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Pedaling Prince Mix: Enda Reilly - An Nasc Nua
#1
Hm... this came out OK but I'm not entirely satisfied with it. I'm not going to say why; I'd rather you critique this without any preconceived notions of what my issues with it might be.

Thoughts, anyone?


.m4a    145 An Nasc Nua 1.m4a --  (Download: 7.21 MB)


John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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#2
My first impression is that the vocals almost seem too much up front spacially and maybe could use just a bit more compression.
To mix or not to mix ... mix!
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#3
Hi,

feels as if the track is trying to open up but cant during choruses. Cant put my finger on it. guitar feels a bit hyped.bass and guitar competing in the 100 to 300 hz range.

Again if it feels right to you it is right.

Regards,
Blue Bus.
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#4
Overall sound is very pleasant to my ears.

Personally I would prefer more ambience for the vocals. Especially as guitar has so big space.

Bass is little unsteady. Disappears every now and then. If you have any dynamic eq it might help with those disappearing notes.

As violins are so wide apart and they play somewhat in same register almost same line it feels little like a table tennis for example around 1:49 - if one listens with headphones. Overall feeling is slightly unfocused there.
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#5
OK. Bmullen says the vocals are too up front spacially; Olli H says he'd prefer more ambience for the vocals. I think I can solve both problems by amping up the reverb on the vocals a little. So that's the first thing I did here. Smile

Blue Bus says the bass and guitar are competing in the 100-300 Hz range. I had a high pass filter on the guitars at 100 Hz; not sure I like the sound of it but, as an experiment and to see what everyone else thinks, I pushed that hipass up to 300 Hz to clear the way for the bass. As for the track not being able to "open up" in the choruses, I'm not sure what Blue Bus is trying to say there...? Hopefully these changes will help with that issue as well?

As for Olli H's comment regarding the bass, I'm not overly concerned about that. Bass, played acoustically, has natural peaks and valleys in its sound and in a live ensemble can get a little lost on occasion. So I'll just say here that the bass sound wasn't one of the issues I was looking to resolve; I'm pretty satisfied with that, actually. Smile

However, I did take Olli's advice about the violins and tightened them up in the stereo image a bit.

So, what're everyone's thoughts on my latest go-round here?


.m4a    An Nasc NuaA.m4a --  (Download: 7.44 MB)


John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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#6
I like the way it is now.

Or, maybe the guitar is slightly too thin now? But of course, you must judge the situation yourself. It has no importance how one instrument sounds soloed. Main thing is: does the overall sound good. Guitar can be thin, if it is it's role in your mix. Then you just take care that some other instruments fill the low mids nicely. But what am I to judge? Your mix sounds clearly better than mine. Maybe I should fix first my own mid-range problems. Smile

ABout the bass. I understand your point, but sometimes the peaks and valleys are not artistic choises, but are maybe caused by cheap instrument, or uneven playing technique, or room, or whatever. And that's maybe an area where mixer can try to help. And remember that this track was not an live situation where every player responds naturally to others' playing. I'm quite sure that it was played with closed headphones, and then it's very difficult for a player to create natural and balanced groove - well, at least to me.

Anyway, at this listening moment the bass sound felt to me just fine.
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#7
(04-07-2014, 08:30 AM)Olli H Wrote: [M]aybe the guitar is slightly too thin now?

Hm. I agree. I originally had hipass filters rolled off at 100 Hz on them. When bmullen said the guitars were competing with the bass between 100-300 Hz I pushed the hipasses up to 300 to get the guitars out of the way. But perhaps 300 is too high; I pulled the hipasses back to 200 Hz, a nice happy medium which should get the guitars out of the way of the bass without sucking the texture out of them.

(04-07-2014, 08:30 AM)Olli H Wrote: But what am I to judge?

Someone who enjoys music. That's all you have to be. Wink

(04-07-2014, 08:30 AM)Olli H Wrote: Your mix sounds clearly better than mine.

Hm. That had me curious about yours so I went over to listen to it; my comments are on your thread.

(04-07-2014, 08:30 AM)Olli H Wrote: ABout the bass. I understand your point, but sometimes the peaks and valleys are not artistic choises, but are maybe caused by cheap instrument, or uneven playing technique, or room, or whatever. And that's maybe an area where mixer can try to help. And remember that this track was not an live situation where every player responds naturally to others' playing. I'm quite sure that it was played with closed headphones, and then it's very difficult for a player to create natural and balanced groove - well, at least to me.

Hm... point well taken...

OK. I added some gentle compression, just a ratio of 1.2:1 with a threshold of about 23 dB to try to smooth it out a little without sounding unnatural.

What do you think?


.m4a    An Nasc NuaA.m4a --  (Download: 7.44 MB)


John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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#8
Listened to your last mix. Have to say that I really enjoyed it. Nice confident use of subtle effects....or maybe its down to your choice of panning...or maybe both. whichever.....you've created a nice ambiance.
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#9
the bass on this one if very difficult to deal with... it's impossible to "work the mic" while performing, and the player will inevitably move about while playing the instrument which causes tonal changes... dynamic EQ or multiband compression is often the best solution to this problem in my opinion.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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