Pedaling Prince Mix: Lyndsey Ollard - Catching Up

[Pedaling Prince]

I've been away from these forums for a while. I fell ill with the flu and, while I was sick, a sh*BEEP*-ton of personal email arrived that took priority. So right now I'm trying to catch up on everything. Which is why I figured this would be an appropriate mix to post next...

I just loved the clean sound of these tracks, and the performance is so dynamic. Starts out so quiet and slowly builds, and those beautiful acoustic guitars, reminiscent of the lovely acoustic guitar harmonies in Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine," one of my favorite acoustic guitar performances of all time. Actually, come to think of it, this song's quiet start, slow build to a crescendo then quiet finish is also reminiscent of Led Zeppelin's all-time great, "Stairway to Heaven" (albeit not quite that epic ). Wow. This was fun to work with.

The only thing I didn't like was the song kept building and building and building in intensity then, when you reach the crescendo it fell a little flat; it didn't hit that high I felt it needed. I had kept the electric guitar clean throughout most of the song as I felt that was more appropriate to the song's feel, but during that final crescendo I applied distortion to it then, coming out of the crescendo, I went back to the clean sound. I think it worked rather well to push the power of the crescendo up a notch; opinions?

[BigJohn]

Prince,

Great job on the lead vocals, the hardest part. The rest is a matter of personal taste. My opinion is that the bass volume is a bit overwhelming when the drums kick in. I also prefer less build in the "chorus" part. As for the electric guitar tone, those musicians put out a lot of effort on their tone, and if it sounds ok, I usually don't want to screw with it. Having said that, I like your mix, and can only hope that my version of the vocals approach the wonderfulness of yours.
John

[takka360]

Some of the guitars are getting pretty lost here .
Its a bit muddy on the bottom and I think you could take
some more low mids out of the lead vox.
All in all I think you can do better than this.
A second listen the vox are getting lost also
so lots of automation needed me thinks on them

[Pedaling Prince]

Great job on the lead vocals, the hardest part.

Actually, I didn't find the vocals difficult at all. After doing only a tiny beit of tweaking with EQ on them I pretty much left them alone. I didn't even automate; I actually weaved the music around their level, a trick I know from mixing audio for video where you generally have the production sound (dialogue) at a fixed level and weave the rest of your sounds around it. Her performance was wonderfully dynamic and helped create those peaks and valleys in the emotional resonance.

My opinion is that the bass volume is a bit overwhelming when the drums kick in.

Well, as anyone on here will tell you, I tend to prefer thicker bass than most people. Mind you, if I still had the project I would've been quite willing to try it with less. Unfortunately I don't.

I also prefer less build in the "chorus" part. As for the electric guitar tone, those musicians put out a lot of effort on their tone, and if it sounds ok, I usually don't want to screw with it.

I generally go by that principle as well. However, in this case it felt like something was missing at that point, that the song needed a crescendo there. That's why I did the distortion only at that point; I wanted to keep the beautiful, clean sound of the electric guitars for the most part and use the distortion only to emphasize the climax, if you will.

Out of the 130 mixes I've done from this site, this one is, by far, a favourite of my best friend. When I showed it to him, he actually asked me to give him a copy; he never did that before. Not that he didn't like my other work, but this is the first song that he enjoyed enough to specifically request a copy. Although, based on his reaction, it's as much the song and the beautiful singer as my work on it that made him like it so much.

[Pedaling Prince]

Some of the guitars are getting pretty lost here .
Its a bit muddy on the bottom and I think you could take
some more low mids out of the lead vox.
All in all I think you can do better than this.
A second listen the vox are getting lost also
so lots of automation needed me thinks on them

Well, if I still had the project I might be willing to make some adjustments. Unfortunately, I don't, which is particularly frustrating because I thought I did and I would like to try some of the suggestions made here.

As far as automating the vocals, though, I don't think I would do that; I feel the vocals are too good the way they are at creating peaks and valleys in the emotional level of the song. I think I'd prefer to automate the instruments competing for the vocal's space so I can keep that nice, wide dynamic range while still keeping the vocals clear. Maybe some EQ tweaking as well.

If I ever decide to take another stab at this one from the ground up, I'll bear your suggestions in mind.

[takka360]

Fresh mix mate.i hardly ever go back to projects myself unless its a real small tweek.