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Diesel 13 - Colour Me Red - 1st Mix
#1
Hello,

Here's my mix for review/feedback (and my first mix posted to the Discussion Zone). Great song, it was a pleasure to mix. Looking forward to hearing everyone's mixes in the competition.

Mix 1: First post.
Mix 2: Remixed with some of the suggestions from members here.
Mix 3: Most recent. Remixed again with more really good suggestions from more members. Thanks! Adjusted BGV's a bit. Made acoustics a tad thicker, they had some fairly heavy cuts in the low/mids before. Added some mix bus processing and a touch of limiting to bring it up a few db's. Tweaked some FX.
Final Mix: see my reply to Mike's comments for specifics if you're interested. Thanks for all the comments and help, any more are always welcome.


Dave


.mp3    Colour Me Red - Diesel 13 - Mix 2.mp3 --  (Download: 7.61 MB)


.mp3    Colour Me Red - Diesel 13 - Mix 1.mp3 --  (Download: 7.93 MB)


.mp3    Colour Me Red - Diesel 13 - Mix 3.mp3 --  (Download: 7.61 MB)


.mp3    Colour Me Red - Diesel 13 - Mix Final.mp3 --  (Download: 7.66 MB)


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#2
Pretty strong mix Dave!

Only minor points:
The chorus guitars are a bit too loud when you compare them to the vocals. The latter could be brought up a bit, especially in the chorus.
Choir vocals feel a bit too upfront.
Tonally the lead vocal feels a bit midrangy, maybe cut a little bit around 500 to 600 Hz, that could open it up more?
The same applies to the chorus guitar on the left i think.
Since i noticed your mix is quite low in volume i guess you didn´t do a lot of "mastering" or mix bus processing. So a lot of the points above could be addressed in a final mastering step i guess. Here the low end of the mix could also be empasized a tiny bit more in my opinion.

But as always all of these thoughts are highly subjective, hope you can utilize some of them...
Cheers,
Herb



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#3
I agree with Herb. I don't notice the midrange on the vocals but it could sound different on my earbuds.
It really could use a fair bit of low end "body" in the kick and bass.

But it's not far off though.

(I forgot there was a competition. I liked my last mix. Oh well, I'm not able to be a "patreon" anyway.)
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#4
Hi Herb & Roy,

Thanks for the feedback. Damn! Good ears, I had a boost at about 700hz on the vocals and around 800 on the chorus left guitar thinking it might make them stand out without being too bright but it may have just muddied the waters. I took them off, I think it helped. Put a little more verb on the BGV, they were pretty dry and upfront.

I added an EQ on the master bus and gave it a little bump at 100hz, boosted the kick at 60 and the bass at 100. Upped the kick volume a tiny bit. I'm still a bit unsure on the low end and how much is enough.

I didn't do anything on the master bus other than a bit of eq, a couple db's of compression, and a tape sim. i'm fairly new to mixing and not used to how loud people crank their mixes. I thought my mix was fairly loud considering I did no limiting on the master bus, but maybe its because I just cranked my volume knob. Always cranking my knob. Huh huh.

Thanks again, very helpful. I'll check out your mixes soon.


.mp3    Colour Me Red - Diesel 13 - Mix 2.mp3 --  (Download: 7.61 MB)


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#5
Glad that helped, i think you went in the right direction with the new version.

For me also to get the low end of a mix right is one of the most difficult things in mixing. Here the listening situation you´re in is really crucial. If that´s not ideal it´s very important to reference against commercial mixes of a similar genre, and if possible also in different listening environments. At least for me this helped like nothing else to improve my mixes and i know that Mike is also a big advocate of referencing.

Concerning the master bus I put a limiter as the last plugin by default. Put the ceiling to -1 dB here to be on the save side and make sure that the limiter only works on the loudest parts of the song. Just watch the gain reduction meter and adjust the level going into the limiter so that the gain reduction isn´t much more than 1dB or so.
Easy to do and ensures there´s no clipping and at least your peak level is in the ballpark of other mastered mixes.
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#6
Levels on the second mix are fine. Good punch and presence at low levels. Gets loud very nicely
Very clean and transparent without losing punch. I'd like to hear the effect on the tremelo guitar clarified because it is really cool.

Note: Listen first, watch later!

Excellent job.
PreSonus Studio One DAW
[email protected]
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#7
Hello there Armed,

MIX 2 Review
* Acoustic Guitar 2 sounds a bit too “tinny” to me. Perhaps aim for bright instead.
* Background Vocals feel ‘heavy’ to my ears.
* Mid Section Electric Guitar 2 & 3: The left right call and response has a nice dreamy quality to it. Though perhaps a little too much for my taste… considering reducing.

-Michael


PS... Big improvement from Mix 1 to Mix 2. Smile
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#8
(18-11-2016, 09:35 PM)Mixinthecloud Wrote: Levels on the second mix are fine. Good punch and presence at low levels. Gets loud very nicely
Very clean and transparent without losing punch. I'd like to hear the effect on the tremelo guitar clarified because it is really cool.

Note: Listen first, watch later!

Excellent job.

Thanks. Yeah, I thought the same thing about the tremolo guitar, it was really cool sounding in solo but I couldn't figure out how to get that to stand out without it being too loud. Had to move on to other parts of the mix, I might try and go back to it if I have time. Any tips would be cool.
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#9
(19-11-2016, 01:03 AM)majew7 Wrote: Hello there Armed,

MIX 2 Review
* Acoustic Guitar 2 sounds a bit too “tinny” to me. Perhaps aim for bright instead.
* Background Vocals feel ‘heavy’ to my ears.
* Mid Section Electric Guitar 2 & 3: The left right call and response has a nice dreamy quality to it. Though perhaps a little too much for my taste… considering reducing.

-Michael


PS... Big improvement from Mix 1 to Mix 2. Smile

Thanks Michael. Good tips, I'll try messing with some of those when I get a chance. Yeah, the "dreamy" quality is probably my taste for trippy Floyd like stuff coming out. May not suit this genre too well though, haha.
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#10
I like your mix.

Everything is well balanced and the structure sounds good.
We can all argue about eq because ultimately its subjective for everyone. For me specifically I would have like the acoustic guitars to have more body. They are rather thin sounding but like I said. So many ways this mix can be done.
Good job.
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