I saw that this song was popular in the new postings, then saw a Patron contest.. I miss the character of classic 80's music, music that "sound" like the mood of the song.. Taking the forum reference listen, I heard in my mind already what I posted for my up of the song..
With that, of course, good luck to everyone, this is a great song with plenty of character to deliver a great feel in the final product.
My third final Patron (Recall rev3) version is upped.
Disclaimer: After thinking about it, I am withdrawing my "competitive" entry for reward (but remain a Patron and any reference mentions would be cool if I'm privy). The reason: This is an educational forum and there's great information and ears who help here. I came here to personally rekindle my pro audio skills which I had the privilege of beginning over 22 years ago. There are some great posts for the contest and I don't want anyone who may be looking for guidance to be influenced by my version while everyone is listening to everyone else contest versions. My version is the result of overly confident experience and while it satisfy me, it may not be proper for a reward consideration based on fundamental mixing (not because I'm not confident in it but for respect to others who have likely made more progress in their skills as a member of the forum than I have). I am of course open to answer comments on my version, I am excited to hear the results!! Good luck all! Looking forward to the next one
did you use amp sim on bass? sounds cool.
(04-11-2016, 07:17 AM)coldvodka Wrote: [ -> ]did you use amp sim on bass? sounds cool.
Thanks, I sent all 3 bass tracks and leveled into a single buss, then sent the buss to another aux with a WAVES SSL Master Buss Compressor for parallel compression leveling.
Sounds powerful
Opening guitar sounds maybe too wide. Listen the moment when band joins. I think there should happen bigger widening.
Main groove very good
Nice dark spacious vox sound. What are you using: plate, delay to plate, or something else?
To me it feels that guitar in chorus is not yet properly balanced. Somehow it feels too loud. Or is it too nervous? But the tight sound breaks apart a bit when chorus starts. Focus disappears. I think it should stay in vox. Maybe less reverb in vox during the chorus could fix that problem. Notice that in chorus the vox energy is softer than in verse, so it might work if the singer steps towards the mic in chorus. ANd maybe also sidechaning couple of dbs from guitars with vox.
Some de-essing or de-effing (FFFor the FFFellow) to bg-vox would be fine.
But anyhow, excellent work.
Did you replace you very first version with new one? I have a feeling that I heard a bit brighter version from you.
(14-11-2016, 05:09 PM)Olli H Wrote: [ -> ]Sounds powerful
Opening guitar sounds maybe too wide. Listen the moment when band joins. I think there should happen bigger widening.
Main groove very good
Nice dark spacious vox sound. What are you using: plate, delay to plate, or something else?
To me it feels that guitar in chorus is not yet properly balanced. Somehow it feels too loud. Or is it too nervous? But the tight sound breaks apart a bit when chorus starts. Focus disappears. I think it should stay in vox. Maybe less reverb in vox during the chorus could fix that problem. Notice that in chorus the vox energy is softer than in verse, so it might work if the singer steps towards the mic in chorus. ANd maybe also sidechaning couple of dbs from guitars with vox.
Some de-essing or de-effing (FFFor the FFFellow) to bg-vox would be fine.
But anyhow, excellent work.
Did you replace you very first version with new one? I have a feeling that I heard a bit brighter version from you.
This version is the final pass compared to the other previous non-final passes where final decisions on sweetening wasn't made yet. On vocals, I went with a classic rock verb style with a subtle delay to widen bounce of the vocal performance.
The wide sound of the mix is intended, when played loud, it jams hard, and very happy with that result, and to present a modern "Rockabilly" style of feel.
Here is a good reference of traditional Rockabilly style music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxnlmuudJqs
Over-all, not bad. I do have a few points. I'm hearing something on top of the kick, almost like distortion on the input or the effects on it which I found distracting. Over-all compression I feel is too deep grabbing a lot of the drive from the song. I'm also not a big fan of the larger space you placed the mix in. This felt to me like a very present/in-your-face kind of rockabilly song which should be left more raw to capture its energy. While pretty much every instrument sounds good, the sum of the parts just feels a bit overdone to me.
(17-11-2016, 02:31 PM)Mixinthecloud Wrote: [ -> ]feels a bit overdone to me.
When a song appears in Apple Music these days, it has to go hard or stay home.. Listen to the drive on these refs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxnlmuudJqs - Non-technical listeners won't hear the drive on those references the way we do.. but keeping that in mind, common listeners don't hear the drive in songs like this one as we would also.. so I'd prefer to push it and get something edgy than play technically safe.
[I've attached the mix version I critiqued to this post, as the version at the top of the thread has been updated in light of these comments (and others).]
Well, this is certainly a sound that takes no prisoners! It's almost got a bit of a punk aesthetic going on here, which is an interesting angle to hear -- especially in contrast to more conservative, hi-fi-sounding visions such as Olli H's for instance. Within this context some potential criticisms of finer points of balance or blend become less relevant, because a certain amount of imbalance is inherent to this kind of 'everything fighting with everything else' sound. The most important thing to me is that it sounds exciting, after which most other things are just window-dressing!
I really like the way the Mid-sections open out in stereo, with that wide modulation on the cleaner guitars providing a great contrast to the super-aggressive and focused drums/guitar sound. I also enjoyed the way the gnarly bass tone pulled out all his little melodic fills and slides -- I'd not properly noticed them all until now!
Even taking your mix on its own terms, though, I think you've mid-biased it too much, which makes it a pretty tough listen at louder volumes, or on anything that further emphasises its prominent 1-2kHz region or upper-midrange distortion components. It just comes across as rather hard and brittle at the moment. I reckon you might also be able to push the loudness more cleanly than you have -- at the moment the vocal in the verses seems to be hitting a clipping stage in a way that's sending clipping 'sprinkles' dancing around the stereo picture. I'm not at all squeamish as far as clipping goes, but you tend not to be able to get away with it as well on periodic waveforms as you often can on transient peaks.
Despite my general liking of the bass, it does still seem shy of fundamental (as indeed the raw recording is), and that also tends to highlight the mid-emphasis of the mix as a whole further. Some EQ or LF compression on the bass buss might help here. I also wonder whether the snare drum might be a bit overpowering compared with the lead vocal -- it seems a bit stuck on as a result, makes the guitars feel a bit small, and also makes the verses a big drop-down in terms of energy and rhythmic drive compared with the riff sections that precede and follow them.
Another strong vision, though, which I'm always a fan of -- thanks for posting!
Thanks Mike, I can use those points
Im going to do a recall on this: 1) add tape emus on each channel to color/warm, 2) Switch from NEVE board EMU to SSL 4000 I think will be better for this song, 3) Add a top LA2A on the lead vocal to level more based on comments, 4) Add some body to the bass to address the natural mid focused recording, 5) a smidget of timbre adjustment on the drums, 6) More/heavier Rockabilly delay on vocal, 7) Adjust final level.