Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
David Tyo's - Never Ebb But Flow - Competition Mix
#1
Good evening fellow mixers.

Well, I must be crazy. I've got tons of hours and countless mix iterations (>12) into this throat melting opus by the talented and courageous, Mr. Tyo. I am sure I'm not the only one who had to scrape David's phlegm from the innards of their DAW. A real tour de force by the artist, this.

For sure, there were a plethora of battles to be waged across this arrangement. I don't know about you all, but I ended up with over 80 channels for this beast. Just getting all the relevant tracks grouped in order to make sense of anything took me three sessions. This is my Ogre mix 'cause, well...onions have layers.

I hope I didn't stink up the joint.

Once I got my sub-groups populated and a basic outline for the arrangement I had to come to grips with the clarity (or the lack thereof) of the lyrics. It ocured to me early on that there would be very little to be done to get lyric clarity to work effectively with the all that electric energy in the choruses. I conceded the strains to be a tone block and a texture to be used to enhance the energy of the arrangement. Just bring your libretto if you want to know the words. Besides, the title conveys pretty much all you need to know. That left me able to create a tone sculpture from the thick and rich guitars and voices. A lot of great medium to work with here. And it just so happens my needs for this mix coincided nicely with the WAVES Black Friday special so I got several plugins to help. The first was the SSL E Channel, which I used extensively both as a stand-alone channel strip or as an addition to the Schoep's Channel Strip and with my free choice I took the H Delay which is used in the intro on the acoustic guitar. My second purchased plugin will remain a secret for now. It is something I've always wanted and was the perfect solution for tone manipulation I was seeking.

After reading David's production notes, most of which I got right, I think my approach is pretty sound. Because of all the high energy, the pre-mastered mix was as dynamic as I could make it and hence not pushed too hard so there would be plenty of headroom for all the pyroclastic flows throughout the song. I built a strong and stable bottom end on top of which I was pretty free to play with dynamics and tone. I think it sounds pretty good at all volume levels. Don't be afraid to crank it some or turn it way down too. It is mastered at -11.7 LUFS; 13.4 LU

Thanks for taking a listen and, as always, I am eager to hear your stories and comments.

Thanks,
mITc

David Tyo - Never Ebb But Flow - Master 5

This piece has kicked by proverbial little butt. My But Flow has flown and I'm closer to brain drain than ever before.
Trying to get the thickness and richness of all of the voices for every instrument to sound balanced yet intelligible in an arrangement that goes from pop tickler to metal smash mouth (with environmentals thrown in just for fun) is just not an easy row to hoe. This will be my last go at this. (please Lord...)

There are some good ideas and solutions I think. I had over 85 tracks which chewed up all of my processing necessitating stemming out the bass, drums, harmony vocals and guitars in order to ameliorate the CPU drain. This actually worked out pretty well and this is the result.

If you are as sick of this piece as I am, please comment, or not.

Peace...
Cool

David Tyo - Never Ebb But Flow - Master 7

Post contest submission. I did not participate in the mix competition as I never thought I was able to do justice to this epic effort from David. If I had participated, this is the version I would have submitted.

Looking forward to hearing David's choice for this tough get.

Good luck, everyone.


H A P P Y
N E W
Y E A R

-----------------------------------------
P.S.: F-in 'boom!


.mp3    David Tyo - Never Ebb But Flow.mp3 --  (Download: 7.2 MB)


.mp3    David Tyo - Never Ebb But Flow - Master 5.mp3 --  (Download: 7.32 MB)


.mp3    David Tyo - Never Ebb But Flow - Master 7.mp3 --  (Download: 7.32 MB)


PreSonus Studio One DAW
[email protected]
Reply
#2
this is the first time I am hearing this song, so I don't have a reference to any other ....mixes or the multitracks.
But the first thing was also that the high end don't sound very pleasing, specially with the BR Vocals.
Now I am listening on headphones and your milage might vary.
If you think I am wrong - no harm in correcting me.
Besides that it sounds good ( maybe the main vocals a little more prominent??)
ok ok I am pushing it - better quit.

Have a good one!
Reply
#3
(09-12-2019, 04:52 AM)duet4one Wrote: this is the first time I am hearing this song, so I don't have a reference to any other ....mixes or the multitracks.
But the first thing was also that the high end don't sound very pleasing, specially with the BR Vocals.
Now I am listening on headphones and your milage might vary.
If you think I am wrong - no harm in correcting me.
Besides that it sounds good ( maybe the main vocals a little more prominent??)
ok ok I am pushing it - better quit.

Have a good one!

I am often noted for having a lot of mid-his in my mixes. My approach was to have the vocals work with the guitars in the same range. Compared to many other mixes posted here I would agree. It is very possible it could be a bit harsh on some systems.

Thanks for your input.
PreSonus Studio One DAW
[email protected]
Reply
#4
I’m a big fan of the SSL-E (don’t be afraid to overload it) and the H-Delay. The latter may be a bit heavy handed in the intro. But that always happens with new toys. I am curious what the other plug in you got was.

I don’t know. I have to admit this mix feels a little weird to me. Very mono (though with some instruments panned). There is some distortion that I notice occasionally (though on relisten (not a word) I think some of what I’m hearing is the six so maybe ignore this). The chorus feels small in relation to the other sections.

I could be wrong and maybe it’s just me but that’s my gut reaction over coffee.
Reply
#5
This is one of the toughest mixes I've ever dealt with and listening to other mixes here I think everyone is running into problems as well. None of them, including my attempts, seems to have captured the energy and dynamic nature of this arrangement.

Sad
Reply
#6
(09-12-2019, 03:25 AM)Mixinthecloud Wrote: Good evening fellow mixers.

Well, I must be crazy. I've got tons of hours and countless mix iterations (>12) into this throat melting opus by the talented and courageous, Mr. Tyo. I am sure I'm not the only one who had to scrape David's phlegm from the innards of their DAW. A real tour de force by the artist, this.

For sure, there were a plethora of battles to be waged across this arrangement. I don't know about you all, but I ended up with over 80 channels for this beast. Just getting all the relevant tracks grouped in order to make sense of anything took me three sessions. This is my Ogre mix 'cause, well...onions have layers.

I hope I didn't stink up the joint.

Once I got my sub-groups populated and a basic outline for the arrangement I had to come to grips with the clarity (or the lack thereof) of the lyrics. It ocured to me early on that there would be very little to be done to get lyric clarity to work effectively with the all that electric energy in the choruses. I conceded the strains to be a tone block and a texture to be used to enhance the energy of the arrangement. Just bring your libretto if you want to know the words. Besides, the title conveys pretty much all you need to know. That left me able to create a tone sculpture from the thick and rich guitars and voices. A lot of great medium to work with here. And it just so happens my needs for this mix coincided nicely with the WAVES Black Friday special so I got several plugins to help. The first was the SSL E Channel, which I used extensively both as a stand-alone channel strip or as an addition to the Schoep's Channel Strip and with my free choice I took the H Delay which is used in the intro on the acoustic guitar. My second purchased plugin will remain a secret for now. It is something I've always wanted and was the perfect solution for tone manipulation I was seeking.

After reading David's production notes, most of which I got right, I think my approach is pretty sound. Because of all the high energy, the pre-mastered mix was as dynamic as I could make it and hence not pushed too hard so there would be plenty of headroom for all the pyroclastic flows throughout the song. I built a strong and stable bottom end on top of which I was pretty free to play with dynamics and tone. I think it sounds pretty good at all volume levels. Don't be afraid to crank it some or turn it way down too. It is mastered at -11.7 LUFS; 13.4 LU

Thanks for taking a listen and, as always, I am eager to hear your stories and comments.

Thanks,
mITc

David Tyo - Never Ebb But Flow - Master 5

This piece has kicked by proverbial little butt. My But Flow has flown and I'm closer to brain drain than ever before.
Trying to get the thickness and richness of all of the voices for every instrument to sound balanced yet intelligible in an arrangement that goes from pop tickler to metal smash mouth (with environmentals thrown in just for fun) is just not an easy row to hoe. This will be my last go at this. (please Lord...)

There are some good ideas and solutions I think. I had over 85 tracks which chewed up all of my processing necessitating stemming out the bass, drums, harmony vocals and guitars in order to ameliorate the CPU drain. This actually worked out pretty well and this is the result.

If you are as sick of this piece as I am, please comment, or not.

Peace...
Cool

-----------------------------------------
P.S.: F-in 'boom!
Sounds interesting, like a somewhat different attemp. I like how you put your focus in the verse on the acoustic guitar, it's often hardly noticeable in other mixes. I also like the crunchiness on the lead guitars, sounds like a nice fuzz effect. You also got the vocals clear and loud, but it all could be a bit wider with all the bg vocals to not clutter in the chorus. The drums could use a bit more punch imo, as they make up a good amount of energy in the song.
The good thing about live mixing is that you don't have to worry about how it sounds later on someone's soda can. You got your live acts, your mixing desk, your PA, and your audience that you directly connect to and you have to get it right without the possibility to fiddle with the settings afterwards.
Reply
#7
(19-12-2019, 06:46 PM)Thomas Mueller Wrote: Sounds interesting, like a somewhat different attemp. I like how you put your focus in the verse on the acoustic guitar, it's often hardly noticeable in other mixes. I also like the crunchiness on the lead guitars, sounds like a nice fuzz effect. You also got the vocals clear and loud, but it all could be a bit wider with all the bg vocals to not clutter in the chorus. The drums could use a bit more punch imo, as they make up a good amount of energy in the song.

Thanks for the kudos on this attempt. And you are probably right about the power of the drums in the choruses. Getting them to blend effectively with the voices and guitars was not easy. It easily becomes a circular firing squad scenario. I also wanted there to be a demarcation between verse and chorus, where the drums and bass do punch against the vocals, keyboards and acoustic. This is all part of what makes this such a tough get. Making the decision on what takes precedent and where is tough. I opted for vocals, primarily for the simple reason that David's vocals reached life-threatening levels and I accorded them the respect I thought appropriate. I toyed with using side-chain compression to duck the guitars against the vocals but concluded that was a bit of an over-think. Who knows, maybe I was on the right track with that??? I also tried to make use of the special FXs tracks. That was fun but added another layer of thickness to be defined and balanced against tons of other thicknesses...ugh!

Another thing about this piece is that it sounds significantly different depending upon the playback volume (not a good thing). When I made hi volume mix decisions they were specifically in the stereo image between the voices and the guitars. Both of these groups had incredibly thick voicings so I did try to group the vocals more to the center of the image and the guitars in a surrounding bed with tone holes punching through at various times and in various locations using mid-side eqs.
This happened in the final mix after stemming out my sub-groups. Final tone shaping, localizations and detail automation were completed to give this a final sheen.

Good or bad, I need time off from this one. Thanks again for your good analysis.
PreSonus Studio One DAW
[email protected]
Reply
#8
Okay, I get it. I can hear and feel that you really fought very hard to get this done right. The balance overall is really not that bad but there are things you might try to improve. You really screwed up the electric guitars eq wise, a lot of upper midrange there in an unnaturally way. I'd bring them back a tad. In the chorus the vocals feels a bit like karaoke right now. Bring at least up the drums'n'bass if you want that weight on the vocals. Or try to mix the chorus without any vocals at first and see how much you can bring in the vocals against the guitars afterwards. If that is still to confusing mix only guitars, bass and vocals without drums, acoustics, etc. in the chorus until it feels good to you – rather with levels or automations than with eq and or sidechain trickery. I'm sure your mix will improve then :)
Reply
#9
(19-12-2019, 09:44 PM)AndyGallas Wrote: Okay, I get it. I can hear and feel that you really fought very hard to get this done right. The balance overall is really not that bad but there are things you might try to improve. You really screwed up the electric guitars eq wise, a lot of upper midrange there in an unnaturally way. I'd bring them back a tad. In the chorus the vocals feels a bit like karaoke right now. Bring at least up the drums'n'bass if you want that weight on the vocals. Or try to mix the chorus without any vocals at first and see how much you can bring in the vocals against the guitars afterwards. If that is still to confusing mix only guitars, bass and vocals without drums, acoustics, etc. in the chorus until it feels good to you – rather with levels or automations than with eq and or sidechain trickery. I'm sure your mix will improve then Smile

I'm done fighting with this one. Thanks for the ideas though. I'll defer to you on this one.
PreSonus Studio One DAW
[email protected]
Reply