Pedaling Prince MIx: Enda Reilly - Cur An Long Ag Seol

[Pedaling Prince]

This was such a pretty song that I just had to do it despite the fact that i couldn't understand a word of it. Besides, Irish sounds a lot like Gaelic (I discovered on doing a quick search that Irish and Gaelic are actually part of the same language family) and the Gaelic language is a fairly prominent part of the culture on Cape Breton Island, where I'm from. So this was just a project I had to tackle. Besides, I love working with acoustic instruments.

I'll review everyone else's mixes here tomorrow. Right now, my girlfriend's ice cream is in my freezer here in my studio and she's waiting for me to bring it over to her. Since it's getting late, chances are once I'm home with here I'll be there for the night. Fortunately I don't have work tomorrow so I'll have plenty of time to listen to everyone else's work.

[Olli H]

Overall sound is very good and to my taste.

Shaker sits fine with other instruments.

Also the vocal sound as such seems to be very good, but I feel that it feels a little suffocated with those spacious string instruments. Especially if you listen with lower level. As we don't have a possibility to take the space away from those instruments, I think you should add just a little bit space to vocals, to make it blend better with surroundings. I don't mean it should be anything audible with a tail, but just a small amount of ambience that is heard only when it is muted.

I'm not sure if it's typical to Irish accordion player, but this one seems to like walking around while playing. I think it was a good idea, but it distracted me from listening the music, when I started to follow only him: "is he moving?".

I know you dislike the use of compression, but in this case you could use (more?) compressor as a leveller: to balance the volume differences within playing and make it more even. I'm quite sure that this bass wasn't of the highest quality as the playing had so big level differencies. I don't remember anymore what I did, but I probably used parallel compression. But I do remember that I used quite a lot a clip gain settings before compressor, so that the compressor wouldn't go insane.

But main thing. I like the sound very much. Very good job!

[NosMos]

This mix nicely captures the jaunty feeling in this I just feel perhaps the vocal could have a touch more air to just bring it closer to the ear. But I very much enjoyed listening

[Pedaling Prince]

[T]he vocal sound as such seems to be very good, but I feel that it feels a little suffocated with those spacious string instruments. Especially if you listen with lower level. As we don't have a possibility to take the space away from those instruments, I think you should add just a little bit space to vocals, to make it blend better with surroundings. I don't mean it should be anything audible with a tail, but just a small amount of ambience that is heard only when it is muted.

There was already a subtle reverb there for that purpose but maybe I made it a little too subtle; I brought it up a touch.

I'm not sure if it's typical to Irish accordion player, but this one seems to like walking around while playing. I think it was a good idea, but it distracted me from listening the music, when I started to follow only him: "is he moving?".

You pictured it exactly as I did, as if the accordion player was off to one side waiting for his/her cue then walked across the stage playing their part. If this were part of the main song I'd consider the distraction a bad thing but as the accordion player's first appearance is during a break in the song where the vocalist isn't singing I thought maybe it brought a bit of interest to this lull point.

I know you dislike the use of compression, but in this case you could use (more?) compressor as a leveller: to balance the volume differences within playing and make it more even. I'm quite sure that this bass wasn't of the highest quality as the playing had so big level differencies.

You're right that I don't like to use compression, but my strongest objection to its use is on the master buss; I don't have any compunction about using it on individual tracks when the occasion calls for it. I do tend to avoid the use of compressors on acoustic instruments as I tend to want to preserve the original shape of the sound but in this case you're right about the bass; it is a little too boomy (my building superintendent actually called me while I was balancing it; I didn't take her call but I already knew she was complaining about the bass shaking the building so I switched to headphones, which I was about to do at that point, anyway). So I applied compression on both bass mic tracks with a gentle ratio but a fairly high threshold to try to even them out a bit. Settings, threshold -7.5 dB, ratio 3.9:1, 47 ms attack with 2 dB of makeup gain.

But main thing. I like the sound very much. Very good job!

Thanks! Hope you like the improvements!

This mix nicely captures the jaunty feeling in this I just feel perhaps the vocal could have a touch more air to just bring it closer to the ear. But I very much enjoyed listening

Glad you liked it! To try to air out the vocals a little for you I made a few EQ adjustments: I made a 4.5 dB cut at 315 Hz and boosted 12 kHz 4 dB more for a total of 7 dB boost at that frequency; I also left in the 3 dB cut at 80 Hz and 1.5 dB boost at 6200 Hz that were already there.

Here's my revised mix; what do you think?

[Olli H]

I like the changes you made. Especially the air-boost suggested by NosMos was a good change.

[juanjose1967]

The vocals sound much, much better in the second version of it. A little bit of air around 12khz can make wonders good job!

[NosMos]

Love this. The vocal sounds awesome now. That bit where I feel
the bass and guitar clash in my mix I don't even notice here, it just sounds natural. Really nice

[Pedaling Prince]

It just sounds natural.

The reason I tend to avoid compression, as I've often said, is because I'm always after the most natural sound possible. The above, therefore, is the highest compliment one could pay one of my mixes.

Thank you.

[takka360]

To me it sounds a bit thin and nothing seems to be working together and it sounds like the bass
is winning the big mud fight in the middle.
Sorry but its just what I hear.

[Voelund]

May be my ears but I dont hear a mud fight in the middle. I hear a very natural soundin mix, for good and for worse. I find myself sittin in a pub with an acoustic band playing, and it sounds very natural to me - even the accordeon player moves to the middle of stage when he start playin ... The violins nearly drown the singer but thats what they do hearin live acoustic music isnt it. Esecially when singin so soft.
In my mix I went for a more pop sound, I think ridin or compressin the vocal harder is essential here. That is if you are not after a sound picture similar to a 2 track XY recordin of an acoustic band, which I actually think you were aimin for and that bein the case you succeeded very well !