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Viviendo Del Revez (not a walk in the park) CEF
#1
When I first heard this song I thought to my self it's a simple mix and a straight forward process. Then I seen the tracks and man those tracks are somewhat problematic with each other.

I hope you like what I did.. It's hard to create that mystery in a mix sometimes. This is a very different approach in comparison with many mixes. Hope you guys like it and at the very least thinkgnits a decent work.

First Mix is here.. Revision will come later. Thanks for listening.


.mp3    ViviendoDelRevezMix.mp3 --  (Download: 6.7 MB)


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#2
Hi Shul, thanks for listening and for the thoughtful feedback Wink

(15-06-2018, 12:22 PM)Shul Wrote: man those tracks are somewhat problematic with each other.

That's probably why I went with the synths! lol. I should wait for your revision, but perhaps this might give some thoughts meanwhile.

Your synths are missing, but you are fairly right about the guitars. They bring rhythm, but melodically what is their contribution? Finding space in the cloud of acoustic sustains and resonances, the synths can bring some nice emotion to the concept (as I imagine it in my head, that is!).

We both need to find the balance instrumentally, maybe you've gone the other way to me but it feels a little too much perhaps.

There's occasional guitar harshness from wayward harmonics that could do with touching up, but to do that it will require making space otherwise they will mask out. Maybe revise the use of reverbs in order to minimise congestion. The downmix in mono shows how things can quickly get washed out and lose definition and focus. The listening room converts stereo to mono outside the sweet spot, so it's a good reason to keep an ear out for mono issues. Don't forget the room also adds further delays and ambiance to what you have added (RT60) which can be over 0.5 seconds!

I'd bring the electric guitar at 2m forwards for more drama for the conclusion, though it will necessitate a review of the levels of everything else me thinks, to find space for this.

There's a big presence boost when he leans in on the mic that you might want to fix. A good example is the intro at 0m16s

What can we do with the overheads, any ideas?
"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.
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#3
(28-06-2018, 12:39 PM)Monk Wrote: Your synths are missing, but you are fairly right about the guitars. They bring rhythm, but melodically what is their contribution? Finding space in the cloud of acoustic sustains and resonances, the synths can bring some nice emotion to the concept (as I imagine it in my head, that is!).

We both need to find the balance instrumentally, maybe you've gone the other way to me but it feels a little too much perhaps.

There's occasional guitar harshness from wayward harmonics that could do with touching up, but to do that it will require making space otherwise they will mask out. Maybe revise the use of reverbs in order to minimise congestion. The downmix in mono shows how things can quickly get washed out and lose definition and focus. The listening room converts stereo to mono outside the sweet spot, so it's a good reason to keep an ear out for mono issues. Don't forget the room also adds further delays and ambiance to what you have added (RT60) which can be over 0.5 seconds!

I'd bring the electric guitar at 2m forwards for more drama for the conclusion, though it will necessitate a review of the levels of everything else me thinks, to find space for this.

There's a big presence boost when he leans in on the mic that you might want to fix. A good example is the intro at 0m16s

What can we do with the overheads, any ideas?

Thanks for the observations Monk.

The synths are there. Some of them had no melodic impact. The back bone of my mix is the acoustic guitar and the bass.. The groove of the bass is what made the song interesting to me and the rythm drive of the guitars is what keeps the rest of the synths in place in my opinion.
Having said that the status which contribute to the melody are present but in the context of "fill". The vocals for me are very important in this song and boosting some synths up create conflict with the voice.

Have not gone detailed in mono. My experience is not at the level where I can manipulate the stereo field to make the mono mix sound as great. My fault here as I didn't even bother checked a mono mix reference. Oops.

I get the impression you think I mix in studio monitors. My room is not fit for studio monitors plus I live in apartments so I mix 100% on headphones.

There are many things in this mix that can benefit from a lot of automation including the deep low end of vocals and some dynamics here and there but I don't have the time to go into detail with automation.. At least not at the moment but on my revised version will deal with more details.

Again thanks for the observations, some points are well noted. Thank you!
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#4
(28-06-2018, 07:45 PM)Shul Wrote: The synths are there. Some of them had no melodic impact. The back bone of my mix is the acoustic guitar and the bass.. The groove of the bass is what made the song interesting to me and the rythm drive of the guitars is what keeps the rest of the synths in place in my opinion.
Having said that the status which contribute to the melody are present but in the context of "fill". The vocals for me are very important in this song and boosting some synths up create conflict with the voice.

I've had a look at the multitrack because I couldn't remember anything!

My major mixing gripe with the acoustic is it's repetitive nature. It's just not interesting. I don't recall it even changing key. There's a moment where the part loses time, and a couple of points where it's been edited which breaks it's flow. Keeping it frontal exacerbates all these problems. I took the stance that it needed muting in places, to help add variation and interest, while allowing other instruments to step in. There's plenty of choices.

When I see nothing but stereo tracks in a multi, my heart sinks. The synths are all stereo and stacked, and everything is completely saturated in reverb. For a high density multitrack (and with those damn reverbs!!), you'll have some hard decisions to make in the revision.

I did get the synths in your mix originally, but I was implying their balance was weak and I should have said this clearly, sorry. I understand now why you did what you did though. If you are fixed on the acoustic being a backbone element, I think you're in trouble because of it's repetitive nature. Some brains like repetition, most don't. Totally agree about the bass though, that's why I cranked mine up. Also note it's not eq'd correctly in the tracking, the harmonics are missing which makes it mumble incoherently.

Nevertheless, there's some learning opportunities. I've learned to leave it alone, on reflection, the reverbs killed it for me. Now I understand why I made the opening comment in my thread Tongue

Nearly forgot to mention. Some of the vocal issues could be addressed with dynamic eq (some here use Nova, it's free) where he/they fire up the room modes and for those proximity boosts. It would save you automating to a large extent. However, be mindful they've actually boosted some words which will hit your processing harder one moment, then perhaps not hard enough on others!

"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.
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#5
@monk
So you think my mix has too much reverb? Or do you mean the status had too much reverb to begin with?
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#6
(30-06-2018, 06:12 PM)Shul Wrote: @monk
So you think my mix has too much reverb? Or do you mean the status had too much reverb to begin with?

The multitracks are wet. The synths are a big problem in my estimation, because of their accumulative effect coupled with the fact they are in stereo.

You have quite a big verb on the vocals (as well as delays!). The proximity and sibilance comes through and gets exaggerated. It also tends to push the vocal back and lose some definition (especially if you intend keeping the lower part of the register for warmth - I sacrificed it for my vision). Perhaps this was part of the problem you had when dialling in more synths, their pre-applied ambiance got in the way of the ambiance you had applied to the vocals? I can imagine the train smash.

If you want more synth, I'd be thinking about stereo vs mono, and which elements are going to work together in the stereo domain. So, downmixing a wet synth to mono and panning hard to the left say, it's ambiance/depth perception will move with it unless some ambiance is lost during the downmix. Then, what to do about the other channel?

Wet tracks means we have no control over the eq of the reverb or the instrument's depth placement. It also mucks up the clarity of the instrument by muddying it. If we use compression anywhere in the chain, it will make matters worse by exaggerating the verbs even more. When two wet tracks are bussed together, the ambiance and spectral muck is accumulated.
"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.
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