Howlin - The Metallurgist's alternative perspective....

[The_Metallurgist]

A true remix this.....one that takes listeners who are familiar with an original and takes them on a whole different experience..where one never knows what's around the next corner...but still brings us back effortlessly to the main hook.

thanks for your time, HB. yeah, the vision came from the overdose of material in the original multi....i felt Fab Dupont was overdoing it really. every track was done in stereo, even if it was mono which caused a lot of work that didn't please me!

while it sounds like a remix, it isn't, but i wouldn't blame anyone for thinking otherwise. everything here is as per the original, except where i've muted out parts which were running when they made no musical sense, or totally deleted because they didn't contribute anything to the general concept of the song in my view.

Great vision here...and execution to match. Editing is seamless to my ears....and attention to detail is excellent....each chorus having their own drum arrangement being proof of that...the hand claps that drop out at 1.04 and 1.12 left me high and dry on first listening .... yet sucked me in on subsequent listens

i drilled into this mix with a lot of consideration. i actually kept going back to that clap part and running them, then with a partial mute. my intuition put the mute in, but my logic said take it out. i went with my intuition in the end. i'm glad you flagged that up as an observation because it was a decision i spent too much time contemplating!

In terms of observations...i listened to this both at the level presented and at a reduction of 4db - which yields +3db on the K14 meter - a level i mix to and normalize mixes that i listen to.

i'm not sure what this means. the greatest variable to making a critical analysis is the level this stuff comes out the speakers. given our ears are non-linear, any changes in volume at the monitors will majorly affect our perception of a mix especially regarding the bass and treble detail. if the monitoring system isn't calibrated (c-weighted pink noise at 86dBSPL), your criteria becomes academically meaningless within the scheme of things....but a bit closer compared to not doing it.

for those who use only headphones while mixing/critical listening, they are denied this crucial part of the mixing process. similarly, those who's speakers begin to distort before they ever reach the calibration level, are likewise out of the game.

one of the issues my mix will have, especially if it's compared to other Howlin examples, is the extreme dynamics which a process of "loudness normalizing" would struggle with [and monitoring at 86dBSPL calibration regime]. when the chorus kicks in, there's a pretty heavy degree of compression, far heavier than i'd normally engage in but i wanted the transition to bang. the effect on the meters would appear as increased current loudness, but with a somewhat limited impact on integrated loudness. it all makes direct comparisons rather challenging to say the least.

loudness matching is an important factor because of the huge effect it has on our perceptions, i'd certainly agree. when we are using reference tracks and trying to get a realistic handle on what we are listening to by endeavoring to make things equal and therefore directly comparable is an essential task, otherwise we are comparing apples with oranges, but unfortunately it's still something of a challenge. however, i must say that i complement your work regime in working to k14.

The only thing that I really observed between the two levels was that at the lower level, the lead vox in the 2nd half of the 1st chorus and all of the 2nd chorus occasionally seemed slightly buried underneath the snare and synth respectively.

over my gear, it's not a problem however i can see how it might be a close call depending on the monitoring arrangements and listening levels. but i'd certainly agree the center vox is a subject for discussion! my mixing practice is actually to monitor at about 70-75dBSPL calibrated, and in the DAW run at k14 before mastering (during mastering i normally aim for somewhere around -14LUFS integrated, depending on genre of course and what my ears like). yes, you'd be right to bring to my attention that 70dBSPL is far away from recommended practice if i'm concerned about this non-linearity-Robinson-Dadson stuff, but sometimes the mix gets cranked for around 20 seconds, and other times i drop it right off until i can only hear the mids...for 20 seconds. my ears are too sensitive to endure mixing for long durations at anything higher than 75dBSPL.....especially if the supplied material has some poorly recorded and/or high treble, ear burning stuff going on....until i've been able to get to it with the filters! know wot i mean?

but going back to the vocal point you raised....
the center vocal has a dubious quality about it's level. normal custom and practice is to have the lead down the middle dominating over the backing vox which we are all aware of, of course. however, it's also custom and practice to have any double-tracked lead vocals panned somewhere in stereo (just off center, normally)....the definition of what constitutes lead and backing in this song could be arguable on occasion....at least i was arguing with myself sometimes! i liked the stereo in the panned vocal so dropped the center off, not only for space reasons but aesthetics also. i'm still actually arguing with myself over that decision. i think there's some scope to automate their balances more and with additional time and energy i might have got to do it - i blew the budget on this one by miles....greatly underestimated the demands of my vision here!!! this mix actually exhausted me....just sorting out what was stereo and what was mono hidden in the stereo tracking nearly nailed me! thank goodness for coffee, eh?

but i sincerely thank you for this observation, even though it didn't quite validate my original decision! perhaps that's one of the risks of creativity and breaking away a bit from tradition...all good fun, eh?

Could you dance to this mix?...probably not....is that important?....absolutely not....i would say this is a mix for listening to rather than dancing to....and there's nothing wrong with that imo. I think of this as a chill-out mix...something that reminds us of a previous experience yet allows us to experience the moment differently...and that's what i love about music.

this is an observation that took me a little by surprise. i don't think i could chill out during the chorus sections, especially the final crescendo where everything was banging, but i'd certainly feel more relaxed from the laid-back delivery of the verses (even though the tempo didn't change here)....bring the audience up, fulfill their expectations.....then bring them back down so they can get their breath back ready for the next emotional onslaught! my goal was to have some transition here and importantly for me, to have the music drive the emotion and crucially the lyric. the original tracking lacked direction to me, not helped by the insane amount of tracking and the odd, even contradictory instrumentation which i thought didn't fit in with the concept. the synth during the intro for example, really got on my nerves! the original stuff also had an insane amount of percussive elements, complete overdose, which got in the way a lot; so much of that got deleted or muted and brought in as and when i felt appropriate. thanks for your observations/comments on the way i approached the drums too.

the drums dropping out during the verse was good news to my ears. if there was a major weakness in this arrangement it was the percussion section. it didn't help drive the emotion but kind of sauntered along almost detached from the emotional intention of song itself - the lack of accents refers. i liked the gentle rhythm in the acoustic guitars during the verse sections, it helped keep the groove present, but not dominating. the dominating bit came in during the choruses, a signal to switch up the emotion within the lyric. to me, if a song just rambles along without any apparent transitional elements between the sections, then it isn't a song. the music should be there to support the lyric, though often is the case in dance-based genres that the lyrics are totally and utterly meaningless. clearly, the lyrics here had meaning and there was a story-line that delivered the concept. all i wanted to do was to have the music support this. if i was aiming for a dance genre, i'd crank the tempo up. 120BPM isn't a dance tempo in my books.... but my partner had no problems swinging and dancing to it....but she's a dancer, or was in a previous life (Flamenco, but don't let that fool you.....she's a bit of a grunge lover, on the quiet!).

it's a classic situation in DIY or home-project music, that far too much content is recorded, simply because it can be. in the absence of any Production Manager who'd help ensure that what got done was focused and totally relevant, it was down to us to fulfill that role? of course, having to do so AFTER tracking makes the task a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. i think those in the forum who just went in with sleeves rolled up and mixed what was there, failed to understand the simple challenges that come from this sort of project. Fab knows this, and i think it was all part of the plot in the competition - i didn't enter it, by the way!

thanks for sharing your vision and having the courage to do so...it has certainly opened my eyes (ears) to other possibilities. Top job

it is i who should thank you for your very focused, attentive and thought provoking feedback. it's stuff of this sort of quality that is invaluable in the forum; i just wish that it wasn't in the forum's minority. i found your balance between the subjective and objective to be especially helpful here because of the nature of my vision and it's departure from a more traditional approach many have taken with this song. while i fully understand that one man's heaven is another's hell and that taste is a personal and subjective thing, getting feedback is still important to me in this regard because i need to know if the elements i've paid specific attention to, have been interpreted in the way i intended or wished. the more opinions are shared, the better i can get a handle on it.

thanks again
catch you later's...
Dave