22-04-2014, 12:43 AM (This post was last modified: 22-04-2014, 12:53 AM by Stu.)
Greetings! Although this is not the first mix I've done from this website, it is the first one I'm posting. (More to come soon.)
I'm very old-school in my approach to mixing. I even like to "limit" myself or pretend certain modern conveniences are not available to me. I also use compression a lot more sparingly than most.
I like the Mark Knopfler/Bob Dylan meets The Rolling Stones sound here. I decided to mute the first guitar track and use the two alternate tracks, as I liked the way it gave a Rolling Stones-like "dual guitar attack" style. This song reminded me a lot of Street Fighting Man, and The Beggars Banquet album in general.
I felt that all the mixes I listened to of "Comfort" needed some serious amounts of low cut, which I did on my mix. It will most certainly be a bit brighter and more open than the mixes I listened to. I hope that those of you who listen and critique don't find it too thin. Some of the tracks I felt could have been recorded better at the source, but we all have the limitation(s) of doing the best we can with what we have at the moment.
Everyone please feel free to criticize (constructively of course) to your hearts' content.
(22-04-2014, 12:43 AM)Stu Wrote: I'm very old-school in my approach to mixing. I even like to "limit" myself or pretend certain modern conveniences are not available to me. I also use compression a lot more sparingly than most.
My approach is very similar, though I have no objection to adding an effect when a particular song calls for it. As for compression, I see that as a mixing tool to be used on specific tracks; I never use it in the final master.
(22-04-2014, 12:43 AM)Stu Wrote: I felt that all the mixes I listened to of "Comfort" needed some serious amounts of low cut, which I did on my mix. It will most certainly be a bit brighter and more open than the mixes I listened to. I hope that those of you who listen and critique don't find it too thin.
Actually, I'm afraid I did find it rather thin. I see what you were trying to go for but I think you rolled off far too much of the bass. This song needs a nice phat bass sound; nothing wrong with trying a brighter approach but the bass seems entirely missing in action here...
However, aside from the lack of bass, and aside from the vocals being a little too low in the mix (they really started to get buried towards the middle), I felt the overall balance was excellent, and I loved the stereo panning choices, particularly your guitars. I also loved your surprise of panning the "telephone effect" and regular vocal of "comfort lives in belief" at the end to the left and right was a very surprising and very effective choice.
One interesting thing: rolling off the low frequencies did bring out that deep resonance Voelund's voice.
22-04-2014, 01:41 PM (This post was last modified: 22-04-2014, 01:51 PM by pauli.)
Hey Stu, welcome to the fun!
The core elements of a good mix are here, but in my opinion there are some issues that need to be resolved before I can fairly evaluate your mix balance. Feel free to disagree with me, of course
Main issue for me is that there's almost no bass/sub, but there is rather overmuch low mid content, but having mixed the song myself, I think I've got a pretty good grip on why you're having a hard time getting the bass guitar and kick to appropriate levels.... My recommendation is that after setting your rough balance and filtering the low end from the non-bass instruments, mute everything and start your fine-mixing with the kick and the bass drum, making sure to notch out any room resonances in the kick drum (which in home studio productions will almost invariably be present.) In most situations the bass guitar is going to need a narrow peaking cut somewhere in the low mids, usually around 125, since overdriven electric guitars need that space for body, and triggering a frequency-selective compressor on the bass guitar with the kick drum will make it easier to bring the bass guitar up loud enough without eating the drum.
Apart from that, it's very hard to give any suggestions because the only real impression I can get is general thinness lack of bass content and muddiness in other areas. There's a lot of sonic clutter, possibly from reverb, throughout most of the frequency spectrum... the only really useful advice that'd be fair is to more closely examine the frequency relationships of the different instruments to make sure you're eliminating conflict. This is especially crucial on reverb returns, which need even more careful EQ considerations than the principal tracks. Quick question... are you using reverb/delay as insert effects or as sends? Or are you using the reverb on the master bus?
If you're not too busy or you haven't moved on to another mixing project, would you mind posting a version of your mix with the reverb returns muted or with the reverb inserts turned off?
Like I said before, though, I'm hearing the core elements of a good mix and I think when we get to the bottom of what's creating all of the frequency masking and bring those bass parts up, you'll be rocking.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
Hi Pauli! Thanks for the critique! The reverb was used as a send effect. Please listen to the new MP3. I took out the reverb and raised the level of the bass. I had toyed with raising it before I posted the original MP3, but I decided to leave at as was. I also left the bus EQ on. I can remove it and resend the mix without it.
Yo can check the MP3 I sent with my reply to Pauli. I raised the level of the bass, and removed the reverb; the buss EQ is still intact.
I would definitely have to agree with you, that I probably cut out too much from the bottom. I had done quite a bit of level adjusting with Voelund's lead vocal for the original mix, and felt that I probably could have done a bit more, I got lazy and tired.
Please tell me the exact time frame where you say the vocal gets buried.
(26-04-2014, 09:43 PM)Stu Wrote: Hi Pauli! Thanks for the critique! The reverb was used as a send effect. Please listen to the new MP3. I took out the reverb and raised the level of the bass. I had toyed with raising it before I posted the original MP3, but I decided to leave at as was. I also left the bus EQ on. I can remove it and resend the mix without it.
Thanks!
Stu
Hey Stu, no problem at all! I tell everyone else, you can always count on me for a detailed listen, so send me a PM if you want my take on any of your mixes and I'll be happy to oblige.
So without the reverb the clarity has improved a whole hell of a lot IMHO, which confirms my suspicion that -excessive- reverb was the primary culprit in the the masking issue. I like reverb a lot personally and used it on my mix, but be careful about using identical reverb settings on too many elements in the mix... be especially wary of the "predelay" setting, because carelessness in the predelay setting will turn a beautiful balance into an indistinct mass. Do some research on how to effectively use predelay to make things sound further or closer, but a quick synopsis is that the further away something is, the closer in time the echo will sound to the source... so as you turn up the predelay, you're effectively delaying the echo so as to make it sound further in time from the source, bringing it closer, and vis versa. For larger predelay times, I'd also suggest shorter reverb tails
As for the bass, you've thickened things up a bit, but IMHO the ratio of the low mids to bass frequencies is still too high. The bass guitar track as recorded is a bit rich in the low mid but pretty weak in the bass IIRC, so I'd start there if you feel this is an issue.
Sounding better, Stu, keep mixing
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
(26-04-2014, 09:54 PM)Stu Wrote: I would definitely have to agree with you, that I probably cut out too much from the bottom.
And, unfortunately, that's still a problem here; you need a lot more bass IMHO.
The good news is that's the only thing I don't like here. Everything else is wonderful, particularly all the nice detail you've brought out of the guitars by sharpening them up as you have! My advice? Lay the bass on thick, change nothing else, and see what you get.
(26-04-2014, 09:54 PM)Stu Wrote: Please tell me the exact time frame where you say the vocal gets buried.
With the changes you've made, that's no longer an issue. Though I still recommend putting the vocals up by maybe just 1 dB.
First: I adjusted the reverb according to your recommendations. I didn't want to go "reverb-less", because to me things would sound a bit dull and lifeless.
Next: some slight adjusting to the bass: raised the level another half dB, and adjusted the eq slightly.
Finally: tweaked the buss eq slightly, but it might sound OK without any buss eq.
There are some very minor issues IMHO, but this sounds much better than your first stab. The bass could be a little stronger, but the bass part on this song was a real turd to mix, so I don't think it's necessary to overwhelm yourself with the nitty gritty technical details if you're a bit new to the art. In my opinion the reverbs are clouding things a little bit again, but it's definitely better. You could try turning down the sends, taking the highpass filter a bit further north on the sends, or shortening the reverb tails. Or all three... go with your gut, it sounds like you have a good ear to me. Give my mix and John's a listen and see if our sounds are working for you, and I'd be happy to share with you how I got a sound if you like it (or if you hate it ), and I'm pretty sure John would be, too... he's very generous with his advice and he also has a different perspective on a lot of things. Voelund is a member of the discussion zone ad I think he could probably give you a few tips, too... I've learned a ton from his advice.
And if this mix is over for you, I completely understand... I've got mad respect for your tenacity/work ethic and every re-mix so far has been a marked improvement, so if you think it's time to move on to the next one (if I were you, I would) just be sure to apply what you learned here. If you're improving with several subsequent attempts, it's better for your learning to move on, and maybe revisit this one in a few months after you've got some more notches under your belt.
IMHO, move on to more mixes... you've done a good job here... as long as you apply what you've taught yourself to the subsequent mixes you'll only keep getting better. Great work, and lots of respect from this guy!
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
I pretty much agree 100% with Pauli on this mix so I don't have anything specific to add.
(29-04-2014, 09:24 PM)pauli Wrote: Give my mix and John's a listen and see if our sounds are working for you, and I'd be happy to share with you how I got a sound if you like it (or if you hate it ), and I'm pretty sure John would be, too...
As for compression, I see that as a mixing tool to be used on specific tracks; I 
), and I'm pretty sure John would be, too... he's very generous with his advice and he also has a different perspective on a lot of things. Voelund is a member of the discussion zone ad I think he could probably give you a few tips, too... I've learned a ton from his advice.