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Tears in the Rain
#11
(05-07-2014, 08:49 PM)pauli Wrote: Revised mix with improved overall tonality

bold attempt. unfortunately i'm getting fatigue off the top end here from the steels and the shaker.

i've reworked mine....but only marginally. i've explained in some depth my mix decisions which i will post shortly after printing the audio file. you might not agree with my vision, but it might provide you with a different perspective on what everyone else has done so far, but i'll touch upon it here...

i'd be controversial and suggest that being a guitarist doesn't mean we can mix them. first and foremost is the fact that what you hear as the player, aint what the audience hears, and most importantly of all, what the microphone hears isn't anything any of us hears!! ......AND it's all got to work in a mix with other instruments...and present itself in stereo. i think it's the difference between chalk and cheese, really.

i understand the "attack" comment from Don above, however, not all guitarists are equal, and certainly no guitar set-up is equal and each guitarist will have his or her personal preferences towards the string windings, materials and most importantly of all, the tension to suit their playing style (and this impacts on attack characteristics). how you choose to express this in the mix is entirely a subjective view [nearly!], unless the guitarist concerned, is sitting on your shoulder while you mix it....and is abundantly clear of the fact that what he is hearing over the monitors is NEVER going to be what he hears when playing the instrument. taking the Attack as an example, an audience will hear less of this owing to room reflections, and a whole multitude of different delays as the sound bounces around all over the place before it reaches the ears of an audience. a room smears the sound and helps to round it out, and depending on the room and it's volume, construction and furnishings, this impact can be majorly significant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so, yeah, i get this "experience" thing, but it's not a totally objective assessment that can be conveniently transferred to a mix. it's far more complicated. to add to this, the further away the guitarist, the less high-end content the arriving sound will have by the time it gets to the audience....especially those furthest away from the performance! but to the performing guitarist, it will be as bright as hell with tonnes of attack Big Grin

where's Olli?
Beware...........Cognitive Dissonance!
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#12
You're right about the upper end fatigue here, while I listen with fresh ears. The steel string guitars on this mix are very difficult to balance and it sounds like I gave them too much priority in the high mids. The shaker should probably be panned more centrally so it's less distracting.

Your point about experience as a player equating to the innate ability to mix that instrument is well taken and I hope I didn't come off that way. The means by which experience "assists" me here is that I hear some unnatural tonal properties in the instruments to which others would be passively aware but unsure, and only because attempting to record acoustic guitars without learning a bit about mic placement taught me some bitter lessons.

The main issue I'm hearing on my mix right now is that there's a looooot of pick noise that I probably "got used to" and eventually ignored while trying to sort out other more pressing issues with tone... and it's a compression issue as much as an EQ issue. Instinct tells me a slight HF roll-off and faster attack times would resolve the issue, but I've found these guitars somewhat unresponsive to normal mixing techniques Tongue so I'm sure it'll be more complicated than that.

Cheers for feedback.. I'll go give the multi another look.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#13
LOVE the nylon guitar....tone and fx...perfect (to my ears)!

cymbals at 0.20 gave me a surprise (lol) i'm definitely a bury the cymbals sort of guy.

maybe consider riding the fx fader on ElecGtr in outro as they start sounding a bit washed out/distant near the end - but that's maybe your intention as it is the end of the song after all - but that's only a taste thing
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#14
(10-07-2014, 01:07 AM)HbGuitar Wrote: LOVE the nylon guitar....tone and fx...perfect (to my ears)!

Thank you Big Grin I mixed the nylon first in my initial balance because I felt it was the "lead vocal" and deserved the red carpet treatment for this song. It also has the best tonal qualities in raw form, which was one of my few boons here...

I'd add to that note that Dave (the metallurgist) mentioned that I may be mixing the guitar tones from the perspective of the performer and not the audience, who would presumably be in front of the guitar and thus would hear different tonal qualities.. which I think is a perfectly valid subjective opinion, I just don't always prefer to mix with 100% spacial realism at the top of my priorities list for some songs... for this one I was going for "vivid" more than realistic... and realism didn't seem very pragmatic for me given some of this mix's challenges.

(10-07-2014, 01:07 AM)HbGuitar Wrote: cymbals at 0.20 gave me a surprise (lol) i'm definitely a bury the cymbals sort of guy.

I don't like to bury them, but you're right, it jumps in front of the entire mix. Objectivity is an important thing... I don't take enough breaks when I mix. Good observation!

(10-07-2014, 01:07 AM)HbGuitar Wrote: maybe consider riding the fx fader on ElecGtr in outro as they start sounding a bit washed out/distant near the end - but that's maybe your intention as it is the end of the song after all - but that's only a taste thing

Yeah, that was intentional... I was trying to maintain the nylon as the focal point of the tune, so I put the electrics off to the side and eased up on some of the highs and lows to push them back a bit... maybe I overdid it?

Thanks for comments, good points my friend Big Grin
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#15
(10-07-2014, 02:25 AM)pauli Wrote: I just don't always prefer to mix with 100% spacial realism at the top of my priorities list for some songs... for this one I was going for "vivid" more than realistic... and realism didn't seem very pragmatic for me given some of this mix's challenges.

personally, i would agree. So much depends on the quality of the information yielded by the spot microphones. All one can do sometimes is create a believable illusion rather than necessarily recreating the actual listening environment. Its all subjective so one has to trust (and develop) ones own feelings and preferences.

(10-07-2014, 02:25 AM)pauli Wrote: Yeah, that was intentional... I was trying to maintain the nylon as the focal point of the tune, so I put the electrics off to the side and eased up on some of the highs and lows to push them back a bit... maybe I overdid it?

its fine ...don't sweat it.....I'm talking last 5 seconds only....

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#16
I think you could turn this to great mix if you somehow fix that hi-end.
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#17
(10-07-2014, 09:22 PM)Olli H Wrote: I think you could turn this to great mix if you somehow fix that hi-end.


yes, I wasn't keeping my ears properly calibrated, i.e. not taking enough breaks, not doing enough referencing in the end-game, and focusing too much on subjective issues I couldn't fix.

I'll take another look at this one tonight and see what I can do about the high end harshness.

Thanks for dropping in Big Grin
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#18
(10-07-2014, 06:15 AM)HbGuitar Wrote: personally, i would agree. So much depends on the quality of the information yielded by the spot microphones. All one can do sometimes is create a believable illusion rather than necessarily recreating the actual listening environment. Its all subjective so one has to trust (and develop) ones own feelings and preferences.

Sometimes spacial realism is a must for me (subjectively) when the source material is conducive... especially when there are live, multi-miked ensembles with lots of leakage... Sometimes a believable illusion is best, too, when it suits your taste, and most often it does for me, especially if I can get something to sound more splendid than it would ever sound sitting right in front of me, be it through mixing illusions, modulation, et cetera.

For this one, the bass is software, the drums are software... so realism is already out the window to some extent, and the steel strings have some really odd-sounding tonal properties. I spent far too much time obsessing over my subjective preference on that score that it hurt the technical balance, so I'll try re-working this with a balance of realism and supernaturally vivid tone as a goal and see if perhaps that approach yields a better balance for me.

Thanks again for comments and astute observations Smile

I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#19
About spatial realism: there's lot to be learned and everyone must study it. But on the other with the birth of rock'n'roll the strive to realism was luckily abandoned. Main thing was the interesting sound, not the realism. But still in a weird way those spatial rules are valid even in modern electric music. And what am I trying to say? I don't know. Maybe to create something new we must first learn all the rules and then break them all in a skillful way. Maybe the rules are there only to help us, but not to bind us.
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#20
(10-07-2014, 10:06 PM)Olli H Wrote: About spatial realism: there's lot to be learned and everyone must study it. But on the other with the birth of rock'n'roll the strive to realism was luckily abandoned. Main thing was the interesting sound, not the realism. But still in a weird way those spatial rules are valid even in modern electric music. And what am I trying to say? I don't know. Maybe to create something new we must first learn all the rules and then break them all in a skillful way. Maybe the rules are there only to help us, but not to bind us.

In Mike's "Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio," he mentions how some engineers will go on and on about spatial realism in the stereo field when often it's more important to focus on objective technical concerns... that's mostly how I feel about depth, too. Although in this case, spacial realism is also objectively helpful, too...

I'd also contend that when an instrument doesn't sound like it would normally in spacial context, it can be very refreshing for the listener. When you match expectations, that's not a bad thing... but when you successfully EXCEED expectations, that's where the real magic is.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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