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Four Graham (A REAL CHALLENGE?)
#1
Well...I have spent good 6 hours in this song if not more. (with breaks of course)

Let me start by saying.. My respect to all of you who have managed to get a good sound out of this song. I didn't think it was going to be this hard. If you are interested in my comments about it keep reading, if not skip to the mix. Smile

It seems, or at least I believe this session's instruments were recorded in separate days. I'm not sure if the stems provided were given out like this on purpose? but there were various downside to the recordings on this song.

Drums: Kick sounds like it was recorded with a condenser mic, an omni to be more exact. The bleed from the cymbals and snare is unbelievable. Also it sounds like drums were recorded in a very enclosed space with solid walls.. or at least the kick had a solid wall in front of it creating an echo/delay that the mic picked up. Not good.
Kick also had a resonating freq. at 80hz. Could be the room acoustics it was recorded in. made the kit sound decent enough, though that snare was a bit lifeless for my taste.
After an hour of trying to make it sound good enough overall.. I gave up and replaced everything with samples. I just wasn't happy with the way it was going. For those of you who made the mix with original drum tracks.. wow I'm impressed. Smile As a mixing engineer you have to make decisions and for this particular song, replacing the drums was an obvious one.

Guitars: Like I said it sounds like it was recorded through out a long period of time. The eq on the guitars changes drastically. I had to ear match the eq. Could also be the mic placement wasn't the exact same. I also feel like some guitars were added at the very end of the recording. Oh well.. it was fun eq'matching the guitars Smile

Vocals: Boy did I had so much trouble here. Recording engineers.. please... keep your selves from compressing the voice during the recording. That, or the singer was moving too much away from the mic while recording. Either or, the vocal was a real challenge. Smile It makes the mixer job a terrible trip. I had to use massive compression and ultimately automation to even the vocals out. So the very few dynamics the vocals had were compressed in my session. :/

Bass: This is the best recorded track in the whole session. I had no trouble making the bass seat well in the mix. (or perhaps you guys have a different view of it) But I'm quite please with the bass. Is doing what is supposed to be doing.. filling the hole here and there as the guitars are the song driver here.

I want to THANK THE BAND for releasing these tracks. Great song and definitely a "real world recording challenge" here. Sessions like these are the ones you encounter everyday in the business. Lucky for me I love this Big Grin


I hope my decisions are good enough to say this is a good mix.
It took me long but I'm happy with the results as of right now. I'll hear it again once
my ears have gotten some rest.

Thoughts?


Attached is the Mix only mp3 file just in case you want some mastering practice.


.mp3    FourGrahamM1.mp3 --  (Download: 6.34 MB)


.mp3    FourGrahamMix..mp3 --  (Download: 6.34 MB)


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#2
Listening to the mix again the voice didn't feel right
Update:
Did some volume boost on vocals. fixed some automation issues on it. Tweaked back vox automation a bit. I used a tube compressor on mastering to give it a lil bit of warmth.
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#3
Good balance man, nice mix. I 'm not a big fan of the delay in the intro, and maybe i'm wrong, but I feel like you over used the de-esser. But that's my opinion, very subjective.
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#4
(13-04-2016, 06:24 PM)Ricardo Camargo Wrote: Good balance man, nice mix. I 'm not a big fan of the delay in the intro, and maybe i'm wrong, but I feel like you over used the de-esser. But that's my opinion, very subjective.

Hi.
I felt there was a hole in that section so I thought a delay would be nice. This idea came mostly from slightly panning the voice right and left as it was too boomy. I lower the lows somewhat but the panning gave more clarity on it. I felt the delay would be an interesting arrangement. But I guess we all have different taste.

Actually I did use heavy de-Essing. There were resonating freq. In the voice around 500hz and 1khz if I'm not mistaken. Getting rid these freq. Made the essing a big deal for me.

I guess I focused more on even out the compression and volume rather than the eq'ing.

I will post a revision after more feedback.

Thanks for your observation Smile
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#5
hi shul,

nice mix man, the vocal delay at the begining is really cool but on the word "now" the delay is kinda distracting and i think its because the pitch clashing with the guitar chords, maybe you can print that delay and tune it to other note.

the snare flames part is also doesnt fit nicely in my opinion maybe slightly less attack on the flames.

thats the only 2 things i can spot in your mix, the rest is great flow, tone and balance. i enjoy your mix
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#6
Great work Shul,

Sounding really nice through headphones. Not too much for me to criticise. I feel the intro volume needs to come up. Too quiet compared to the rest of the song. The only other thing for me are the background vocals starting @ around 1:15 are sounding too quiet and muffled and a little out of place.

You've got a nice mix here, mate.
Dave
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#7
Overall it's a well balanced mix ! Very nice job here !

As a drummer, I would have preferred a more cutting snare drum.
Drums and bass still need some edition here and there but nothing big to deal with.
Don't really like the delay in the first verse but it's just a matter of taste Wink

So, great job here !
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#8
(14-04-2016, 12:04 PM)Dangerous Wrote: Great work Shul,

Sounding really nice through headphones. Not too much for me to criticise. I feel the intro volume needs to come up. Too quiet compared to the rest of the song. The only other thing for me are the background vocals starting @ around 1:15 are sounding too quiet and muffled and a little out of place.

You've got a nice mix here, mate.
Dave

Thanks for the feedback man.

Agreed, I will look into timing and will automate the vocals better.
As for the intro I purposely left it with that volume to make it do what its supposed to do. Give a sensation of raw, unedited track which SHOULD NOT BE PART OF THE MIX. I felt turning up the volume compromised that.

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#9
(14-04-2016, 02:45 PM)Mandubien Wrote: Overall it's a well balanced mix ! Very nice job here !

As a drummer, I would have preferred a more cutting snare drum.
Drums and bass still need some edition here and there but nothing big to deal with.
Don't really like the delay in the first verse but it's just a matter of taste Wink

So, great job here !

It'd be great to know what it is exactly with the bass and drums that needs edition.

Thanks for the feedback glad you think its well balanced..
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#10
(14-04-2016, 03:47 PM)Shul Wrote: It'd be great to know what it is exactly with the bass and drums that needs edition.

Thanks for the feedback glad you think its well balanced..

Well, they simply are not playing together, especially in some breaks where drums are very late. Overall drums + bass is not really grooving and needs some edition to fit the grid and the guitars better.

The worst thing I saw here is the bass playing 16th notes when kick is playing triplets. 2 hits out of 3 not together :p
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