Hard to screw up something this well recorded. Challenges for me were the resonance in the toms and getting the flab out of the kick, plus dealing with a couple tracks that had multiple instruments on them (electric guitar rhythm and lead, and percussion). I would have treated each differently, and may still mult out each of those to provide some more interest in solos, etc. In the end though I felt the results weren't bad at all for a first draft. I also might still do some editing on the acoustic rhythm guitar track. There's a few wonky chords in the first prechorus
I added a new track using a Hammond B3 emulation. I thought the song could use another element to build tension in choruses and the outro, and figured the Hammond would fit well. I'm no keyboard player, so I kept it to root-fifth chords throughout.
Questions, comments and criticism all welcome, please :-)
Really good mix. I like the clarity you've created and the feeling of space in the mix. What did you use on the main vocals? It sounds quite airy (in a nice way), or did you use a lot of reverb?
If I have to critisice I would say that the main guitar is a little bit too harsh for me, maybe some reduction in the higher frequencies would have been good. But that's just me, might be my headphones as well that I'm listening through (Audio Technica M20x).
(03-01-2016, 11:14 PM)[email protected] Wrote: That was excellent. How do you get the volume? What are you using to Master?
Thanks! I'm working in Reaper, and mixed it to about -17db RMS, peaking around -5. Mastering chain was the Antress Modern Console EQ, followed by GVST's GClip to tame some peaks (mostly snare), and then VlagG's Limiter No6, tweaked to taste. Final level is around -7db RMS.
(07-01-2016, 06:50 PM)cipher Wrote: Really good mix. I like the clarity you've created and the feeling of space in the mix. What did you use on the main vocals? It sounds quite airy (in a nice way), or did you use a lot of reverb?
If I have to critisice I would say that the main guitar is a little bit too harsh for me, maybe some reduction in the higher frequencies would have been good. But that's just me, might be my headphones as well that I'm listening through (Audio Technica M20x).
Nice job though!
Thank you! Vox were treated very simply. EQ and compression, then sent to a reverb track and to a slapback delay. That's it. Backup vox were treated the same way, but with a different verb, and I used MSED to nudge out a few db in the middle to keep that space for the lead vox. I used MSED on a lot of tracks in this mix.
I agree about the guitars, especially during the solo sections. That's part of the challenge in this one for me with both rhythm and lead on the same track.
Since I ran that mix I've made some changes. I duplicated the guitar track, then snipped out the solos and pasted rhythm guitar sections in their place, copied from elsewhere in the song, making one standalone rhythm track. Now I can treat rhythm and leads separately. I duplicated that rhythm track so I can have one panned left, and one right. I'll probably delay one by a few ms too. Then I'll address EQ on the solos. We'll see if it's any better.
- that wonky acoustic guitar section
- independent rhythm and lead guitar tracks
- rhythm tracks have a compressor sidechained against the vox to dip the geets about 1db while he's singing
-compression on the snare, rather than a clipper
- EQ changes in the lead vox (slightly more presence)
- automated some levels here and there
Overall the mixdown came out hotter by about 3db RMS, so I adjusted the mastering compression to suit. Let me know if you hear any pumping.
26-01-2016, 04:45 AM (This post was last modified: 26-01-2016, 04:50 AM by ulynch.)
What the heck. Another mixdown. I reloaded the original audio files and started from scratch with the goal of improving my drum treatments. I got carried away and worked the whole song. Here's what I did differently:
- no Hammond :-)
- Used a single room verb aux and sent several tracks to that.
- Tried a pile of different dedicated verbs for the snare, finally ending up with a large chamber, no predelay, and a gate. I really like how it turned out.
- Lead and rhythm guitars are still split, and I copied the rhythm guitar to two tracks, panned, then re-amped one of them with Boogex and a miced cab impulse to create some contrast.
- I wanted the acoustic to sit further back in the mix, so I used the stereo field enhancements in Amplio during the main body of the song, just not the intro or the break section. It's easy to overdo that, so I hope I backed off on it enough to sit right, but not be too resonant in the sides.
- The backing vox are mostly just the lead vox duplicated, so I panned the two tracks 60% each way, and added a chorus on their bus. In some places I ducked the lead vocal part so the backups would become more prominent.
- I added a longer delay to the lead vox, but wanted it only audible at the ends of phrases. I sent the lead vox to a separate track, added the delay, then put a compressor after it sidechained against the main vocal track. Compressed the hell out of it so the delay ducks when he's singing. The compressor releases when each phrase ends so the delay comes through. What a pain in the ass. Was it worth the effort?
Otherwise, the usual EQ, compression and reverb to taste where needed.
And for funzies, I'm uploading both the mixdown and the master. Mixdown ended up around -22db RMS, peaking around -8.5, so dynamic range around 12. Master was pushed to about -7db RMS, and with the limiter set to -1.5, the render from WAV to MP3 ended with peaks around -.5db. I did some small EQ tweaks on the master, none more than about 3db.
Reaper probably isn't the best choice for conversions. I'm open to suggestions on this if anyone has an opinion.
