04-11-2014, 05:00 AM
Thanks HB. This is a really hard nut to crack... So many instruments are dominant in the same frequency ranges that it's really hard to pick what wants to be heard from moment to moment.
Anyone who's heard any of my guitar tone rants knows I don't like guitars to be very present in the high mid regions, and the vocal is pretty wibblywobbly tonally from time to time, and the vibes/keys don't add much in those regions without masking the vocal tone... In fact, the drums are the only tracks that supply a consistent amount of high mid content as presented, and the snare completely vanishes if you try to trim some of that out, so it's natural that the drums will fling themselves forward in the mix without figuring something out.
Fortunately, the artist was aware of these challenges, so we've been provided with the midi data used on the drums, keys, bass and toy piano, and that opens our options a lot. I'm trying a few different things to sort that bass and high mid issues out... Using the Rhodes midi on a pad with lots of high, airy stuff is really useful... You can pare it down to what you need to fill with eq and you can enhance the overall mix tonality quite handily... And with the right pad, you're almost creating a "fake" ambience that let's you use less reverb, which is mostly just going to overemphasize the abundant mids, and you get lots of awesome stereo width for free. I'm also finding it masks/blends the negative side effects of my vocal treatments used to firm up the high mids... What's not to like? Add automation on top of it, and the Rhodes/vibes Pat intended to be used as pads are suddenly freed up to function as instruments and give us some opportunity to liven up the arrangement! Every now and then I have a really good idea... Doesn't happen often, but it happens :p
The bass midi is useful for layering in a sub synth in much the same manner to help pin down the low end a bit, and I'll almost definitely wind up replacing/augmenting the drums... But the toy piano? I have absolutely nothing bad to say about it
and I honestly can't think of any reason to use the midi for that, although it could be used to generate a really nice piano intro... Leave my options open at your own peril, because creative irresponsibility will almost certainly result :p
Sorry I haven't gotten around to reviewing your mix yet... I'm having a hardware problem that could really be skewing my low end perception (I'm getting very clearly audible rumble from 10 htz test tones, so there's obviously a lot of really nasty harmonic distortion in the sub) and that'd make my comments mostly useless... But I promise I'll get back to you when this is solved.
Anyone who's heard any of my guitar tone rants knows I don't like guitars to be very present in the high mid regions, and the vocal is pretty wibblywobbly tonally from time to time, and the vibes/keys don't add much in those regions without masking the vocal tone... In fact, the drums are the only tracks that supply a consistent amount of high mid content as presented, and the snare completely vanishes if you try to trim some of that out, so it's natural that the drums will fling themselves forward in the mix without figuring something out.
Fortunately, the artist was aware of these challenges, so we've been provided with the midi data used on the drums, keys, bass and toy piano, and that opens our options a lot. I'm trying a few different things to sort that bass and high mid issues out... Using the Rhodes midi on a pad with lots of high, airy stuff is really useful... You can pare it down to what you need to fill with eq and you can enhance the overall mix tonality quite handily... And with the right pad, you're almost creating a "fake" ambience that let's you use less reverb, which is mostly just going to overemphasize the abundant mids, and you get lots of awesome stereo width for free. I'm also finding it masks/blends the negative side effects of my vocal treatments used to firm up the high mids... What's not to like? Add automation on top of it, and the Rhodes/vibes Pat intended to be used as pads are suddenly freed up to function as instruments and give us some opportunity to liven up the arrangement! Every now and then I have a really good idea... Doesn't happen often, but it happens :p
The bass midi is useful for layering in a sub synth in much the same manner to help pin down the low end a bit, and I'll almost definitely wind up replacing/augmenting the drums... But the toy piano? I have absolutely nothing bad to say about it
and I honestly can't think of any reason to use the midi for that, although it could be used to generate a really nice piano intro... Leave my options open at your own peril, because creative irresponsibility will almost certainly result :pSorry I haven't gotten around to reviewing your mix yet... I'm having a hardware problem that could really be skewing my low end perception (I'm getting very clearly audible rumble from 10 htz test tones, so there's obviously a lot of really nasty harmonic distortion in the sub) and that'd make my comments mostly useless... But I promise I'll get back to you when this is solved.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!