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Mix of "Blue" by MTSU Student Kurt Koenig
#1
Hi my name is Kurt Koenig, I am an Audio Production student at Middle Tennessee State University and I gotta say: I seriously had a lot of fun mixing this. Great songwriting, great recordings, overall just a great experience.

After giving everything what I believed to be an appropriate position in the stereo image, I started off with the drums, as the first thing I noticed was the kick pounded much too hard over the other instruments. I found that the overhead and drum room tracks were the culprits and applied appropriate compression to their respective tracks and adjust the clip gain on a few hits. I then tried to balance the bass with the drums, as well as remove the hard plucks the bassist was making. I achieved that by giving the bass track a LPF at around 1k, making the pluck still audible but not so harsh that it jolts the listener. I barely had to do anything to the guitar tracks; great tone, great playing, clean, loved them. I added some subtle verb to the guitars for space. The rhodes track was equally awesome. The vibraphone track was great but needed a lot of detail, so I gave it a dramatic bell-curve boost at 4.25k. I then proceeded to the toy piano, which just needed some peak control so I a put on a compressor and applied it subtly. I gave the lead vocal a very quiet delay, and applied some reverb to really bring it out. There are a few "s"s in the recordings that were distorted. I tried to the best of my abilities to tame them, but to a trained audiophile's ear they may still be noticeable. I then balanced the lead vocal and the background vocal so they would mesh well (great harmonies!). Finally, I applied some bus compression to the master track to glue everything together.
I think overall my mix is balanced, well-rounded, and is pleasant to the ear without sounding compressed.

Here is a WAV file of the bounced mix:
https://www.mediafire.com/?10g1hdhf0wahahh

I hope I was able to capture your vision! This was a great learning experience and I sincerely had fun working on your music. I would love to hear your feedback!


.mp3    Koenig_PatrickTalbot_Blue_FinalMix.mp3 --  (Download: 6.42 MB)


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#2
I'm glad you enjoyed the song, Kurt!
You did a great job with it IMHO. It sounds good to me overall, great tones and balance.
A few things that you might have done to make it even better:
- I think the LPF on the bass is too much, perhaps a high shelf would have been enough. Because the bass notes are now rather undefined on smaller speakers.
- the guitar arpeggios during the chorus could have been a little louder, they are driving this part and make a lot of sense as a counter melody to the vocals
- the BGVs sound great but I think they could have been just a tad louder during the end bit around 0:40 and the other times around, their level is fine during the chorus though.
These are really just nitpicks as I think you did a really fine job here! Smile
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa

Some air moved here
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#3
I meant to say about the sibilance that I find that the best way to deal with it is to edit the audio clip themselves.
You can easily find the esses, they look like dense balloons, just cut them lower their level, cross-fade, done. You have much more control this way and it doesn't take that long. Much more efficient than any de-esser/multiband/dynamic EQ you could try and throw at it, and more transparent usually.
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa

Some air moved here
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#4
Thanks so much for the feedback! I will definitely keep all of this in mind for future mixes, especially the issue in regards to sibilance. Again, thanks so much for posting this and giving budding engineers a chance for some great practice!
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#5
Hi Kurt,

I think you have done a great job with this one. I enjoyed it a lot. You have got a lovely softness going on that suits the song nicely. Just a couple of things come to mind whist listening. I agree with Patrick regarding the bass, it's sounding a little muffled to me and could do with some of the upper freqs back. The only other thing that I would say is I feel the snare is sounding too dry and could do with a slight airy reverb just to marry it into the overall ambience of the song. Anyway well done on your efforts.

Dave.
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