Patrick Talbot_Blue

[tjmtruth]

UPDATE: SEE CONVERSATION BELOW. THERE IS ANOTHER MIX I UPLOADED BELOW WITH AN ELECTRIC BASS SOUND USED IN THE SONG.


Here's my take on this song. I like the song a lot, which always makes it more fun to mix! Any questions/comments are always welcomed.

Thanks,

Tom

[ptalbot]

You achieved a very different vibe, which is cool!
I kinda miss the effects on the guitar though, since this was so much part of the sound for me (the delay in particular), but I guess that's what your vision was leading to... The kick is also very different, punchy, perhaps too much so?
You said you though the guitar was what carried the song, and I agree, but then I miss it during the chorus... I would push the arpeggios more during that part especially, to me they are driving that part along with the bass and vocals.
I like your take on it though. Great job!

[tjmtruth]

Patrick, thanks for your input. Actually, I really liked what you did with the guitar (the effects - very beautiful). But, I was trying to see if I could get a totally different sound from what others would get because the effects were printed on the track. By your comments, I did accomplish that part of it. I would like to re-mix this again leaving your guitar track intact and see what other ideas come to mind. Love the song by the way! I sound-replaced the kick and that's probably why you don't really like it. I really like a more dry kick and a lot of beater, even in Jazz, but perhaps this song SHOULD have a softer kick. Sometimes I get carried away. I only devoted 4 hours to this mix (was forced to due to lack of time). I usually would put more time into it and in fact, I will re-mix it and re-post when I get some more time. So many songs so little time....:-) As Arnold would say, "I'll be back." :-) Later....Tom

[ptalbot]

Yeah, don't know about the kick, might well be a taste thing.
I usually don't like the overly hyped beater of modern sound. But that's me.

The only thing I think strongly about your mix is that the guitar is lacking during the chorus.
All the rest is very taste related but this part really misses the melodic/emotional content that the guitar is giving IMHO.

[tjmtruth]

Pat,

SEE MIX BELOW - uploaded below . . .

I did something crazy! I used that bass midi file that was included in the package and I used it with the Scarbee Electric Bass virtual instrument (which I think is the best bass virtual out there). I also rolled off the beater frequency but kept the kick kinda loud especially now because there's an electric bass in there. :-)

I know it's crazy because your song has now taken on a whole different sort of feeling. I did it for the fun of it and to continue to learn. I could not use your electric guitar1 track because there was some kind of clicking in there....don't know if it got corrupted when downloading....tried it twice. Anyway, I used my modified guitar track from my first mix (above) but I tried to make it sound as close to what you had as possible with a ping-pong delay and long reverb. I didn't make it louder during the chorus because it seemed to take over the song and overpower the vocal in the sense of the vocal being soooooooooooo important to me in that part.

Anyway, I think this mix, overall, is much better balanced and cleaner even though there are tons of effects everywhere. Again, love the song....I really connect with it and that's why I'm doing all this crazy stuff with it. I know you have in your head what you are looking for. And, what's great about this site is I get to hear all the different interpretations of songs from everyone. Each person has their own way of approaching his/her mixes and it's all fascinating to me.

Peace. Tom

[ptalbot]

Nothing crazy about it. I did provide the midi because I was expecting people to try that kind of things!
I love that mixing can be such a creative thing, not just a technical fix (although I'm afraid there's some of that in my tracks ) and I'm also fascinated about the various approaches that people have, and am very curious to hear other's takes on my songs, that was my primary reason for providing these tracks. So thanks for that, Tom!

I didn't realized that the guitar had these weird clicks, I just checked in the export files and indeed they are quite annoying, it must have happened during the export process, because I don't have these in my mix... I will have to re-export and provide an update to Mike. Sorry about it.

This version is yet even more different, but possibly more coherent and very cool.
I prefer the kick how now but I do think the bass is too loud though. You didn't push the guitar during the chorus, but it seems more present, possibly because there's more separation now with the bass and kick being that different. I don't know, but I think that it's fine now on this version, it provides enough counterpoint to the vocals which are indeed important in the chorus but more so in contrast with the guitar arpeggios and the bass line.

Thanks for the revisit, I really enjoyed that version!

[tjmtruth]

Pat,

Glad you liked some of what I did with your song. Song-writing is an art and a very personal one. With my own music I have a very clear idea in my head what I want each song to end up sounding like. Unfortunately, I don't always achieve that. THAT'S why this forum is so important to me. It's helping me learn to make better mixes of my own music.

On a tangent: I have a friend who is good friends with, and works with, Bob Mintzer (big Jazz dude). He gives me electronic versions of his songs to mix before they get charts written and performed in the studio by the live musicians, etc. He gave me such a hard time on a song because I didn't have some of the instruments varying in volume the way he had the wav files showing. In other words, in the wav files you could see areas where some instruments were very low, and other places where the wav was loud (or bigger). My interpretation was to even out the discrepancies, but to him it was like I had committed a crime. LOL! That was a great learning experience because he made those files that way for a reason.....in HIS HEAD, THAT was the way he wanted it, and I didn't deliver. He forgave me.....LOL!

To make a long story short, I am appreciative that you provided your tracks for all of us to work with. I suspect that I am not the only one who loves this forum!

Love your song "Blue." Sounds like hit material to me. And, it's so different in that it's a cross between Jazz and contemporary ballad. Great writing, man!!!! Later.

Tom

[ptalbot]

Yeah, I'm the same. I have a good idea of how I want things to sound, but am not always able to achieve it
BTW, I went to your facebook page and listen to some cool music. Nice!

I'm glad you liked this song, it's an unusual one for me as it actually came from the lyrics (I usually have music first), so this is a kind of 'songwriter-style' thing for me, and there was quite a lot of lyrics, which is why I didn't even add an instrumental guitar solo or something like that, because I thought it would be too long.

I hope you will like the next multitracks. I've provided 3 more (Mike chose the more 'jazzy' stuff from my soundcloud account), don't know exactly when Mike will publish them but hopefully soon.
I'm especially curious what people will do to 'A reason to leave' which my own take on hybrid jazz + rock.
https://soundcloud.com/patrick-talbot/a-reason-to-leave

Keep it up!
-Patrick

[tjmtruth]

Ahhhhhhhhh, Patrick....a man after my own heart. Love that "hybrid" Jazz-Rock tune "A Reason To Leave." Already have some ideas on how I would approach it. Love the mix as is though. Great mix of Jazz and Rock. Nice!!

Tom

[ptalbot]

Thanks Tom, I'm quite happy about this one!
I'm eager to hear what you (and others) will do with this one. It really has 2 sides. Jazz and Rock, so it's rather challenging to work out both aspects and make both works, needs a good amount of multing and automation - I'm not sure I went far enough with that actually, I thought my mix was fine and achieved what I was after, although I'm sure it can be improved and I might do it differently today (ain't that always the case? ).
Cheers,
-Patrick