Our Love Is Here to Stay-no compression,no eq,

[thedon]

This is a such a good recording ,thought i would post version 1 with no eq or compression or pluginns used on individual tracks,only 1 reverb on the master bus

[HbGuitar]

This is a such a good recording ,thought i would post version 1 with no eq or compression or pluginns used on individual tracks,only 1 reverb on the master bus

Hey Don.....Brave decision to mix in the raw so to speak ...and I totally get it...In fact I'm glad you did just to see how it sounds.

Overall I think it sounds great.....having obsessed over every little setting of this mix....things i thought may not be great...sustain on piano and Sax presence...actually turned out OK.....lesson there for sure

when you say no EQ....does that mean no HP filters too?

I think lack of EQ is affecting the piano though....it does sound a bit dark...especially compared to Mikes ref. I know that the piano in "wayfaring" was dark and smoky but i think this mix can handle it slightly brighter .... but its certainly not a deal breaker

The only negative for me was your piano panning ..... and its mainly cos i cant place it with confidence....it feels on the left......with bass keys wide and treble keys central. But sometimes its sounds very mono...maybe my ears are trying to push the treble notes wide and pull the bass notes centrally....so its sounding a bit smeared...or maybe you converted to mono...

This means you've placed guitar right (understandable given your piano placement).....but the knock-on effect from the piano panning is that to me it feels a bit left/right sided...rather than an ensemble....

I think reversing the panning.... having piano right lets the treble exist out wide with bass notes more central which is more natural to our ears

Its only a small thing in the scheme of things i guess...and maybe I'm getting overly technical so take it with a pinch of salt...plus i listened in phones ... so that's probably exacerbating any effect (real or purely imagined on my behalf).

cheers

ps. love the vocal too

[thedon]

This is a such a good recording ,thought i would post version 1 with no eq or compression or pluginns used on individual tracks,only 1 reverb on the master bus

Hey Don.....Brave decision to mix in the raw so to speak ...and I totally get it...In fact I'm glad you did just to see how it sounds.

Overall I think it sounds great.....having obsessed over every little setting of this mix....things i thought may not be great...sustain on piano and Sax presence...actually turned out OK.....lesson there for sure

when you say no EQ....does that mean no HP filters too?

I think lack of EQ is affecting the piano though....it does sound a bit dark...especially compared to Mikes ref. I know that the piano in "wayfaring" was dark and smoky but i think this mix can handle it slightly brighter .... but its certainly not a deal breaker

The only negative for me was your piano panning ..... and its mainly cos i cant place it with confidence....it feels on the left......with bass keys wide and treble keys central. But sometimes its sounds very mono...maybe my ears are trying to push the treble notes wide and pull the bass notes centrally....so its sounding a bit smeared...or maybe you converted to mono...

This means you've placed guitar right (understandable given your piano placement).....but the knock-on effect from the piano panning is that to me it feels a bit left/right sided...rather than an ensemble....

I think reversing the panning.... having piano right lets the treble exist out wide with bass notes more central which is more natural to our ears

Its only a small thing in the scheme of things i guess...and maybe I'm getting overly technical so take it with a pinch of salt...plus i listened in phones ... so that's probably exacerbating any effect (real or purely imagined on my behalf).

cheers

ps. love the vocal too

I mixed this at a friends place on my laptop with small cheep computer monitors to demonstrate how a basic daw works ,with no eq or hpf sounded good on them , lol ,Version 2 coming soon

Cheers !

[Olli H]

Interesting mix. Very smooth and elegant. I have not much to add to this.

Some words here and there might benefit of automation. FOr example around 1.03 ”love is here”

As I’m listening withe headphones, there’s some distrubing stereo movement. Maybe it’s caused by guitar in the right ear. Maybe guitarist could join the band and leave the foreground to singer. If you just could glue the bottom under 200 hz of so to mono in master channel, that alone might fix that problem.

I do always a pluginless mix first. And it’s fun (or frustrating) to notice that quite often the plugins made the mix worse. It happened couple of times to me while mixing this song. When i thought I was ready with my ultimate Doris Day sound, I happen to check it against my rough mix - just to notice I have ruined the whole vox sound.

[thedon]

Interesting mix. Very smooth and elegant. I have not much to add to this.

Some words here and there might benefit of automation. FOr example around 1.03 ”love is here”

As I’m listening withe headphones, there’s some distrubing stereo movement. Maybe it’s caused by guitar in the right ear. Maybe guitarist could join the band and leave the foreground to singer. If you just could glue the bottom under 200 hz of so to mono in master channel, that alone might fix that problem.

I do always a pluginless mix first. And it’s fun (or frustrating) to notice that quite often the plugins made the mix worse. It happened couple of times to me while mixing this song. When i thought I was ready with my ultimate Doris Day sound, I happen to check it against my rough mix - just to notice I have ruined the whole vox sound.

I agree think it maybe the guitar too, as you know sometimes I usually go to extremes with plugins and processing will try not to with version 2 ,I think I only have Doris Day on Record good idea for a reference and inspiration.
Thanks for having a listen Olli

[iShouldBsleeping]

I'm impressed at the recording.. I'm actually surprised that a mix could sound this good without using any of that stuff. Great job balancing and positioning. It's easy to get lost in overprocessing, and after hearing this it kind of makes me regret doing so much! Great job though, really. It's a good lesson for us new mixers!

[thedon]

I'm impressed at the recording.. I'm actually surprised that a mix could sound this good without using any of that stuff. Great job balancing and positioning. It's easy to get lost in overprocessing, and after hearing this it kind of makes me regret doing so much! Great job though, really. It's a good lesson for us new mixers!

Thanks For Having a listen and king words !
Version 2 coming soon with some pluginns

[londonmatt]

Yeah, this is really nice. I've just done this one and tried to take a similar approach in that I only EQ'd three of the channels and didn't apply any compression at all to channels other than a tiny bit on the vocals. If you do revisit this I'd personally appreciate a bit more panning separation between instruments, it feels a bit like the band are huddled very close together at the moment. Overall though it's great, and is a reminder that using plugins is in some situations just as likely to screw things up as make them better!

[thedon]

Yeah, this is really nice. I've just done this one and tried to take a similar approach in that I only EQ'd three of the channels and didn't apply any compression at all to channels other than a tiny bit on the vocals. If you do revisit this I'd personally appreciate a bit more panning separation between instruments, it feels a bit like the band are huddled very close together at the moment. Overall though it's great, and is a reminder that using plugins is in some situations just as likely to screw things up as make them better!

Thanks for having a listen Matt

[juanjose1967]

fabulous mix, Don! Do you know what? I tried to give this song a try and I was kind of worried because I was doing almost anything to the different tracks. I was wondering if I was losing my sound analysis knowledge hehehe!!! You've proved to me that my ears were serving me very well

Great vocals and sax (I love it!!!)