Catching Up Mix, from Scottsdale, USA

[SteveG]

Hello,

I am new to this forum and based in Scottsdale, Arizona. I found out about while googling about the Catching Up Mix contest. I had a great time working on this session and have uploaded and submitted my mix to SOS. It was amazing to hear from some of the other uploads how different it can sound from the same source tracks!

The file is posted here:

https://thinclient.sharefile.com/d/s4dcafc743864e308

Look forward to any feedback

Regards,

Steve

[SteveG]

Just a few notes/observations. The tracks from Abby Road were cool, they definitely a vibey/rich sound. However, I overall found the color of the tracks very flat. I did quite a bit to add some motion and color. One example, is I transformed the swell guitar track into a keyboard like part by generating harmonics and adding octave above and stereo delays/reverb. There also was a lack of overall dynamics in the arrangement, i.e. "up" sections sometimes needed more than what was in the tracks. On each major section I re-worked the sound of the key instruments through effects automation, eq and adding saturation/harmonics selectively. I did a lot of level riding/automation to take the best moments of the various instrumental tracks and bring them through. There was probably a bit much going on with the overdubs in general. Not being in touch with the producer I didn't want to eliminate too much so I manually rode the levels to try to give each section a distinct tonality and the desired level of dynamics

[Richard]

A tip would be to upload to http://www.zippyshare.com/. You can upload in wav but you dont need to download it to listen

[SteveG]

thanks for the feedback. The file is already linked to a file sharing service. It is an AIFF, since it was already out there to provide to SOS I a provided the link here to avoid having this forum have to host the file, can be downloaded directly at:

https://thinclient.sharefile.com/d/s4dcafc743864e308

[Richard]

Nice mix. I dont know if its the take you chose and/or processing you used but she almost sounds like bonnie tyler in your mix sometimes. There was something about the mix that felt just a little constrained to my ears. I think its that I would like some of the sounds to punch through harder. Besides that I liked the panning and volumes overall. It was nice how you made the "wailing" guitar almost sound like a synth.

[SteveG]

Thanks for listening Richard. Agreed, this vocal take is very different from the others. I like it, it sounds stronger and more bluesy and heartfelt to me. I did multiple things to it, desser, compression, parallel compression, and some tape saturation on the Chorus section. I also used a medium longish reverb and the Ocean Way plug in to add some space. It is very subtle just to expand the air around the vocal and to create a feeling that you are in the room with her and she is singing directly to you.

As far as some sounds punching through harder, I think I can see what you mean. I based the approach on the whole Abby Road, old school, organic thing they talked about in the article and envisioned it more like the old records where the music as a whole is supporting the vocal. In modern mixes we always want to pump of the kick and snare, layer heavy guitars, etc. I like that sound but here I felt like the song was best suited by not creating competition between the instruments and the vocal. Having said that I might want to go back now and see what happens if I look to punch through more of the instruments

thanks!