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About This Multitrack
#1
You can find the multitrack files for this project in the 'Mixing Secrets' Free Multitrack Download Library.

Before posting a mix, please read The Three Commandments!
Please post your mix as a new thread, rather than as a reply to this sticky.

Here's some more project info you might find useful:
  • About The Raw Multitracks:
    • Drum tracks comprise stereo overheads and close-mics for kick, snare (over, under), hi-hat, and two toms. The undersnare mic has been gated during the recording. In addition, there's a double-tracked shaker part for the choruses.
    • There's a single track of bass guitar and ten tracks of electric guitar.
    • MIDI-triggered tracks include two simulated electric guitars, two piano parts (the second added by me during the Mix Rescue process), a modulated string pad, and an organ part.
    • Two lead-vocal tracks are accompanied by a lead double-track and six backing vocals.
  • Challenges You're Likely To Face:
    • The kick-drum close-mic signal has some nasty glitching on it, the snare mic has a lot of cymbal and hi-hat spill, and the tom mics both catch quite a lot of sympathetic resonance.
    • The overhead mics are heavy on the cymbals, which means that you'll have to rely on the close-mic signals (or additional samples) for the majority of the snare sound -- which can make it difficult to achieve a natural sound.
    • Hi-hat spill is pretty strong on the overheads and snare mic.
    • The bass doesn't really have enough midrange energy to allow its melodic contributions to be heard well against the guitars and drums, especially on small speaker systems.
    • The lead vocal has a lot of competition from the drums and guitars in this arrangement, so there'll be some work to do bringing that through clearly enough in the mix without everything ending up harsh-sounding.
    • The lead vocal has a hint of recorded room ambience which reduces your options for bringing it upfront in the balance. Some of the enunciation isn't particularly clear either, and will need assistance from your mix automation to maximise the intelligibility of the lyrics.
    • There are a few harmonic clashes between some of the raw tracks that undermine the song's harmony.
    • There's more material in this multitrack than you actually require for the final mix, so you'll need to take some active decisions about what to keep and what to discard.
  • Some Mixing Tips:
    • The kick and snare will both benefit from the use of sample-triggering. With the former you could just trigger a clean instance of the drum to repair the glitching without changing the sound if you like, but with the snare you're more likely to want to enhance the supplied snare close-mic sound with something a bit more natural-sounding.
    • There's only one tom hit in this whole arrangement, which means that you might as well use the two tom close mics as a supplementary pair of overheads for the rest of the time -- a bit of high-pass filtering should get rid of the worst of the sympathetic resonance in this case, but do remember to check for the best phase/polarity combination once you've set that up. Then mult that one tom hit to a separate track for its own dedicated panning/processing.
    • Careful of stray subsonics on some of the electric-guitar parts!
    • Remember that you don't have to accept the recorded stereo width of a sound-module track, because you can always use M&S processing to adjust it.
    • This is one of those instances where detailed vocal automation should be considered par for the course.
    • It's very easy to end up with your choruses sounding like a let-down when they arrive, so it's worthwhile mixing the choruses first so that you don't push the verses and prechoruses too far.
    • I remixed this song for Sound On Sound's July 2011 'Mix Rescue' column, which not only shows how I approached this artist's recordings myself in practice, but also includes a selection of audio files demonstrating the effects of some of my processing and layering decisions.

If you have any other general questions about this multitrack, just reply to this post and I'll see what I can do.
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#2
Hi Mike,

Me again, though on a totally different topic. When I clicked on "Support her by clicking here" for Signe Jakobsen's song "What Have You Done to Me?", it goes to a site for a 15 year old American singer (named Signe, but not Jakobsen). I'll go looking for the right Signe after dinner (need to meet a musician friend at a local restaurant).

Cheers!

Dennis Sound-Guy
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#3
Hi Mike,

I found Signe's new web site (she actually told me about it last night): www.signemusic.eu. The old site was not maintained and the younger singer named Signe happened to set up a site with the same name as Signe Jakobsen's old site. As you likely know, she references your Mix Rescue, this Cambridge Music Tech site, and plugs you book (which is a most excellent handbook as I've mentioned before).

Hope you're having a fine summer.

Dennis - Sound-Guy
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#4
Hi Dennis,

Thanks for flagging this up for me -- I do like to keep all the links as up to date as I can on the site in general, especially those linking back to generous multitrack donors such as Signe. I've just updated the listings page with her new website address.

Mike S.
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