150th post

[Obelix]

Another song I mixed. Tell me what you think about it. To me it seems like this band makes good songs but mixing them was a great challenge as they were poorly recorded. The song is Lookout Mountains. It has a nice and relaxed vibe to it.

[HbGuitar]

hey Obelix,

The balance of your bass guitar is very dominating. If you have access to a FFT spectogram plug-in, you'll see plain as day the size of the sub 150 hz peaks vs the rest.

This is where using reference tracks is invaluable. If you have a compromised listening environment (most of us do) then at least you can compare spectrographs of comparable mixes in that genre - and hear how those reference mixes sound in your room verses how they look in the spectrograph. You can then use that info to assess the balance of your own mix.

As well as a balance issue, there is some room resonance on the bass track around 120hz that needs taming.

Once you address these issues it will be easier to comment on the rest of your mix.

Cheers

[Obelix]

[quote='HbGuitar' pid='30131' dateline='1426650468']
hey Obelix,

The balance of your bass guitar is very dominating. If you have access to a FFT spectogram plug-in, you'll see plain as day the size of the sub 150 hz peaks vs the rest.

This is where using reference tracks is invaluable. If you have a compromised listening environment (most of us do) then at least you can compare spectrographs of comparable mixes in that genre - and hear how those reference mixes sound in your room verses how they look in the spectrograph. You can then use that info to assess the balance of your own mix.

What song would you recomend me to use as a reference track ?

[HbGuitar]

What song would you recomend me to use as a reference track ?

short answer: i wouldn't - its your call

long answer:

It depends what music you have access to - CDs, downloads etc. In this case it could be anything from country/rock genres that matches your vision - is it classic or is it contemporary? etc etc. These are questions you must ask and answer yourself.

1. Compare it to the rough mix
2. Compare it to other members mixes that you like
3. What songs in your collection fit the vibe of what you're trying to achieve? - remember, you don't need to like the song or match the whole song, just the part that you're interested in which in this case is the bottom end balance of bass/kick/snare vs mid range vox/instruments
4. If you have nothing then get onto spotify (or similar) find a song that works for you and download from itunes (or similar)

remember to try and normalize the loudness level of your reference tracks and your mix when you analyze them - otherwise the louder mix will ALWAYS sound better (unless its really bad).

At the end of the day it all depends on how much effort you're willing to put into becoming a better mixer.....be it building a reference library or brushing up on your technical chops.

good luck

[The_Metallurgist]

Another song I mixed. Tell me what you think about it. To me it seems like this band makes good songs but mixing them was a great challenge as they were poorly recorded. The song is Lookout Mountains. It has a nice and relaxed vibe to it.

HbGuitar has given some good advice.

i'd build on Hb's recommendations, having had a listen. this mix has some issues generally regarding it's spectral balance, and it's not only in the bass region? the treble is especially bright with a leaning towards the brittle side - i'm finding it fatiguing. brittleness is generally a result of upper harmonics, say, from the acoustic guitars not being EQ'd appropriately - technically, there isn't much going on with an acoustic beyond 6kHz and i'm certainly hearing a lot higher than this. the fact that the guitars are brittle and the cymbals and hihat are also brighter than they should be, is suggesting problems somewhere between your DAW and your ears.

i suspect it's your monitoring situation, which encompasses the grade/quality of monitoring you're using, the size of the room as well as it's furnishing, where the monitors are positioned relative to your ears and nearby reflective surfaces etc etc etc.

you should try to get yourself to a situation where you hear this mix and recognise how the treble should be fixed. if you can't hear it, you can't fix it. importantly, if you can't hear it now, you won't hear future mixes. i will also add as a side comment, the playback SPL is ---->CRITICAL<---- to effectively balancing bass and treble. if you want to know more, read up on the subject of Fletcher-Munson etc, and the ear's non-linear response. and if you don't wear hearing protection as a musician, it's likely you will have impaired hearing, which can also affect judgement in the treble range. excessive and prolonged exposure to loudness is a disease.

i can't give you all the answers, so you have some research to do. the difficult thing with research is that it's boring....or can be if you're not that way inclined. if you find research difficult, you will find advancing your mixing skills quite impossible.

i've discovered that spending time reading about mixing and acoustics is a faster way of progressing mixing skills than sitting at the DAW or messing around in forums.

oh, if your mixing environment is compromised, it also means that using reference material won't help much. depressing, eh?

DON'T USE MP3 OR OTHER LOSSY FORMAT FOR REFERENCING, so therefore it's not a good idea to use forum mixes either!!!!!! IF YOU LISTEN TO MP3, YOU WILL MIX TO MP3 QUALITY. if you don't know how bad lossy is, check out youtube, there's some good examples which illustrates the artifacts lossy produces.

hope this helps someone out there....

[Obelix]

Version 2

[Obelix]

Listen to the version 2- I think that there is a massive improvement over the 1st one

[loweche6]

the second mix is definitely improved. I'm not sure I'm a fan of the snare sound. It sounds a little boxy to me, on my crappy headphone that I know really well. This is a little wish washy, but I think you need a little more glue from your master buss comp? You have good separation, but a little too much possibly? I can't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it's as simple as bringing the acoustics up a few dB to help match some harmonic information against your drum sound. (And me being a bass heavy guy, I could stand your bass being brought up somewhere between your original post and your rev)

You definitely improved the tone of the acoustics greatly.

Nice work
Draper

Edit* Maybe your voice needs a tab bit of de essing, and your cymbals could darken up a little bit, and then try adding some high end on the master buss. I think this may help a tad. . . or I've had a few more drinks than I thought) Maybe compress your snare a little more?

[LARIX]

Whats the tempo of the song? Cant find out.. Please help me!

[Mike Senior]

Whats the tempo of the song? Cant find out.. Please help me!

It's about 56bpm -- I normally put that info in the little Readme with the download ZIP.