18-02-2016, 03:32 PM (This post was last modified: 18-02-2016, 03:34 PM by Judders.)
Just read the notes by Patrick. Think I covered everything except tuning the vocals. I like the vulnerability of the untuned vocals though, so that's cool. The untuned vocals are reminiscent of many 80's tracks to me, which fits the pop/jazz/rockabilly crossover feel.
I took some production choices, seeing as the MIDI was included. I replaced the piano, Rhodes and drums. For the piano, I shortened all the notes and used the sustain pedal instead of just holding the keys, using the Pianoteq upright model, slowly brought up the velocity over the course of the song, and added some humanization. I swapped the Rhodes for a Wurlitzer (Arturia), using a trick I stole from Zappa by having hard L/R versions with different settings, as well as humanizing the MIDI differently. The drums I replaced with Superior Drummer Roots Sticks (very glad the MIDI mapping was according to SD!) and played with the velocity of different kit parts (but relative velocity and timing was kept as-is).
Everything slotted in quite nicely, except the horns, so it was just a case of rounding-off the edges to give a more analogue-esque sound and automating gain. The vocal becomes more reverberant in the later sections, but other than that it's all pretty simple; no minute fader riding.
Your mix is nice and refreshing. I really like the vocals, they are wide, open and clear, but very consistend withe rest of the mix. Your choises in replacing the keys are very tasty, good work.
the only point I can criticize are the drums. In my ears they sound a little bit appart from the rest of the mix.
I think the biggest thing for me is the sub frequencies of your kick. It is HUGE. . . which would be great in a rock track, but it does sound disconnected in this case. Aside from that, I think your mix is really laid back and chill, which is cool.
I think maybe there's some masking of the bass with sub frequency of the kick. Maybe a boost at around 300 on the bass would help it come through a little bit, and lower some of the sub frequencies in both, at different regions to help keep them separate.
Yeah, I do tend to overdo the low end. It's not even a monitoring problem, I just like bass a lot! I can certainly lower the bass drum sub channel and see how that changes things. Maybe give the upright bass a little more midrange too.
20-02-2016, 02:14 AM (This post was last modified: 20-02-2016, 02:14 AM by loweche6.)
If you go through my mixes, you'll see that I am a recovering "bass-a-holic" ("Hi I'm Draper"). Part of it was monitoring on my end, and part of it was stubbornness from wanting to hear the low end so much, so I completely understand. I guess I have trained myself to learn to leave myself wanting, and now I'm super sensitive to it from kicking my own ass about it.
Yeah, I think part of the problem is that my last place had a bass build-up where I was monitoring, so I learnt to compensate. I'm still learning my new room.
Hey Judders, that's different!
I'm not at all convinced by the switch to the Roots SDX though. I have it and I chose not to use it because it was not adapted to what I had in mind for this tune, which is actually more pop than jazz if you think about it.
You also used a lot of the room mics from it, which means that they lack a lot of punch, and are mostly MIA apart from the cymbals...
The mix of the piano+rhodes is also not convincing to me. You can barely hear the wurly (I think it doesn't have enough sustain anyway, and is playing on too high a register), and the piano is also playing high and is a too loud. It's a rather uninteresting part, and in my mix I chose to use only the attack of it and blend it with the rhodes that gives the sustain needed (think of it as a pad more than anything).
So I'm afraid that the chosen tones here are not the best, and not a good substitute for the original tracks. My opinion only of course and you should feel free to disagree entirely!
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa
(23-02-2016, 04:02 AM)ptalbot Wrote: Hey Judders, that's different!
I'm not at all convinced by the switch to the Roots SDX though. I have it and I chose not to use it because it was not adapted to what I had in mind for this tune, which is actually more pop than jazz if you think about it.
You also used a lot of the room mics from it, which means that they lack a lot of punch, and are mostly MIA apart from the cymbals...
The mix of the piano+rhodes is also not convincing to me. You can barely hear the wurly (I think it doesn't have enough sustain anyway, and is playing on too high a register), and the piano is also playing high and is a too loud. It's a rather uninteresting part, and in my mix I chose to use only the attack of it and blend it with the rhodes that gives the sustain needed (think of it as a pad more than anything).
So I'm afraid that the chosen tones here are not the best, and not a good substitute for the original tracks. My opinion only of course and you should feel free to disagree entirely!
Ha! No, I don't disagree entirely at all, and thanks for taking the time to comment
I never expected it to be a favourite, as I changed the feel quite a bit. I was just experimenting, trying to get it to sound more jazzy and realistic. The drums are distant so that the bass drum merely accentuates the beat, and the snare accentuates the backbeat, as I felt it was the bass which actually had the meaningful rhythmic information. If you listen to the drums isolated, they are kinda hard to groove to, kinda spiky and jarring in places, but they make more sense once the bass is added, because the bass is driving the rhythm.
It all started when I first opened the project (before I'd read your song FAQ), I found myself a bit distracted because I knew it was Trillian (though that upright sounds fine) and NI Session Horns (the unison bends in particular make them sound very "midi"). The Rhodes sound was not very convincing, and weirdly I had no idea it was SD custom & Vintage, even though I've used that a lot (sounds like you maybe had limited layers and scant, if any, bleed?). The velocity programming of the drums sounded very "midi" too - especially the hard cymbal crashes sound really out of place to my ears.
So then I thought it would be fun to play around with the instruments, seeing as you were kind enough to include the midi. That's when I saw that the programmed parts would need a lot of work. The keyboard parts were all blocks-on-grid single velocity jobs, and I didn't check the chords for playability (I'm not a pianist), but they looked... odd.
I knew I couldn't get a better upright sound (I don't have a bass VI), so that stayed in. The horns stayed because I don't have a decent trombone instrument and separating the parts would have taken longer than I was willing to spend on this, also they sound okay if pushed back. I decided to change the piano part to how one would be played - with the sustain pedal rather than perfectly held keys without any gap between chords, also adding velocity programming so that it became more strident and bright as the song went on.
But, in the end, you are completely right: the keyboard parts are not written in a realistic manner, so they do not support the kind of tinkering I was putting them through. If my experiment were to work, I would need to rewrite both piano and Rhodes/Wurli so that they actually resemble what a keys player would do.
I realise this may come across as a bit passive-aggressive, but that's not my intention. I'm not trying to defend my mix, as there's definitely a lot to criticise about it. I'm just being honest about why and how I ended up where I did with it.
I was halfway through learning the bass part to Reason to Leave, but I think I'll concentrate on playing my own music instead! :p
PS. Roots SDX can be better for poppy sounds than Custom & Vintage! You just have to select the right kit pieces and mic's, and keep the velocity high
(26-02-2016, 05:59 PM)Judders Wrote: Ha! No, I don't disagree entirely at all, and thanks for taking the time to comment
I never expected it to be a favourite, as I changed the feel quite a bit. I was just experimenting, trying to get it to sound more jazzy and realistic. The drums are distant so that the bass drum merely accentuates the beat, and the snare accentuates the backbeat, as I felt it was the bass which actually had the meaningful rhythmic information. If you listen to the drums isolated, they are kinda hard to groove to, kinda spiky and jarring in places, but they make more sense once the bass is added, because the bass is driving the rhythm.
It all started when I first opened the project (before I'd read your song FAQ), I found myself a bit distracted because I knew it was Trillian (though that upright sounds fine) and NI Session Horns (the unison bends in particular make them sound very "midi"). The Rhodes sound was not very convincing, and weirdly I had no idea it was SD custom & Vintage, even though I've used that a lot (sounds like you maybe had limited layers and scant, if any, bleed?). The velocity programming of the drums sounded very "midi" too - especially the hard cymbal crashes sound really out of place to my ears.
So then I thought it would be fun to play around with the instruments, seeing as you were kind enough to include the midi. That's when I saw that the programmed parts would need a lot of work. The keyboard parts were all blocks-on-grid single velocity jobs, and I didn't check the chords for playability (I'm not a pianist), but they looked... odd.
I knew I couldn't get a better upright sound (I don't have a bass VI), so that stayed in. The horns stayed because I don't have a decent trombone instrument and separating the parts would have taken longer than I was willing to spend on this, also they sound okay if pushed back. I decided to change the piano part to how one would be played - with the sustain pedal rather than perfectly held keys without any gap between chords, also adding velocity programming so that it became more strident and bright as the song went on.
But, in the end, you are completely right: the keyboard parts are not written in a realistic manner, so they do not support the kind of tinkering I was putting them through. If my experiment were to work, I would need to rewrite both piano and Rhodes/Wurli so that they actually resemble what a keys player would do.
I realise this may come across as a bit passive-aggressive, but that's not my intention. I'm not trying to defend my mix, as there's definitely a lot to criticise about it. I'm just being honest about why and how I ended up where I did with it.
I was halfway through learning the bass part to Reason to Leave, but I think I'll concentrate on playing my own music instead! :p
PS. Roots SDX can be better for poppy sounds than Custom & Vintage! You just have to select the right kit pieces and mic's, and keep the velocity high
In any case it sounds like you had fun with it, which is a good thing!
I'm no keyboard player myself, which is why I always thought of them as pads. Actually I've used the Cubase chord track to build this part, and I've used the blend of rhodes+piano to get something interesting out of it, but it's really not something that I've intended to feature. Using a pedal or having the chords the way they are in the midi made no difference because the natural sustain was doing it's job in my blend.
I disagree about your comments on the drums, the midi is coming mostly from midi libraries which are played by real drummers and that I've just rearranged to go with the song. As to the limited layers, I usually use the max in SD. But it's true that I usually don't export to audio, I'm using SD directly, sometimes with multi-out, but most times using the build-in mixer and effects, and perhaps a separate output for kick and snare when it's needed.
So to be able to provide audio tracks of all the mixes, I've used the build-in SD bounce option, and it's not easy to tell what kind of export to use and how it's exporting the bleed, and whether or not it's using the mixer or not, so it's possible that the bleed was not exported correctly... In any case, you are right that the bass is driving the groove, but I think it best work when combined with the acoustics and drums as they are.
I get now that you were experimenting, and that's totally cool. My previous comment was coming from the fact that I thought your chosen sounds were less effective than the original ones, which is why I was wondering about them...
PS: Thanks for the tips about the Roots SDX, I'll keep that in mind. That being said, I find the Custom & Vintage a lot more versatile and more adapted to what I'm looking for more often than not.
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa
