11-06-2015, 02:05 PM
(This post was last modified: 17-11-2015, 12:08 AM by The_Metallurgist.)
-13.9 LUFS
LRA 9.8
TP -0.4
this is as dynamic as i could make it, but please make a mental note of the LRA; it would prove troublesome to anyone listening in a car; i wouldn't ordinarily stretch things this far. but the song changes it's mood and enters a number of transitional stages and i wanted the mix to try and embrace this. so, much of my shaping and crafting was done with this key focus in mind.
i felt the original material was perhaps unnecessarily dense, with a lot of instrumentation fighting it out with each other with the net result leaving me challenged to know what to listen to. so i nailed that and in the space added my own density, putting a lot more emphasis on the vocal, and the delivery of the message within the concept while working the instruments around this. at least that was the idea.
the treble was a difficult aspect to have to deal with, not least because a lot of the instrumentation (dulci and acoustic gtrs) were seeking some attention in this quarter, and the vocal too, of course. again, it was very much a matter of compromise, as any boosts in the mids-plus would tend to come out distorted, brittle as hell and not as pleasant as a cup of coffee with a nice big slice of fruit cake. HELLO FATIGUE!! a difficult balance to address. i wondered how many times the recordings were played back before they had the chance of being captured do hard disk....and then i started to think about how much use the tape had had before recording this...then my armpits got wet!
i made an executive decision to delete the coffee grinder from the intro....it felt to me to be disassociated from the song, so instead added something which would embrace my vision for the intro and blend with the rest of the materials....i wanted something that would engage the listener more fully here - a reason for staying. the acoustic gtr(s) were well down low.....which enhanced the lead and focused the ear when the Dulcimer came in with more authority and helped to set the scene for the rest of the song's emotional journey. the BV's here took a lot of attention and personal energy. the LV was thinned out with some sonic mischief at it's climax to emphasise the line: "...teach my children when it's OK to cry". an awesome line and i didn't want it to pass so nonchalantly.
i've not actually changed much to the original arrangement besides mutes. indeed, i think i moved the Dulci' somewhere because i liked what it could do to the feel of the song....but note that i'd muted the butt out of it by some 50 percent so when it played, we'd be aware of it rather than simply conditioned, which risks us ignoring it. to me, this instrument was one of the most important elements in the song, but it needed controlling more, in my view. i think there's some scope for a slight gain elsewhere in the mix, but when to stop fiddling? the shaker was another instrument; shaking far too long for my personal tastes...and felt much better being brought in at certain intervals to help work the song.
perhaps the word mute is too subtle considering how much i embraced it; "ruthless" might be more applicable. but i was digging for as much emotion as i could achieve here and i felt much of the content was clogging things up instead of contributing? great song, but in the raw, vanilla state it was missing something....perhaps a studio and a production process, or some impartiality on the arrangement to begin with. woteva, i took it where i needed to take it and in doing so engaged in a huuuuuuge amount of technical crafting to do so. it's a massive help though, being able to embrace a song with some great lyrics....subjective opinion indeed, but i loved this song, and loved it's message...and i also have to say, i felt the vocal to be honest and sincere in delivering the concept. a great concept. just as well really, this was on my DAW as work-in-progress for several months, dropping in when time and mood permitted.
this is less of a mix and perhaps more of a Produced version of the song, so it's going to have a lot of my personal signatures in it.....at the expense of the band's ideas, goals and aspirations no doubt. but that's OK, i'm not working to a Brief and it's nice to express one's own creative ideas synergistally with the band's, in the hunt for more emotion than the recordings could originally embrace [due to constraints associated with recording]. and to push my own boundaries.
the mix will potentially offer a lot of opportunity for people to express their wholly subjective opinions. i'm interested only in objective ones here please, it's entirely irrelevant to me that you might dislike the red bits in tooty fruity ice cream, hey. sure, if there are key elements which made a positive emotional impact on you, then i'd welcome hearing this....but please also flag up some objective mixing aspects along with it.
one final point - sibilance. the raw material contains a significant amount of distortion because of it, the tape and it's degradation might have had a role here. i found no way around this, because in trying to manage it, it simply made the vocal a lot worse, so i felt trapped between a rock and a hard place. there is an emotional cost to this, in my opinion, but sometimes our hands are tied.
as always, big thanks to the multi being available and a big thanks for taking a listen.
=========
update 16/11:
the 16bit PCM is no longer here, sorry.
LRA 9.8
TP -0.4
this is as dynamic as i could make it, but please make a mental note of the LRA; it would prove troublesome to anyone listening in a car; i wouldn't ordinarily stretch things this far. but the song changes it's mood and enters a number of transitional stages and i wanted the mix to try and embrace this. so, much of my shaping and crafting was done with this key focus in mind.
i felt the original material was perhaps unnecessarily dense, with a lot of instrumentation fighting it out with each other with the net result leaving me challenged to know what to listen to. so i nailed that and in the space added my own density, putting a lot more emphasis on the vocal, and the delivery of the message within the concept while working the instruments around this. at least that was the idea.
the treble was a difficult aspect to have to deal with, not least because a lot of the instrumentation (dulci and acoustic gtrs) were seeking some attention in this quarter, and the vocal too, of course. again, it was very much a matter of compromise, as any boosts in the mids-plus would tend to come out distorted, brittle as hell and not as pleasant as a cup of coffee with a nice big slice of fruit cake. HELLO FATIGUE!! a difficult balance to address. i wondered how many times the recordings were played back before they had the chance of being captured do hard disk....and then i started to think about how much use the tape had had before recording this...then my armpits got wet!
i made an executive decision to delete the coffee grinder from the intro....it felt to me to be disassociated from the song, so instead added something which would embrace my vision for the intro and blend with the rest of the materials....i wanted something that would engage the listener more fully here - a reason for staying. the acoustic gtr(s) were well down low.....which enhanced the lead and focused the ear when the Dulcimer came in with more authority and helped to set the scene for the rest of the song's emotional journey. the BV's here took a lot of attention and personal energy. the LV was thinned out with some sonic mischief at it's climax to emphasise the line: "...teach my children when it's OK to cry". an awesome line and i didn't want it to pass so nonchalantly.
i've not actually changed much to the original arrangement besides mutes. indeed, i think i moved the Dulci' somewhere because i liked what it could do to the feel of the song....but note that i'd muted the butt out of it by some 50 percent so when it played, we'd be aware of it rather than simply conditioned, which risks us ignoring it. to me, this instrument was one of the most important elements in the song, but it needed controlling more, in my view. i think there's some scope for a slight gain elsewhere in the mix, but when to stop fiddling? the shaker was another instrument; shaking far too long for my personal tastes...and felt much better being brought in at certain intervals to help work the song.
perhaps the word mute is too subtle considering how much i embraced it; "ruthless" might be more applicable. but i was digging for as much emotion as i could achieve here and i felt much of the content was clogging things up instead of contributing? great song, but in the raw, vanilla state it was missing something....perhaps a studio and a production process, or some impartiality on the arrangement to begin with. woteva, i took it where i needed to take it and in doing so engaged in a huuuuuuge amount of technical crafting to do so. it's a massive help though, being able to embrace a song with some great lyrics....subjective opinion indeed, but i loved this song, and loved it's message...and i also have to say, i felt the vocal to be honest and sincere in delivering the concept. a great concept. just as well really, this was on my DAW as work-in-progress for several months, dropping in when time and mood permitted.
this is less of a mix and perhaps more of a Produced version of the song, so it's going to have a lot of my personal signatures in it.....at the expense of the band's ideas, goals and aspirations no doubt. but that's OK, i'm not working to a Brief and it's nice to express one's own creative ideas synergistally with the band's, in the hunt for more emotion than the recordings could originally embrace [due to constraints associated with recording]. and to push my own boundaries.
the mix will potentially offer a lot of opportunity for people to express their wholly subjective opinions. i'm interested only in objective ones here please, it's entirely irrelevant to me that you might dislike the red bits in tooty fruity ice cream, hey. sure, if there are key elements which made a positive emotional impact on you, then i'd welcome hearing this....but please also flag up some objective mixing aspects along with it.
one final point - sibilance. the raw material contains a significant amount of distortion because of it, the tape and it's degradation might have had a role here. i found no way around this, because in trying to manage it, it simply made the vocal a lot worse, so i felt trapped between a rock and a hard place. there is an emotional cost to this, in my opinion, but sometimes our hands are tied.
as always, big thanks to the multi being available and a big thanks for taking a listen.
=========
update 16/11:
the 16bit PCM is no longer here, sorry.
Beware...........Cognitive Dissonance!