05-04-2016, 04:05 AM
(This post was last modified: 05-04-2016, 04:07 AM by kurtkoenig.)
Hi my name is Kurt Koenig, I am an Audio Production student at Middle Tennessee State University and I gotta say: I seriously had a lot of fun mixing this. Great songwriting, great recordings, overall just a great experience.
After giving everything what I believed to be an appropriate position in the stereo image, I started off with the drums, as the first thing I noticed was the kick pounded much too hard over the other instruments. I found that the overhead and drum room tracks were the culprits and applied appropriate compression to their respective tracks and adjust the clip gain on a few hits. I then tried to balance the bass with the drums, as well as remove the hard plucks the bassist was making. I achieved that by giving the bass track a LPF at around 1k, making the pluck still audible but not so harsh that it jolts the listener. I barely had to do anything to the guitar tracks; great tone, great playing, clean, loved them. I added some subtle verb to the guitars for space. The rhodes track was equally awesome. The vibraphone track was great but needed a lot of detail, so I gave it a dramatic bell-curve boost at 4.25k. I then proceeded to the toy piano, which just needed some peak control so I a put on a compressor and applied it subtly. I gave the lead vocal a very quiet delay, and applied some reverb to really bring it out. There are a few "s"s in the recordings that were distorted. I tried to the best of my abilities to tame them, but to a trained audiophile's ear they may still be noticeable. I then balanced the lead vocal and the background vocal so they would mesh well (great harmonies!). Finally, I applied some bus compression to the master track to glue everything together.
I think overall my mix is balanced, well-rounded, and is pleasant to the ear without sounding compressed.
Here is a WAV file of the bounced mix:
https://www.mediafire.com/?10g1hdhf0wahahh
I hope I was able to capture your vision! This was a great learning experience and I sincerely had fun working on your music. I would love to hear your feedback!
After giving everything what I believed to be an appropriate position in the stereo image, I started off with the drums, as the first thing I noticed was the kick pounded much too hard over the other instruments. I found that the overhead and drum room tracks were the culprits and applied appropriate compression to their respective tracks and adjust the clip gain on a few hits. I then tried to balance the bass with the drums, as well as remove the hard plucks the bassist was making. I achieved that by giving the bass track a LPF at around 1k, making the pluck still audible but not so harsh that it jolts the listener. I barely had to do anything to the guitar tracks; great tone, great playing, clean, loved them. I added some subtle verb to the guitars for space. The rhodes track was equally awesome. The vibraphone track was great but needed a lot of detail, so I gave it a dramatic bell-curve boost at 4.25k. I then proceeded to the toy piano, which just needed some peak control so I a put on a compressor and applied it subtly. I gave the lead vocal a very quiet delay, and applied some reverb to really bring it out. There are a few "s"s in the recordings that were distorted. I tried to the best of my abilities to tame them, but to a trained audiophile's ear they may still be noticeable. I then balanced the lead vocal and the background vocal so they would mesh well (great harmonies!). Finally, I applied some bus compression to the master track to glue everything together.
I think overall my mix is balanced, well-rounded, and is pleasant to the ear without sounding compressed.
Here is a WAV file of the bounced mix:
https://www.mediafire.com/?10g1hdhf0wahahh
I hope I was able to capture your vision! This was a great learning experience and I sincerely had fun working on your music. I would love to hear your feedback!