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Patrick Talbot: 'Blue' - Olli H
#11
a sparse arrangement has it's challenges, the main one being a problem with where to place things in the stereo field while trying to keep the spectral balance as equal as possible. i felt your challenge with the guitar, for example. placing it center would have made the mix quite mono, but panning it anywhere different will tend to bias the spectral balance along with it. over monitors you'd get away with it, but in the cans this is going to pull on one side somewhat. difficult one that. when the tin piano comes in, it's joining the guitar in the right channel...it might have been better on the other side perhaps, helping to pull the spectrum back on a more even keel, at least while the tin is present....but the problem would come back when it's gone. this is one of those situations where the arrangement can give issues in the mix. the tin currently panned right, is highly fatiguing being on one side in my Ovations.

there's a tendency for build-up in the instrumentation with some irritating frequencies from the vibra and rhodes, the ringing got irritating pretty quickly; the sustain is the problem for me, starting at 1:03. the effects on the vibra can, and did, make me feel nauseous. in mono it's not a problem....it's the interplay between the two channels which causes it.

for me, the vocal was too close and i'm also hearing every nuance. with an untrained voice we want to avoid that as much as possible by whatever means available (and this wasn't a nice mike, which did nothing to help matters....but out of our control). i liked your effects during the chorus which gave a nice touch to the emotional delivery at that point; good call. i also liked your fades on the vocal in an effort to keep the problems away from the listener which was a symptom towards the end especially. the sibilance was a problem for us all. however, on slightly higher auditioning levels the sibilance in this mix comes out and bites (hello Equal Loudness contour). some dynamic eq would have helped to keep it in check in the mix. i thought the vocal level was up too much? good for radio though.

the Upright was in my face, up close and far too personal, it sounded pretty dry to me....maybe a hint of mono verb with a shortish pre delay would have helped give it a bit of distance and retain this distance in mono. i think a different compression strategy on this instrument could have made it less volatile and more consistent in the mix, it's dynamics sounded a little....dynamic; it drops away quite quickly after the attack, in other words. do you see what i mean?

you did a good job on the drums, keeping the white noise at bay too. drums were mixed from the drummers stool.....i'm in the audience so if they aren't mixed to my perspective i get distracted. given the audience outnumbers the drummer i'd turn the kit around personally....even if the drummer's left handed. it was a shame about the kick...no harmonics, bass rich, booming headroom sapper. i think a sample would help here with the harmonics present blended in to suit. would you have done this ordinarily had you taken a different mixing strategy [your comment in the intro refers] ?

regarding the ambiance you chose, i heard the illusion of a big space which contradicted the upright bass's proximity (and it's missing ambiance and placement in the room) and the vocals' proximity also. i suspect this was chosen more for ear candy than practicality? but it's giving me contradictory messages about the space and where the stuff is within it. i think if you'd got this fixed, the mix would have been a lot more involving, believable and it would have avoided the potential for distraction.

if this hadn't been an mp3, you might have seen me bobbing my head though Big Grin and i'd like to have heard the other 70+ percent that the codec's algorithm is denying me........ Wink

perhaps one day????????????????? Big Grin
Beware...........Cognitive Dissonance!
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#12
Wov!
I never could have imagined that my simple jazz pop mix could cause so much of nausea in anybody. I’m almost proud of it.

I admit that I was a silly to think that the main thing in this song is intimacy of vocals. Stupid me.

There’s so many things and rules that I must learn. For example that hi-hat must be on the right side in the mix. Otherwise it will distract theoretically listening ears. Now that I know that rule from now on I am forced to put it always on the left side.

If one wants to create uncontradictory space from the audience perspective, shouldn’t the drums be mono? I haven’t seen any band where the toms are spread on the stage. The whole kit seems to be always in the center within reach of one player. But I don’t want to do mono drums. I want to practice modern mixing ideas that are not limited by theorethical thinking. With modern I mean music that was created after 60’s. (Although I do have plenty of records from 40’s and 50’s, and I love them.)
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#13
Hey Olli, I think you might be interpreting Dave's comments as insults, but I don't think he meant them that way.

To further the discussion, in most cases I agree with you on drums and stereo... I tend to spread things out for purely practical EQ reasons, or to provide some actual physical movement to the sound, but in a real world situation, you're right... Drums are effectively mono. In this mix, due to the light instrumentation, he has a point, although the idea that it was mixed from the drummers stool is inconsequential IMHO because drum kits can be and often are reconfigured for left handed players... And some drummers choose to put their cymbals in "wrong" places to suit their playing styles (think carter beauford.). But some effort to create an illusion of space in this case seems wise, since everything is so exposed.

So on the vibes and organ, spreading them out is making Dave nauseous.. I would have said dizzy, but most people aren't so sensitive. The raw tracks have some sort of fast delay rocking back and forth on the sides that completely disappears if you zero out the width, but that would limit their usefulness as stereo pads. But all the stereo stuff rattling around on both sides all in the same frequency range can cause some problems, so what to do? I'd say high pass all the way up to 250 or 300 just on their sides, the narrow their width about 50 percent. Without the low mids sweeping back and forth from hard left to hard right you could pan them in opposition, get the stereo filler you need, and nobody gets dizzy :p.

On the bass, a high passed mono reverb makes sense, but it's a good idea in a mix like this where almost everything is software to have a short blending reverb that every track is feeding into at least a little to give them all something in common. It's a modern trend to leave the bass entirely dry (in a loud, busy mix) but this mix is too sparse for that IMHO.

Anyway, I think it's a pretty good mix. Home studio mixes are always hard, but your work is easy on the ears as always. Good discussion on stereo here we should keep going. Stereo is my Achilles heel personally... Which is kinda stupid? EQ? Easy. Compression? Child's play. Stereo panorama? Minefield. Much to learn.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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