, give it space, either pull it forwards in the mix, or cut out other competing elements. And if this doesn't work, mute the darn thing !!
What's also not helping is the lack of dynamic and this in turn removes depth and increases masking and congestion. This is an unnecessarily hot mater, and it's distorting and bringing some harshness along with it. For one thing, you've not given the lossy codec room to do it's job effectively and this has consequences upon a listener, in a word, it's fatiguing.
Part of my journey to hell was being able to suffer the horrendous harmonics present in the stock, and working it without it throwing my perspective after 30 seconds for the rest of the day.
By the way, I posted up an image from an FFT on another's page; was it Kirk's? Most mixes I've listened to have this same problem.
"Nearly half of all teenagers and young adults (12-35 years old) in middle- and high-income countries are exposed to unsafe levels of sound from the use of personal audio devices": https://tinyurl.com/6xeeahc5 Read my bio.
25-05-2018, 11:27 PM (This post was last modified: 25-05-2018, 11:30 PM by Digitaldruglord.)
(25-05-2018, 01:40 PM)Monk Wrote: the horrendous harmonics present in the stock
There may have been some processing added to the tracks by the producer... this happens a lot, when you know what you expect to get while working on the mix, and then realize the print of the tracks may have a color or harmonic to them that slams your process into a wall.. There's stuff that can be done to prep the tracks to a foundational level, but would require more time than what may be necessary for the common everyday consumer (non-pro) ear.
Note: I'm never happy dropping these 24-bit mixes to MP3 for posting here, I try to post links to the master file when I can. Lossless AAC is the only lossy codec I can accept but in the past some users here are not able to play back attached AAC files.
(25-05-2018, 11:16 PM)Digitaldruglord Wrote: Here is the Apple Music -1db level compliant 24/44.1 master WAV file:
I recommend you check the quality of your brickwall. Not all brickwalls are good at avoiding intersample peaks and I suspect yours might be one of them; the TP value according to my unchecked plug(I've not calibrated this free one, it's not my DAW) was -0.4dBFS.
Being pedantic for the sake of political correctness, it's not Apple that sets the standards per se, but AES, and it's AES's recommendations for streaming that Apple follows. On this basis, your mix wouldn't be dynamic enough, as it falls well short of the -16LUFS Integrated Loudness target. At -8.3LUFS, it effectively means you've sacrificed 8dB of dynamics simply to make it louder which I can do my side by turning the amp up. It would sound lifeless if adjusted, compared to other songs that were dynamic.
Your record is hot and this excessive compression is adding some harshness and fatigue to the delivery. Granted, the stock was inherently problematic, but that's another reason not to go cranking the parameters. Using old school methodology, the RMS is 6.4. Now that's hot.
Listening to this, it might suggest you have a need for loudness and it's artifacts, more than dynamics. You might want to explore this further. If you are intentionally making hot mixes in order to compete with the anti-educational loudness war that's evident in this forum (the severely clipping and cranked up preview mix doesn't help), then I'll butt out and let you get on with it It would be sad if this were the case, but reading your posts suggests you'd like to be quality orientated.
One suggestion would be to calibrate your monitors and turn them up when needed, rather than turning the mix up by increasing RMS. If you are on small monitors (less than 8 inches), it becomes more difficult to assess dynamics with decreasing woofer size. But then, we have meters to help our brain make decisions on the occasions that our ears may be fooling us.
I thought it was really great idea to post both the mix and the master as you did, especially if you intend cranking the master up. You gave us a chance to hear your mix processing at first hand rather than guess what you did by hearing a master that bears little relevance to the mix itself like many here. I would say that your mix was hot as a mix and taking this genre into account, and would pass as a master without further processing, on the AES scale, that is.
"Nearly half of all teenagers and young adults (12-35 years old) in middle- and high-income countries are exposed to unsafe levels of sound from the use of personal audio devices": https://tinyurl.com/6xeeahc5 Read my bio.
(25-05-2018, 11:16 PM)Digitaldruglord Wrote: Here is the Apple Music -1db level compliant 24/44.1 master WAV file:
I recommend you check the quality of your brickwall. Not all brickwalls are good at avoiding intersample peaks and I suspect yours might be one of them; the TP value according to my unchecked plug(I've not calibrated this free one, it's not my DAW) was -0.4dBFS.
Being pedantic for the sake of political correctness, it's not Apple that sets the standards per se, but AES, and it's AES's recommendations for streaming that Apple follows. On this basis, your mix wouldn't be dynamic enough, as it falls well short of the -16LUFS Integrated Loudness target. At -8.3LUFS, it effectively means you've sacrificed 8dB of dynamics simply to make it louder which I can do my side by turning the amp up. It would sound lifeless if adjusted, compared to other songs that were dynamic.
Your record is hot and this excessive compression is adding some harshness and fatigue to the delivery. Granted, the stock was inherently problematic, but that's another reason not to go cranking the parameters. Using old school methodology, the RMS is 6.4. Now that's hot.
Listening to this, it might suggest you have a need for loudness and it's artifacts, more than dynamics. You might want to explore this further. If you are intentionally making hot mixes in order to compete with the anti-educational loudness war that's evident in this forum (the severely clipping and cranked up preview mix doesn't help), then I'll butt out and let you get on with it It would be sad if this were the case, but reading your posts suggests you'd like to be quality orientated.
One suggestion would be to calibrate your monitors and turn them up when needed, rather than turning the mix up by increasing RMS. If you are on small monitors (less than 8 inches), it becomes more difficult to assess dynamics with decreasing woofer size. But then, we have meters to help our brain make decisions on the occasions that our ears may be fooling us.
I thought it was really great idea to post both the mix and the master as you did, especially if you intend cranking the master up. You gave us a chance to hear your mix processing at first hand rather than guess what you did by hearing a master that bears little relevance to the mix itself like many here. I would say that your mix was hot as a mix and taking this genre into account, and would pass as a master without further processing, on the AES scale, that is.
No one should ever spend that much time on 1 mix/song.. in the real world, a client would have to try different mixers and decide which their happy with. The way things go is everyone today ends up on digital services and even though there’s a -1db acceptance standard that deleted the loudness wars, the sound still has to “compete” with everything else.
While technicalities are important, feel of a mix/song is more important. 1 out of 100 people may be keen on audio technicalities.. so the focus is you can mix for the 1 or the other 99.
On this basis, your mix wouldn't be dynamic enough, as it falls well short of the -16LUFS Integrated Loudness target. At -8.3LUFS, it effectively means you've sacrificed 8dB of dynamics simply to make it louder which I can do my side by turning the amp up. It would sound lifeless if adjusted, compared to other songs that were dynamic.