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"Who I Am" MIX by Ian Scott Stewart
#1
Hi Mike, Hi Everyone

Mike I sure like this site and your book! I am greatful that you are willing to share you professional insite to our mixes. It's just great!

Lend me your ears on my mix.

Thank you for now.
Later
Ian Scott Stewart


.mp3    WhoIAm(mp3).mp3 --  (Download: 2.77 MB)


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#2
hi ian i think the track is mid havy you can uze some tracks as thay are you can hear mine i didnt do alot on the main voc i likead it as is and did avrything around it .the balance is hurt by that to cos the mid is more "out" so you need to uze it more on what you "want out" in the mix but in context.sory i hope it will halp you,and not offend youSmile
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#3
Hi Uzilevi.

I appreciate your good advice. It is good to help me do better mixes. You do not offend me.

I use KRK Rokit 5 speakers to mix. The room I use to mix in is in my home. 13' X 15' with carpet and furniture. I have only a small amounts of sound proofing.
I tried Mike's idea from his book about plugging the ports on the speaker. I don't think that was a problem.
I will listen to your mix again and compare.
I intentionally turned the vox up and added some delay since it was a country song.

Thanks for the good advice. That Is Good.

Later
Ian Scott Stewart
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#4
Ian,
Great mix. If I had to pick one thing to point out, it seems the backing vocals are a little loud for my taste. I'm based in Nashville, though that by no mens makes me an expert on country. but it's rare to have a the bgv as loud as this one. It could be the bgv also needs a little more space around it whether by the same treatment as the lead vocal, o something more.
Nice job overall. I look forward to hearing more of your mixes.
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#5
hi ian dont you hear the 4k its so hi , and you didnt deess the voc ,so its so bright ,that wants all the other to be bright to ,i didnt do alot to the voc its like it was , with more bass ,thats is vocal i liked it as it is.
look out from the ass .[/align]
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#6
Hi Ian, and welcome to the Discussion Zone! Been out of action a bit over the last couple of weeks, so I'm trying to catch up with some mix feedback now...

Nice warm-sounding bass/kick combination, as well as a pleasantly airy sound on the upper percussion. The subtle sense of ambience you've generated also appeals to my own personal taste -- dry, but with a sense of blend. Focusing on the vocals as you've done is a good idea with a performance as assured (and nicely recorded) as this one. For this reason, I think you probably don't need to push 3.5kHz quite as hard as you have -- it can get a bit fatiguing in general, not least because the vocal tone here has some inherent resonances around that region which pop out rather sharply, especially during the choruses. Check out the first syllable of the word 'volunteer', for instance, to get an idea of what I'm talking about -- and whether, indeed, it matters to your ears! Smile

The downside of pushing the guitar and piano parts so far back in the mix, though, is that it seems as if the mix doesn't really have any body to it -- the vocal feels somehow stranded rather than just large and upfront, which is admittedly a difficult line to tread. I reckon you could turn those instruments up at least 3dB as long as you dipped out a few of the key vocal frequencies to minimise the masking penalties. The low levels of these backing parts (and the fiddles too) also seem to weaken the transition from the verse into the chorus, which relies a good deal on the way they fill out the texture.

Speaking of EQ, I'm not quite sure exactly why I feel this, but my suspicion is that you might be EQ'ing everything a bit too hard, and boosting rather more than you're cutting. It's a hunch, but there's something about the slight edginess of the mix sound overall that makes me wonder about that. In general, working with EQ cuts is better for getting a natural sound, in my experience. It might also be that you're EQ'ing a bit too much in solo, and not enough in context, because it's seems as if the guitar, snare, fiddles, and vocals are all competing for the 2-5kHz zone. This is always a tempting region to boost in solo, because it makes practically anything sound clearer and more forward in the mix, but if you try to enhance everything in that way you'll just end up with a more forward-sounding overal mix tonality, without actually having differentiated and clarified the instruments themselves.
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#7
(02-06-2012, 12:58 AM)Ian Scott Stewart Wrote: Hi Mike, Hi Everyone

Mike I sure like this site and your book! I am greatful that you are willing to share you professional insite to our mixes. It's just great!

Lend me your ears on my mix.

Thank you for now.
Later
Ian Scott Stewart

Beautiful mix of the music! The only problem is that everything sounds a little dry; the whole mix is SCREAMING for reverb. Keep it subtle, of course; you don't want to bury all that wonderful detail you have here. Just give it enough to give the whole thing a little "presence."

You could do that by channeling the whole mix through a send effect. Just apply a subtle, almost subliminal reverb. Good way to know if you've got enough: if you can hear the reverb clearly when you solo a track but not when playing your whole mix then you've probably got a decent balance. Smile

There is only one major problem with this mix: the vocals sound WAY harsh. You need to back WAY off on the EQ here.

The original vocal tracks are of EXCEPTIONAL quality (they were, after all, Telefunken mic demos); they don't NEED such aggressive EQ. You could probably get away with using them with no EQ at all. If you want to give them a little more air and presence you could boost 5-6 dB at 5 kHz and a couple dB at 12 kHz but I wouldn't do any more.

The vocals, though, are the only major miss. Otherwise a solid mix, very enjoyable to listen to. Wink
John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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