Patrick T - Blue (Metallurgist)

[The_Metallurgist]

i've got to take my hat off to Patrick, for his energy and seemingly endless enthusiasm.....and always interesting compositions, i hasten to add.

i've made a lot of personal artistic decisions here....and none were done in order to [try to] satisfy the Artist but instead to give myself the opportunity of creative freedom of expression....and then to try and get it to work in the mix!

first snag for me was the length of the song. i struggled with the duration, to be honest. so, while not ideal, i cut out v3 and c3 and hacked c2 with the material and time i had available. i like the little play with suspense "I see her in.................Blue". this was as close to a middle-8 as i was going to get.

the lead guitar was the little girl, in my vision....dreamy, wandering mind and playful spirit. i messed around with it's ambiance a lot, dropping it back in the chorus (dreamy), and pulling it forward in the verses, for example. removing the chorusing and mixing down to mono gave me scope to make the necessary changes throughout the song to give me the flexibility i needed....enabling attention between verses and choruses and especially in working the outro. gotta keep the audience engaged....

i was concerned with the LV during the outro, so made the BV's contribute a lot more to the climax of the song. it was a damage limitation exercise on the one hand, but i think it forced me to work the concept and make the song very individual during the close in the way the BV's were working in tandem with the LV. i did tweak the LV in places for pitch where it really concerned me, but resisted doing so for the whole song. at higher SPL's, the sibilance starts to climb out, as one would expect. i hit it as hard as i dared on the basis that this isn't a song where the levels get cranked and i also wanted to keep the presence in the vocal as much as possible by retaining the HF's where needed - air. yeah, it's a compromise and i do acknowledge there's scope for further reduction. the nasal character is the outcome of the mike and can't be fixed in the mix. that was a shame.

the delays and additional vocal arrangement tweaks were implemented based on a gut feel that the song was missing something. there was a lot of space and time in the lyrics during the verses which almost had me losing interest. so, the repeats were added as a means of emphasising the key features/charm/innocence etc, of the youngster. these repeats had delays, and the delays were messed around with to change their delivery and add some sonic interest at a subtle level i.e. their amplitudes were backed right off and their timbres modified towards a warmer bias. it was an experiment.....don't judge it, eh chaps.

the delays on the eguitar outro sounded cliche, so this was re-worked to give a bit of originality and closure. the vocal clip was dropped in with that in mind and it also seals the name of the song for the audience. The Beatles used the opening lines of all their songs to hammer the song titles.

the organ was dropped in (thanks for the MIDI) so i could lose the eguitar for a verse in an effort to keep the song fresh and interesting....and perhaps a little less predictable; i think i muted the Rhodes here too. one could argue about the patch's merit in the song and it's vibe, but i liked the contrast and it's dynamic polyphony. the toy piano was originally running twice, but as i'd deleted it with v3 it only got this exposure and kept the organ company.

the second eguitar was deleted entirely, along with a keyboard track which i felt offered little in the way of sonic interest/relevance beyond what was left. the outcome offered more space to focus on the vocal arrangement, especially during the outro. i wanted the vocals to be the main feature of this song more than anything else....the instruments were there merely to support the lyric and were thus mixed accordingly.

there was a sonic collision between the kick's low end and the bass. if i was fussing, i'd have dropped a sample over the kick for some better harmonics and overtones to help differentiate it. not today. the cymbals had a horrific frequency response akin to white noise which was highly problematic throughout the mix with their susceptibility in provoking the onset of fatigue (i went though hell trying to sort them out, actually), and were especially troublesome during the outro where they were exposed in the arrangement. it was soooo bad that nothing would touch them so i took the initiative to duck them. yeah, i was desperate by now.

drums were switched to a RH kit out of respect for the audience and their needs and expectations.

the 16bit WAV is here, for those who value quality over convenience. the link will live for a minimum of 4 weeks; if it's dead and you'd like the wav, feel free to PM me.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1565...urgist.wav

thanks for listening..

[ptalbot]

Wow Dave! Sounds like you had a lot of fun!
Now I must confess that I will need some time to digest this one...

Actually it's great to read that you didn't try to satisfy the artist, as I completely appreciate the originality of your vision and it's something that I feel I can learn from, not to mention your obvious technical skills.
I admire your creative input and after a couple listen I can already say that I prefer this one to your previous attempt, which had a few hits but also a few misses IMHO... this one sounds more matured and polished to my untrained (and obviously biased) ears.
I truly love the ending already!

I will come back to you after more listens (thanks for the wav download BTW!), there's a lot to take in and reflect over...
An amazing job!

[takka360]

Real good balance and great vocal treatment .
Very interesting mix
Good work and creative .

[ptalbot]

So I've spent some time listening to this mix again and again, trying to make up my mind about it and trying to listen to it as objectively as I could (which of course is impossible, but the exercise was interesting anyway!).
As I said, I'm dead impressed by it and have great admiration for what you did.

I've come to the conclusion that I love it - with a few objections that I will list below.

Of course all of these objections are only artistic, there's no doubt to me that you know your stuff and that the tone, balance and levels all make sense as a mix, so I will not even discuss that (I would be very hard pressed to find any fault anyway, it's well known that I don't have golden ears! )

I should cite first all the things that are so right about this mix, like the great tones of the guitar, the vocal treatment in general, the great drum sound, all the little ear candies that work so well, but the list would be too long and I know you're confident enough not to need any praise from me!

Here are the things that don't work for me:

- the radio announcement at the beginning. Honestly, I hate it, it's spoiling the song for me in a cheap way.
I can understand that you want to advertise your work but I really wonder how this sounds without it...

- the delays in the verses are overbearing. You said not to judge on that, but it's hard to make abstraction of them. They are rather distracting at times. IMHO they change the mood of the song from dreamy to trippy, which is a valid mood in itself but possibly not the one that the song was meant to convey?
A musician friend of mine who listened to your mix reflected that it was a bit like "taking a boeuf bourguignon and making a curry with it" (sic). - I think it's pretty apt, and as much as I love curry, being French, what I did cook was a boeuf bourguignon, so I do think there's too much spices in your remix: too much delays, or rather too distracting delays. I do think that they could work very well with lighter touches, like adding only a pinch of curcuma and a few leaves of coriander would give some exotic flavours without overpowering the dish... (sorry about the culinary metaphor but I think it gives a good sense of what I mean)

- I really love the suspense on the "I see her in..... blue" (your middle 8! )
The only problem I have with it is that the timing of the "blue" word is slightly wrong, it's falling in between beats in a weird way, and if that's the surprise you were after, I think it falls short, being clunky because of that timing issue. Ideally I would have placed it on a beat, possibly on the drums fill that starts the song back... Right now there is something musically incorrect in its placement IMHO, and that's bothering me.

- I like the organ addition, that's a cool idea, but I think the distortion on it is overcooked and not welcomed. I would have tried a softer sound, perhaps something like a circus organ, one of those old organs that you can hear in fairs on a roundabout, this would have gone a lot better with the theme as well...

- The ending is fantastic, truly, I love how the bgvs swirl and how everything kind of melts into reverb and modulated delays, and the transformation of the drum into that effected rhythmic pattern in the background, all of that is clever and sounds amazing! The only issue I have is of timing/lost opportunity: the last "my little girl's blue" from the lead would have been perfect if it had coincided with the last repeat of the swirling bgvs of "my little, my little, my little"... on that last "my little", it would have felt perfect to my ears.

So overall, these are the kind of things I would have objected to, if I was 'the client'...
Of course this is not the case, and the fact that you have made this song yours, in such a way, kind of invalidates my objections anyway... But I needed to express them nonetheless, perhaps you will want to take some of them into account?

In any case, you did a master job, and I thank you again for this great version that showed me some aspects of the song and of the mixing process that didn't occurred to me before.

Cheers,
-Patrick

[The_Metallurgist]

So I've spent some time listening to this mix again and again....

The problem with subjective analysis is that it's based on taste and personal preferences which is an expression of one's Terms of Reference. It doesn't help develop mixing skills, because subjectivity isn't a skill – everyone can be subjective, even the insane.

I did say in my preamble that my goal wasn't to try and guess or assume the needs of the artist, or to satisfy needs already expressed elsewhere. I felt there were issues in the song which detracted from my engagement with it, and I wanted to try and address them within the constraints of a DAW and tools available...and time! Have 100 people listen to a song, and there will be 100 different subjective opinions.....and the artists' will simply be one of those. Besides which, it is too late in the day, at the mix, to start thinking about decisions and visions which could/should have been considered and thrashed out during the composing and arranging part of the process where the needs of the mix are of paramount consideration. Late, unplanned changes of a significant nature will tend to be difficult to implement, especially transparently.

So, getting someone/everyone to like ALL creative indulgences here is like finding a hen's tooth. And this is why I fundamentally requested people not to judge the “delays” in particular, because I know instinctively they don't fit the context very well. Of course, that doesn't mean that the vision itself is flawed but perhaps needs further work to get it to fruition...work I won't be doing though, so I'll never know if the vision had legs. The pitch changes on the delay of the delays really irks me LOL.

The apparent time issues which you mentioned in the mid section? It works from my MIDI (Terms of Reference) ear's perspective, and it also works, I'm glad to say, by my partners, who's probably far more qualified than both of us put together; a professionally trained cellist, percussionist and vocalist of all things. The sample was moved around quite a bit to find the ideal “moment” and this felt right. Perhaps you don't like offbeats but I love um; it's the offbeat nature in the space of the pause which makes it “right”. We must agree to disagree therefore. In a commercial world, I'd of course listen to the artist and let them hang themselves but not without first being a dutiful mixing engineer and flagging up what I view are issues which need to be addressed or at least considered before it's too late. This is normally outside the scope of a "vanilla" mixing engineer who simply takes what he's given and gets on with the job without fear of losing his life . It's one of the reasons why a musician is advised not to mix their own material...because they lack impartiality....and so do their mates, ESPECIALLY their mates, including the ones who like curry, heh.

Your note regarding the end sample placement? This is bang on time. I think the third delay, which was given a lower amplitude than the 2 preceding, is possibly throwing your ears, unless you're subconsciously being distracted by some old decays going on elsewhere?

I feel an organ isn't the right instrument (good call from you on the circus-type patch though...but that doesn't resonate really for me). I wanted strings but would have had to fire up the external gear and engage in orchestral shenanigans (with care to ensure context, naturally). With the fresh spring air and abundant sunshine calling me, it wasn't going to happen because I'd pretty much achieved my personal goals within the time I was willing to spare – I've done some major work, which I'm glad you have appreciated...thank you for your kind words in that regard. I think it's the principle that something needs to be done in order to bring a sonic change in the landscape to help the song engage it's audience that's important from my perspective? I'm in the audience

The 6 second sound bite during the intro? Come on man, you're making mountains out of mole hills now. On a creative level, I think it's a stroke of genius

Thanks for your time and attention though, it's appreciated. Thanks for the material too, I had a lot of fun working it....even the stuff that isn't quite working yet.......

.......nothing ventured, nothing gained!

Cheers
Dave

[The_Metallurgist]

i've since revisited this mix and had a play with the organ section. what worked for me was it's replacement with 2 different tracks; the idea of the strings worked really well, but importantly from my perspective was the intuitive addition of a choir. even taking the fact that it was synthesized, it really gave the song a nice feel and for me, it significantly enhanced the emotional delivery and connection with the song. the strings and choir made a good emotional pair in the circumstances. if you're still subscribing Patrick, do give it a go if you re-work the song at some time in the future.

regarding the timing aspect during the outro, i'm not sure if there was a slight delay on one of my effects early on which ended up feeling out of time at the final stages, but there is a timing issue and i didn't get to the bottom of it (the delays are right, but the timing of the trigger might not have been accurate and in harmony with the instruments?). anyway, while briefly exploring, i muted the final part of the guitar and the problem went away, or perhaps it was still there but not obvious to me. that's NOT to suggest the guitar was a problem, i hasten to add, but importantly from my perspective it removed the distraction and thankfully, it didn't impinge on the song and my vision for the outro. if anyone would like to suggest where the problem specifically lies, by all means i'd welcome the post.

[ptalbot]

Hey Dave, glad to know you had another play with the song... you said you revisited your mix but you didn't upload the new version, so it's hard for me to see what you mean about the strings and choir, did you simply use the midi for the rhodes and vibes and replaced that with strings and choir? Could you share that?
As to the delay at the end, I'm wondering how removing the guitar made it sound better, to me the feeling of it being out of time (not saying it is) was because the previous "my little" delays were creating an expectation of that last phrase to be in sync with them.

[Mixinthecloud]

It seems to me the ability to do all kinds of crazy things to someone's raw tracks is an easy thing to do. Making those things work within the context of the song is more of an art form. I would never confuse technical acumen with an art form, or vice-versa. As an art form, I feel this mix fails badly, but shows off the mixers considerable technical skills. Improving on or making a track 'sound' better is truly one of the most subjective things in the human experience. I enjoy the technical aspects of this mix but the song is lost because of it. And to me, it is all about the song.

[dcp10200]

It seems to me the ability to do all kinds of crazy things to someone's raw tracks is an easy thing to do. Making those things work within the context of the song is more of an art form. I would never confuse technical acumen with an art form, or vice-versa. As an art form, I feel this mix fails badly, but shows off the mixers considerable technical skills. Improving on or making a track 'sound' better is truly one of the most subjective things in the human experience. I enjoy the technical aspects of this mix but the song is lost because of it. And to me, it is all about the song.

I haven't really made a mix of this track, so take my words with a metric tonne of salt. I'm agreeing with you, the mix is perfect from a purely technical aspect. It's not too hot and compressed the balance is great, and it has some cool effects.

From a musical perspective however, the delays and other effects don't really add to what's already there and that audio watermark is really annoying, like a pirated copy off Limewire. I've listened to other mixes by Dave and they all seem to be technically good, not exactly song serving.

I'll put it like this, Californication by the Red Hot Chili peppers has a horrible mix and master from a technical standard, however I love the songs on that album because they are well written and the raw and dirty sound of that album suit the music of that album because the music is raw and visceral. This mix is like how Californication would be with overly polished, technically perfect production.

[The_Metallurgist]

It seems to me the ability to do all kinds of crazy things to someone's raw tracks is an easy thing to do.

it isn't...the minute anything is added in the mix, it's extra frequencies and balances which need managing. there's questions of compression, like which compressor to use and which parameters to select....to considerations like depth and placement and which reverbs to apply to the additions to achieve those aspects and how those additional reverbs will interact with what is already there.

that's art. it's also science.

i expect people in the forum who wish to contribute to my threads, to discuss those points....the OBJECTIVE assessments of the effectiveness of those technical aspects.

Making those things work within the context of the song is more of an art form.

...and is therefore subjective, based on PERSONAL TASTES and the individuals own Terms of Reference i.e. what music they listen to, by genre, what instruments and kind of music they play, and even the quality of their audio gear and listening environment.

I would never confuse technical acumen with an art form, or vice-versa. As an art form, I feel this mix fails badly,

"I feel..." is a subjective assessment.....it's a personal opinion. it has nothing to do with this forum's goal...which is to get people mixing better today than they were mixing yesterday. so, some OBJECTIVE mix assessments need to be forthcoming otherwise you're wasting time....and indeed come across as being a troll....and i'm beginning to feel also that you are spamming me, but i'll give you the benefit of the doubt for now.

ultimately, it's not what i think a mix should sound like artistically or technically, BUT IT'S ABOUT WHAT THE ARTIST WANTS. I'm not interested in satisfying Patrick's needs here, or any other artisit's desires because that's again a subjective criteria. at the end of the day...if an artist want's XYZ in a commercial scenario, then we have to be technically competent to deliver the BRIEF.

i post here because i have the FREEDOM of working away from the CONSTRAINTS AN ARTIST WILL IMPOSE IN THE STUDIO...THE BRIEF, and the varied qualities and attributes of those raw materials is to my advantage. i exploit that without constraints. i can express my own needs and wishes without subjective opinion being forced upon me.

so, if i want to add a specific type of delay in a song, it's because i want some practise at that creative approach, not to satisfy your tastes. if you have difficulties with this, then why are you bothering to listen to my mixes...and why are you bothering to post in my threads?

if my mixer's impartiality suggests a creative approach, and the artist feels they would like to go with it....or even take the idea and develop it further, that's Art, art is creativity....its synergy. i feel that having the technical competence to achieve those things is an essential prerequisite of being a more useful servant to the artist - it's my key Product Differentiation. I'm here to develop technical competence, not to meet people's "subjective needs" like your own.

i admire Patrick's lack of impartiality in this forum and he promotes intelligent discussion. i wish there were a lot more people as open and willing as he.

Improving on or making a track 'sound' better is truly one of the most subjective things in the human experience.

so what's your point..and importantly, what does it OBJECTIVELY contribute to my thread and my mix?

I enjoy the technical aspects of this mix

that's SUBJECTIVE again. personal feelings, views, opinions. i'm glad you enjoyed them, however, but it doesn't help me one bit to reflect on the technical aspects. and it doesn't contribute anything of value or worth to this community/forum.

but the song is lost because of it. And to me, it is all about the song.

subjective.

come on mate, help me by being OBJECTIVE, not subjective. you aren't helping, and you certainly aren't helping the rest of the community here who might be reading the post and are also interested in objectivity.

NB: capitals in this post are not shouts but emphasis.


if you are unable to offer objective discussion, may i kindly ask you to refrain from posting further in any of my threads?