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

[The_Metallurgist]

It's hard to objectively evaluate something so very different from what I've heard about 6 million times while mixing this myself. That might stop better men from chipping in. I'm not one of those men, though!

sorry for the late here,

i know what you mean. i don't normally listen to other's mixes before i have a go at a project, at least not intentionally. and it can be quite difficult being objective with other's once i have. i'm not sure how i am personally influenced by another's approach and i guess it would vary from mix to mix, depending on which bits particularly resonated with me, consciously or subconsciously. that's a debate for the psychologists...i expect it's been done already.

but being familiar does bring with it some issues. i'd highlight by way of example your note about the clappy snare which i've discussed below. if we have a perception or an image, sometimes it can be difficult seeing a different picture. there's some interesting graphical conundrums out there that illustrate this quite well....like the Rubin's Vase? is it a vase, or is it 2 people facing each other? it's all fascinating stuff......

whatever, i'm really glad you came aboard and gave this one an airing with your critical ears.

So I have to say, from beginning to end I found your vision bold and courageous. There are a lot of risky tactics at play in this remix, and they pay off... the first time? I think my point here might be related to what jeremias666 mentioned, in that the beat drops a little too often, but I'll take that a step further. A beat drop is of course a brilliant tactic, and you've used it well here... when the chorus kicks in, it really KICKS the hell in! And I love that. However, I think you've overdone it a bit- the first time it made me smile from ear to ear, but I found each subsequent drop to be a little exhausting. There is a similar experience with the various effects and subtle details that are always so profoundly present in your mixes: they're very effective at creating musical tension and pulling the song in a forward direction, and I respect the hell out of that because it's a weak point for me. In this case, though, it's a bit uncomfortable at times, because the tension builds very quickly, is released all at once (in the explosive choruses) and then almost as soon as it's let me go, it assaults my senses yet again!

putting aside the music and instead focusing on the emotional element of the song, would you still feel the same way? listening without engaging in the lyric has me forming the same conclusions, but when i focus on the vocal and the story line, i don't have the same feeling.

i thought the original arrangement was almost complacent in it's delivery. to me it lacked key transitional elements and failed to drive the emotion present in the song. i got the feeling the music was there to fill a space rather than to support the lyric and the song's concept. i think Fab got up to some serious mischief and had a lot of fun laying out the traps for the competition.....like all those darn stereo tracks...even if it was mono-stereo! this is what a novice musician would do who's not familiar with mixing...or tracking properly in a DAW for that matter. was this perhaps a clue to how much work needed doing?

while removing the drums from the verses, the song still retains it's 120BPM tempo (though it might not feel like it, eh?), but instead of the drums driving the rhythm, i asked the guitars to provide it instead. it gave a different feel during the crucial transitional elements for me so i exploited it willingly. yes, the chorus does kick eh? to me, THE major ingredient of the song was missing; with all that wood i couldn't really see the trees? there was nothing that took me on a journey of varied landscape, just a flat land of openness. if a song doesn't have transition....with elements that build, sustain, deliver expectation, and lower again for momentary relief to get one's emotional breath back before the next anticipated/expected cycle, then it's not a song i can engage in. most people are wired this way too, and so i set about trying to maximise it. normally in a well thought through arrangement that's had the luxury of going through a Producer, we wouldn't normally have to think about such things, but i strongly suspect Fab was forcing that job upon us. it's not the ideal time of course, normally all this occurs in the embryonic stage, and certainly NOT at mixing....but in these times where many musicians are doing their utmost to cut out cost and minimise financial exposure, more and more mixing engineers are, or should be, taking an active role in helping determine what is [and what isn't] too much content, relevant, irrelevant.....but it's still too late, in my opinion. but that's another discussion......

Obviously my feelings here are related to how I experience music, because I think a lot of people, especially nowadays, really respond to sensory bombardment of this kind. And again, I've heard my much smoother rendition many, many times and I still don't have much distance from it... but it as always you've developed a very ambitious vision and executed it with competence. Your editing skills are quite apparent as always, and the overall sonic signature very much bares your personal stamp... which of course is a compliment in my book.

yes, i liked the smoothness in your approach and i think you did a very admirable job in containing a lot of what i'd call "sonic distractions" which were present. however, the potential danger lurking with such a strategy is that in trying to keep everything "in and present", there's a risk that the clutter/busyness can obscure the key emotional drivers by clouding the mix. technically the song is "mixed", but does it give an audience something to remember it by and have them coming back for more? this was the problem i felt when i first hit the play button in the project to see what i had to work with......i had one of those "Yeah, and....?" moments. sure, the song had something going for it, but it didn't get my emotions going - no EQ, compression or panning was going to fix that. my challenge, and i have to say it didn't come easily, was to get a bit lateral in my approach to the sections of the mix, and seek out those instruments which gave me the sort of stuff that would deliver my needs [as a member of the audience] and support this all-important lyric. without those emotional transitional phases present in this song, it goes nowhere for me. we expect to be taken on an emotional roller-coaster (though it doesn't always need to be a roller-coaster in the drama sense, but it at least must be a journey worth experiencing); an intro that engages us, then transports us through key stages of build, tension, delivery, release....or that sort of thing. the original didn't do this for me at all. not one bit.

we are working under constraints here too...like the length of verse vs chorus, and in a set pre-planned arrangement we can only do so much in the spaces....unless we start doing a real remix the Oakenfold way, in the fullest definition of the word. but like i said, decent Production Management would address and resolve these issues too. i completely understand where you are coming from though....there's some great observations you are making here, deep attention and it's valid.

A couple little oddities I wanted to flag up: The shifted vocal in the intro is a cool idea, but it sounds like it's been rendered out of context because the rhythm lines up with the piano in an uncomfortable way... probably because the original was recorded with the drums beneath. A little bit of nudging a few of the syllables around so that things line up a bit more comfortably would improve the already interesting effect.

i laughed my head off when i read that bit! i actually started messing around with it.....it doesn't help when your ears are brought up on a decade's worth of MIDI I knew it wasn't sitting quite right, however, the disparity between the vocal and instrumentation wasn't too far out to be a real problem for me. in fact, i actually found the contrast engaged me even more........ despite fiddling around with it, no matter what i did i could only make it sound worse. so, i hit the back button and pulled my partner in for her objective assessment. i didn't tell her the problem(?), but simply played the song through (we're talking the final stages of the mixing process, by now). then i said...."What do you think about this bit, i've brought the vocal across and dropped it in?". looping it a few times, she didn't even raise an eyebrow. but she did have me go back into the mix and challenged some timing on the piano....which i also had noted but on reflection was OK about - i don't think it was wrong per se, but it did sound unusual? i fixed those bits for her, made her happy. but still this darn intro was irking me somewhat! she's a professionally trained vocalist, has played congas for a few years, had a go at the Cello and was a Flamenco dancer for quite a while (a student of an acclaimed dancer, no less). let's put it this way, she knows about beat/rhythm and timing. nevertheless, i still disagreed with her....but i decided to leave it. and then you flag it up? FANTASTIC MATE! you made my day.....i thought i was going mad or something....like hallucinating? the piano has a weird timing and the vocal just won't sit with it, no matter how much it's pushed around (have a go for yourselves, chaps, and see if you can crack it). but i think the song needed it desperately.....so i made a concession. in the world of jazz for example, the vocalist can often be heard playing with timing and it has a subtle effect because it draws attention. an intro is a great place to do it.

another way of looking at it? perhaps it's not so much singing...but more of the "spoken word"...the preamble to the song....setting the scene.

i think looking back now even if i could place the timing, i'd still prefer how it is in it's original form. the contrast appeals to me even though my MIDI ears are logically arguing with the intuitive/creative side in me.

Also, there's a strange interplay going on between the snare that's playing the rolls in the loop and the clappy sounding snare that's presented separately... I'm not 100% sure what it is that's happening to be honest, but "it doesn't sound right" whatever that means. To my ears it sounds like the clappy snare is far more aggressively EQ'd and in an entirely different manner. Perhaps that was intentional to create a distinction between the two, which is cool, but a little additional finesse would help, because right now it sounds like the two sounds are originating in different rooms.

ah, i think you might be struggling with your own conceptual understanding/familiarity presented by the raw materials which could be biasing your view here unintentionally i.e. that "Vase, or two faces?" thing. the clappy snare was turned into a clap as best i could without resorting to a sample (i didn't want to go there...trying to stick to the brief of the competition). the problem i had was that as soon as i touched the treble region to make the clap appear more present, the clap got lost and the snare came back. my solution to that problem, was to keep the high-cut filter in place and take a hit on the tone, but to make it blend in the depth perspective with the appropriate psychoacoustic signals i had to push it back in the mix more than i would have liked.

the snare, or rather the Snare Drummer Boy as i called it, i took in my vision to be a real snare drummer boy. being such gave him mobility in the mix, so i could pan him off to the opposite side to the claps and while doing so, detach him from the drum kit without the mix sounding daft. this helped me to retain spectral balance in the stereo field and keep a symmetrical mix, especially for ear bud and headphone consumers. if you listen in the final chorus, you can just make him out panned somewhere right while the main drum kit is doing it's thang.

on explanation, does it make sense?

Bold, courageous, and very brutally effective, Dave. I will now with much difficulty resist the temptation to open this one up again and wear out the mute buttons

Pauli, your critical listening skills are very obvious here and i complement you on your ability to really drill into the detail with absolute fanaticism. but then to type it as well deserves a medal. there's some fascinating principles you've touched upon....it would be interesting to hear if the wider audience has views or opinions they'd like to share on these points, in addition to the greatly appreciated feedback thus far contributed.

thanks again for your valuable time, and thanks for the complements...this mix consumed a lot of coffee!

catch ya laters..
D