05-03-2015, 04:48 AM (This post was last modified: 05-03-2015, 04:56 AM by HbGuitar.)
(05-03-2015, 04:19 AM)ptalbot Wrote: All I can say is that it sounds loud and in your face in an overbearing way, which is why I believed it was compression.
hey Pat....its all good
Its not always easy to match a gut reaction feeling with a technically correct solution when listening to others peoples mixes as most times we can only really guess how someone else has put their mix together.
I rarely give specific technical solution based feedback for that reason - there are a few guys out there who really know their chops technically and can pick a mix apart e.g. Dave aka The metallurgist ....but I'm not one of them.
That said......I'm not defending my mixes (ver1 & 2). I'm in absolute agreement with you.....the drums are way out of balance....the snare has too much smack in the close mic. and the OH/Rooms are way too loud in the overall drum mix hence the overbearing cymbals etc etc....shocking really!
Sure enough, I'm not technical myself (that's an understatement! ), so most of my comments are usually gut feeling reactions to what I'm hearing. Of course knowing the tunes well does help!
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa
That's much better! The drums now have a cool punch without overpowering everything else.
One last nitpick, you decide if you want to tweak that or not: the horns are slightly too wet for me, they could be made more present with less reverb, or dialing the pre-delay or something. I find them a little bit too remote right now. It should be easy to fix.
Apart from that, I like this one. It breathes!
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa
Phew! Like all engineers i guess, I never knowingly put up a "bad" mix....but sometimes its easy to get carried away in a session and start getting a little ear drunk......I was after this huge sound in my head.....and my ears were saying "yeah man, that's happening!". But as fun as that is it's always much more satisfying to have the artist come back and say - "yeah -I like that".
The feedback you give is awesome and you've probably made the day of dozens if not more engineers by helping them achieve a mix that you both love. I'm so glad Mike gave you a mention in the last monthly email - you are an outstanding member of this forum and we're lucky to have you.
Now, where was I - oh yeah...horns......I'll have a look at those....now that the drums have calmed down the horns are more obvious so i agree they should be more present....
New version, mix_04. Adjust reverb on Horns. Slight reduction in reverb has removed the subtle tail that was there previously, making the horns punchier and more present. I have kept a smidge of reverb just so they sit in the room naturally (to my ears).