First of all I'm new to this forum, so I'll be looking for an introduction section if there's one. I find the concept of the website absolutely great (sharing multitracks) for people like me who start learning this wonderful craft that is mixing !
So here's my version, I'd like your comments on it ! Especially Blitz', I listened to other mixes of this song in the previous threads, I find what you say always spot on !
To summarize my work quickly: mixed on cubase, exclusively stock and free plugins (but it didn't take much as the tracks are very well recorded).
Mainly compressed the drums (but not the OHs), a little bit of EQ everywhere and I spent most of my time trying to balance volumes for the main things. Finally, did a lot of automation through all the song.
I found everything to be very bright, so most EQ was done to try carving out spaces between instruments and also restore bass/treble balance. The main problem that I had, and I think isn't sorted yet (but I reached my limits in terms of skills) is that I can't seem to get things very separated and sound tighter.
Mixed the song on studio monitors but took it to the car, listened through headphones, other speakers, and came back tweaking things every time.
11-02-2016, 10:50 PM (This post was last modified: 11-02-2016, 10:50 PM by Blitzzz.)
Cheers mate,
I´m just a normal guy so take my words with a grain of salt. The mix sounds distorted - you probably hit your limiter way too hard or mix everything too hot. Does the mix go through some sort of clipper? Do you use FG-X and hit it too hard? There is also some serious pumping at 4:05 and I think the kick is the reason for that.
At 1:20 I can clearly hear distortion effects (bzzzbrzzzllbzzz...) on the right channel. And the accoustic guitars don't have to sound like they were recorded in the big hall next to the recording studio
Mix balance is cool, everything is in the right spot. But the distortion/aggressive limiting (?) is just too much in my opinion.
12-02-2016, 12:15 AM (This post was last modified: 12-02-2016, 12:18 AM by IbanLoL.)
No worries, even the top pro, multi-gold-records, award-winning mixer is a normal guy
I do take your comments "normally", but I still think they are spot on !
Thanks for those on my mix ! About the distortion, between this version and the previous one, I did some global changes and it probably got the mix hotter overall, therefore hitting the limiter on the mix bus harder (too hard). I probably just lost perspective at that point and should have given a few days to the mix before listening to it again post-tweaking, I didn't realize it. The distortion comes from that. I use a free TLS plugin to bring the mix level up, it's not that transparent even if I don't push it...
I think the pumping (triggered by the kick indeed) is also due to the post-tweaking hotter mix, hitting the mix bus compressor too hard. I used a compression plugin that I like on the mix bus to give a little more energy to the song. I don't normally exceed a couple of dbs of GR, but I just re-opened it and noticed it was compressing much more, so again, didn't pay attention enough after tweaking.
I also just found a nasty resonance peak at around 8khz in the vocal tracks that I never noticed before for some reason. It gets very strong on the "me" in choruses, so did a little cut there.
Thanks for your perspective, I'm going to be uploading version 5 soon, I'd be glad for you and anybody else to tell if the mix got better (or worse), just to make sure I heard and corrected the same things you're hearing and mentioning (important for the learning process)!
Well you are almost there and your mix doesn't need much to kick ass. I strongly recommend to use one or even more reference tracks, level match them with your mix and constantly compare your mix with the ref mixes. This method will reveal a lot of problems right from the start and it will show you how much eq or compression you need to bring the whole mix up to a "pro" level. It always helps me to get my overheads in the right spot because i tend to make them too loud. I also tend to use too much low end on the kick if I don't mix with a ref track.
I do use reference tracks, as I also try to listen to my mix in various environments, it's critical indeed !
So here's a new version, hopefully better. I reduced the compression and limiting which were too heavy. I lost a little bit of this energy that I had in the previous mix, but it's cleaner now. Nothing comes free in this world ! I'm sure I could find a better solution, but I'm reaching the limits of my skills for now !
13-02-2016, 02:21 PM (This post was last modified: 13-02-2016, 02:22 PM by Blitzzz.)
Now THAT's aggressive =) Very cool! Toms might be a bit too boomy (just a tiny tiny little bit) but the guitars REALLY kick ass. I can still hear some fizz from 2:30 to 2:45 though. The panned vocals in the bridge are awesome - love what you did there. It gave me goosebumps. The melody guitars at 4:05 could be a bit brighter with a delay to make them a little bit more epic.
I told you that your mix didn't need much to really kick ass - and here we are It's probably not a perfect mix in terms of separation and a better mixer then me would probably find more things that you could do better, BUT your mix has balls and it made the song sound very powerful. For me, that's more important then a clean and sterile mix.
Thank you very much for your help ! Glad you enjoyed that version. I really got into the concept of "less gives you more" there, which worked out pretty well ! It didn't need much indeed but that's what mixing is all about, it's a big sum of tiny details that make a drastic change in the end !
There are loads and loads of things that I need to work on, separation is indeed one of them, but distortion / saturation effects are still pretty mystical to me. I guess I just need to keep doing mixes and mixes again, eventually I'll train my ears and get better !
A question though, that fizz that you still hear, I can't really hear or notice it. So there again I'm wondering if I just need more ear education, or if that added "noise" is in a frequency range that I can't really hear anymore (I have important earing loss in the highs, above 12khz). Could you give me a few clues (I know it's difficult trying to transcript such feeling with words) ?
I've always had issues hearing such effects / issues in a mix. Same goes for saturation. There is this well known idea that adding some "tape saturation" effect on a global mix gives it a nice color (either through a plugin or analog equipment). But, some people tend to be amazed by the differences it makes, even though there are subtle effects, and I can barely hear any changes (unless like in the previous version of my mix for Piece of me, the limiter was hit too hard, and sound got kind of destroyed).
Subtle saturation - lets say tape or console saturation - is hard to hear on a single track. VCC from Slate is a very good console emulation plugin but you can BARELY hear the effect on a single track if you don't drive the console hard - which means bringing the needle in the red zone and setting the drive knob to maximum. VCC doesn't distort like a guitar amplifier - it's way more subtle yet pleasing if you don't overdo it.
You WILL hear the colour and vibe the console adds to your track when you put the drive to the max AND turn up the Input gain. But on normal drive and input settings it's not a huge difference. It definitely won't make a shitty snare sound great - it just adds something to the sound that might or might not enhance the character of the track. If you put vcc on every track of the whole mix and turn all instances off you will clearly hear the effect.
Same goes with tape saturation imho. Different tapes and speeds produce different sound characteristics. Slates VTM is a great tape plugin and you can hear how different speed settings affect the overall sound - like a nice boost to the lows, less harsh highs. You probably won't hear much of a difference when you put it on a single track but it will be very obvious on the master bus.
The easiest way to hear what saturation or distortion adds is by using a plugin like decapitator, fabfilter saturn or ANY distortion plugin you have in your arsenal, put it on different tracks and just carefully listen to what it does. Put it on the room track of a drumkit and turn up the distortion. you will hear how the mids and highs get more pronounced. That's why a lot of egineers use distortion to colour a single track = to add more mids and highs. Open a mix. put a distortion plugin on the snare, play the mix and turn up the gain - you will hear how the snare sound changes, how it becomes more present.
The noise i was talking about isn't high fizz - it a static mid/high frequency noise. sounds a bit like the hiss you get from a vinyl playback
