02-06-2016, 01:35 AM
Nice song! Love the attitude in it!!!
First, as of today, June 1, 2016, there are only 3 other people who were brave enough to attempt this mix. For me, so far, THIS song was the hardest mix on this site that I have ever attempted (and I have a lot of mixes on here). But, after downloading the tracks and listening to them, the challenge was compelling, drawing me in, and so I just had to do it!!!! Now, let me summarize what I did:
First, I used all the tracks except the hi hat track. Also, I did NOT add anything - no added samples, no sound replacements....nothing. I only used existing material in the tracks. THAT added to the challenge since it would have been much easier to sound replace stuff, etc.
The guitar track had this weird thing going on in it....sounded like he was playing right next to the kick drum or something and it bled in there really bad. Honestly, I never heard a track with that kind of problem in it...had to do something about that indeed. I spent at quite a bit of time in an offline program JUST to process the guitar before bringing into the DAW to process it even more, etc.
The next challenge was the "timing" issues. There were indeed a LOT of timing issues. I will not tell you guys how much time I spent on that aspect of the mix alone. I use Cubase 5, and it is limited as far as I can only time correct one track at a time. I know other DAWs can time-correct several tracks at once. However, that was not the real problem since the drummer's timing was off within his own playing in many places. For instance, the hi hat was off with his kick and snare in quite a few places, etc....stuff like that. So those things had to be handled manually, and even borrowing some parts from other places in the drum performance, etc.
Soooooooooo, to make a long story short, I literally had to time correct each and every track manually - not just the drums, but each and every other track....and THAT took a LOT of time. Everything is basically in time now, for the most part.....whew....what a lot of work. BUT, it was worth it.
I also pitch corrected most of the tracks as well with the exception of the bass and drums. However, the beginning with the bowed bass didn't sound good to me so I grabbed some of the regular bass lines and put them in the beginning.....sounds much better.
General mixing techniques were applied, including compression, siblance correction, transient processing, distortion plugins, reverb, multing some tracks for the solos, and more.
Have a listen and let me know what you think. After mixing this and getting the result I got, which I think is pretty good, I'm ready for anything now. LOL! Was a lot of fun....loved it!
Later,
Tom
tommymarcinek.com - Tommy Marcinek
