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Comfort Lives in Belief
#1
Voelund is a good guy. I've learned a lot from him, and it's super cool that he put one of his own tunes up here for dissection.

In gratitude, I spent several hours trying to treat this material as respectfully as I could... comped together a guitar DUEL.

And then after all that time, it turns out the bounced version has way too much reverb on the lead vocal. Whoops Blush

Anyhow, I like this song, this style, this era. Really put a lot of effort into this one, so any comments would be greatly appreciated.


.mp3    Comfort Lives in Belief Master.mp3 --  (Download: 6.11 MB)


I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#2
Very good to my ears! I stop to listen the singer and forget to analyze the song. So, to me it means, that your mix serves very well the song. I think the feel and sound fits perfectly this genre. You must have had some good references?

Also duelling guitars work very well to me. Only the very first guitar line sounds like guitarist starts to play wrong song, or tries to create something new after having played the perfect opening too many times.

After some listening shaker begins to feel too prominent to me. Maybe some level automation could solve that.

Personally I would add little more body to "mud area", but not as much as I did Smile. It might add little warmness and fullness to sound. But on the other hand now it has perfect retro feel sonically.
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#3
Thanks for listening and commenting, Olli! And thanks for the kind words Big Grin

I think I may have gotten lucky :S because I committed a mixing sin and didn't reference anything at all other than vaults and vaults of memories. I grew up a generation after this music had fallen out of prominence, but I also grew up listening to 30 year old vinyls that I have since inherited... so maybe a little of that mojo pushed me in the right direction and prevented anything egregious undermining the mix. Having said that... lots of breaks for coffee and walking the pooch might have helped, too.

If it's of any value to the group, I had the albums "layla and other assorted love songs," "highway 61 revisited," and "eat a peach" in mind when mixing various elements.

I got the dueling guitars idea from Clapton's work with Dwayne Allman in the dominoes days. It's especially prominent on Layla, where it feels like an onslaught of blues-pain coming from everywhere. That comp took as much time as mixing the entire track Tongue First real comp I've ever done so there are no good habits to build on yet.

I'll give that opening lick another look. As it stands I left the licks along other than cutting them up and distributing them from track to track, but no detailed slicing or moving them in time, so maybe I could try some detailed slicing and crossfades to tighten it up? There are some hiccups in many of the licks that some might call "flaws" but I tend to like those sorts of musical anomalies, especially in blues rock... gives it soul for me, so I bet I lost objectivity and overlooked it. This was another all nighter Big Grin

Agreed about the shaker. I think the best automation in this case might be occasional mutes now that I'm having a second listen. Letting it go the whole track gets kind of annoying and fatiguing, huh?

By the mud area, you're talking about low mids, right (some people call it the warmth area hahaha)? I kinda struggled with that in this tune and it's been a sticking point for me in almost every rock mix I've tried. Obviously the area right around 300 is where a distorted electric guitar lives and breathes, but it seems like almost EVERY instrument in rock music has important frequency information between 300 and 800. I always feel like there's too much cluttering everything up. Perhaps that's why it's often said "get the low mids right and everything falls into place." Very difficult to get separation because the wavelengths are too long for the sort of surgical EQ I use to get the higher pitches to jive. I hear what you're talking about though and I totally agree.. sounds thin! So that warrants some pretty serious experimentation and practice. Thanks for pointing that out! The retro feel is cool, but most modern listeners prefer more in this region.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#4
(07-03-2014, 11:58 PM)pauli Wrote: If it's of any value to the group, I had the albums "layla and other assorted love songs," "highway 61 revisited," and "eat a peach" in mind when mixing various elements.

I think those were just perfect memory references. (I have all the official releases from Bob Dylan, and 12 first LP's by Eric Clapton.)

(07-03-2014, 11:58 PM)pauli Wrote: Agreed about the shaker. I think the best automation in this case might be occasional mutes now that I'm having a second listen. Letting it go the whole track gets kind of annoying and fatiguing, huh?

I agree. I used quite much mute button with shaker and cowbell. But still, both of them belong to my favorite instruments. When I was young kid I listened very much J.J Cale (shaker) and CCR (cowbell). So as a kid I was taught that they are real groove makers.

(07-03-2014, 11:58 PM)pauli Wrote: Thanks for pointing that out! The retro feel is cool, but most modern listeners prefer more in this region.
But who cares. History of music is full of wonderful and different sonic balances, some blend more, some separate more. This forum offers us a real possibilities to study the best nuances of each time.
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#5
wow, great mix here, Pauli!! That guitar duel is great and takes the song to a different dimension! I'm sure that Niels will love this new view on his song!
mixing since April 2013
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#6
(08-03-2014, 10:04 AM)juanjose1967 Wrote: wow, great mix here, Pauli!! That guitar duel is great and takes the song to a different dimension! I'm sure that Niels will love this new view on his song!

Thanks, Juan! I hope he does. Some people like being bombarded by guitar solos (and we're mostly all guitarists) and some don't, but something told me Niels would dig. We of the steel strings tend to like being bombarded by our OWN guitar solos especially! Hahaha
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#7
Pauli is the man ! What a great comp and just love the sound.
It suits the song very well.
There may be some shaker adjustments to be made, not that they bother me, I think I could listen this mix many times.
Unfortunately Im cleanin uop a lot o MIDI things I use when I play and earn money, and it takes ages.
Next time I have a break I guess I will take another listen.

Good job man and thanks Big Grin
Old ears, old gear, little boy inside love music and sounds and my wife, not necessarily in that order
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#8
Glad you like it, man! I grew up listening to music like this with my dad, and your tune brought back memories of a man who departed too quickly from my life, in more ways than one. I like this song quite a bit.

I feel like it's a bit saturated in reverb, maybe? pushes the vocals back behind the guitars when it should probably be the other way around, but there were many moments where I noticed some of your alternate takes lined up way too well to reduce it to simply one part. There's too much good content, so I sacrificed a little clarity to try and get as much in there as I could, and found it sounded a little like the back and forth super jammin' you hear between Dwayne Allman and Eric Clapton on the Layla album... my favorite album of all time.

I tried your idea of drums to one side and couldn't get it to work. How did you work that as far as processing goes?

I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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