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Human Mistakes SpedeMix
#1
Hi. Here's my "creative" mix out this song. Initially I didn't add any new tracks to my mix but after awhile decided to do another revision with some extra drums and a pad.

I felt the song was originally somewhat uneventful so I did what I could to bring some excitement into it. I like Pendulum's album Immersion quite a lot so I used that one as reference.


.m4a    Human_Mistakes_SpedeMix2.m4a --  (Download: 4.85 MB)


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#2
I'm not a huge fan of heavy master bus compression, but I think it's appropriate given this situation and you're getting a cool pumping effect that would go over very well in a dance club.

I think you handled the vocal part quite well... in fact I'm not hearing any egregious frequency masking at all... I've noticed that as a strength of yours in other mixes, too. Smile

The pad is a good idea, too. A little clippy, distorted sounding, for my taste, but it's definitely forgivable and appropriate in this situation.

There's a telephone type effect, or maybe a lowpass going on in the intro drums... I think that was a cool way to create longterm interest by allowing the drums to "open up" later in the song, given that this tune doesn't seem to have much in the way of dynamic contrast in its raw form.

Personal taste difference aside, in terms of heavy compression and heavy distortion - the general denseness of the track, I think this is a good mix that would maintain the exciting atmosphere played at a rave or dance club. Good work!
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#3
Thanks for the comments!

Yeah, the distortion is definitely one of "my cup of teas" Big Grin Quite often with these kind of songs, most of my time is spent on thinking: "How I'm gonna distort which track?"

This kind over-the-top bus compression obviously would be a big no-no for many types of music but seems to be essential for modern dance music genres. Kinda like tape saturation is essential for vintage rock music.
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#4
Always happy to give a detailed listen and comment! I don't mind your heavy compression and distortion at all in this mix, because it's completely appropriate and it had me boppin'.

Do you use distortion as an insert effect or a parallel configuration? Sometimes when a song is sparse on parts and the mix goes loose as a goose, I'll use distortion as a subtle send effect to thicken it up, since spreading it all out usually makes it sound even thinner. Pads are good for that, too Big Grin which is why you've used them in tandem. Cool beans, dude!
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#5
(04-03-2014, 06:27 AM)pauli Wrote: Do you use distortion as an insert effect or a parallel configuration? Sometimes when a song is sparse on parts and the mix goes loose as a goose, I'll use distortion as a subtle send effect to thicken it up, since spreading it all out usually makes it sound even thinner. Pads are good for that, too Big Grin which is why you've used them in tandem. Cool beans, dude!

From time to time I've pondered about the idea of setting up an FX return with distortion and sending stuff there (like with reverb). I sometimes wonder if engineer's such as Spike Stent might have done something like that back in the 90s when the console was the main mix tool (and the idea of owning a rackful of distortions sounds pretty ridiculous). The idea of drum subgroup distortion sounds pretty fascinating to me. Smile

But so far I've actually used all my distortion processing as inserts; almost all the dist plugins which I use feature a mix knob and quite often the blend could be something like 20/80 (80% dry). So not counting some of the more subtle processing (gentle tape sat and such) essentially it's parallel distortion all over the place.
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#6
do you have senior's mix secrets book? that's actually where I got the idea to use it as an effects return. never would have thought of it on my own, but it's a lot more subtle so it works really well for vocals and acoustic instruments where you can't really get away with much distortion. I think the mix knob works the same way but this approach just seems a little more flexible since you can apply additional filtering/processing to the return and get the distortion right where you want it. obviously electronic music like this doesn't require that subtle a touch, though!
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#7
Oh yeah, Spede knows what's up!

This is by far the most creative version of this Track, and quite honestly,
I hoped someone would come up with such dark & heavy theme!

The Reverb on that Snare is just amazing, especially in combination with the rest of the Reverb & Delays going on!
The use of Filters is also a nice choice - they blend in very nicely, nowhere I can find a part where it does not suit.
I am about to upload a new, more creative version of the Mix, as I was not satisfied with what I gave you guys before.

Hats off, this Mix (Master, actually) really wants me to Fistpump! Big Grin
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#8
(03-03-2014, 08:43 PM)Spede Wrote: This kind over-the-top bus compression obviously would be a big no-no for many types of music but seems to be essential for modern dance music genres. Kinda like tape saturation is essential for vintage rock music.

Well, the artist who created these tracks loves this mix so I suspect you're going to take my comments with a grain of salt but I wanted to add my two cents worth, anyway.

Even for this type of music I feel the master buss compression is way too heavy; it crushes everything together so much that you're losing all the separation among the tracks. There's no sonic detail here; it sounds like a big solid wall of sound. I think I hear the potential for a great mix here, but it's hard to tell...

Also, personally I don't agree that tape saturation is necessary for "classic rock." I prefer to approach a classic rock mix from the perspective of, "What would the artists of the 60s and 70s have done if their equipment had the capabilities we have now?" I suspect if they could've wipe out tape noise and distortion they would've done it, and they probably would've made far more effective use of digital's dynamic range potential than most artists do nowadays, too. Wink
John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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