Well...I have spent good 6 hours in this song if not more. (with breaks of course)
Let me start by saying.. My respect to all of you who have managed to get a good sound out of this song. I didn't think it was going to be this hard. If you are interested in my comments about it keep reading, if not skip to the mix.
It seems, or at least I believe this session's instruments were recorded in separate days. I'm not sure if the stems provided were given out like this on purpose? but there were various downside to the recordings on this song.
Drums: Kick sounds like it was recorded with a condenser mic, an omni to be more exact. The bleed from the cymbals and snare is unbelievable. Also it sounds like drums were recorded in a very enclosed space with solid walls.. or at least the kick had a solid wall in front of it creating an echo/delay that the mic picked up. Not good.
Kick also had a resonating freq. at 80hz. Could be the room acoustics it was recorded in. made the kit sound decent enough, though that snare was a bit lifeless for my taste.
After an hour of trying to make it sound good enough overall.. I gave up and replaced everything with samples. I just wasn't happy with the way it was going. For those of you who made the mix with original drum tracks.. wow I'm impressed. As a mixing engineer you have to make decisions and for this particular song, replacing the drums was an obvious one.
Guitars: Like I said it sounds like it was recorded through out a long period of time. The eq on the guitars changes drastically. I had to ear match the eq. Could also be the mic placement wasn't the exact same. I also feel like some guitars were added at the very end of the recording. Oh well.. it was fun eq'matching the guitars
Vocals: Boy did I had so much trouble here. Recording engineers.. please... keep your selves from compressing the voice during the recording. That, or the singer was moving too much away from the mic while recording. Either or, the vocal was a real challenge. It makes the mixer job a terrible trip. I had to use massive compression and ultimately automation to even the vocals out. So the very few dynamics the vocals had were compressed in my session. :/
Bass: This is the best recorded track in the whole session. I had no trouble making the bass seat well in the mix. (or perhaps you guys have a different view of it) But I'm quite please with the bass. Is doing what is supposed to be doing.. filling the hole here and there as the guitars are the song driver here.
I want to THANK THE BAND for releasing these tracks. Great song and definitely a "real world recording challenge" here. Sessions like these are the ones you encounter everyday in the business. Lucky for me I love this
I hope my decisions are good enough to say this is a good mix.
It took me long but I'm happy with the results as of right now. I'll hear it again once
my ears have gotten some rest.
Thoughts?
Attached is the Mix only mp3 file just in case you want some mastering practice.
Let me start by saying.. My respect to all of you who have managed to get a good sound out of this song. I didn't think it was going to be this hard. If you are interested in my comments about it keep reading, if not skip to the mix.
It seems, or at least I believe this session's instruments were recorded in separate days. I'm not sure if the stems provided were given out like this on purpose? but there were various downside to the recordings on this song.
Drums: Kick sounds like it was recorded with a condenser mic, an omni to be more exact. The bleed from the cymbals and snare is unbelievable. Also it sounds like drums were recorded in a very enclosed space with solid walls.. or at least the kick had a solid wall in front of it creating an echo/delay that the mic picked up. Not good.
Kick also had a resonating freq. at 80hz. Could be the room acoustics it was recorded in. made the kit sound decent enough, though that snare was a bit lifeless for my taste.
After an hour of trying to make it sound good enough overall.. I gave up and replaced everything with samples. I just wasn't happy with the way it was going. For those of you who made the mix with original drum tracks.. wow I'm impressed.
As a mixing engineer you have to make decisions and for this particular song, replacing the drums was an obvious one.Guitars: Like I said it sounds like it was recorded through out a long period of time. The eq on the guitars changes drastically. I had to ear match the eq. Could also be the mic placement wasn't the exact same. I also feel like some guitars were added at the very end of the recording. Oh well.. it was fun eq'matching the guitars
Vocals: Boy did I had so much trouble here. Recording engineers.. please... keep your selves from compressing the voice during the recording. That, or the singer was moving too much away from the mic while recording. Either or, the vocal was a real challenge.
It makes the mixer job a terrible trip. I had to use massive compression and ultimately automation to even the vocals out. So the very few dynamics the vocals had were compressed in my session. :/ Bass: This is the best recorded track in the whole session. I had no trouble making the bass seat well in the mix. (or perhaps you guys have a different view of it) But I'm quite please with the bass. Is doing what is supposed to be doing.. filling the hole here and there as the guitars are the song driver here.
I want to THANK THE BAND for releasing these tracks. Great song and definitely a "real world recording challenge" here. Sessions like these are the ones you encounter everyday in the business. Lucky for me I love this
I hope my decisions are good enough to say this is a good mix.
It took me long but I'm happy with the results as of right now. I'll hear it again once
my ears have gotten some rest.
Thoughts?
Attached is the Mix only mp3 file just in case you want some mastering practice.