64 Bristol Mixed by Dcp

[dcp10200]

This track was an odd ball to mix, with records in this Post-Rock style with 60+ track counts things tend to get a bit messy and tough to figure out what's going on. I found myself wanting to use all of the tracks but in the end I dumped alot of the guitar layers, the rhodes part, and the extra percussion in favor of a more streamlined sound that was easier to manage. Personally Post Rock is quite a cool genre and bands like Russian Circles, and Foals are some of my favorites in the genre. Anywho, on to the mix.

The bulk of my processing here was done on the master buss calibrated at -18 dBFS
like what was done on my last two mixes. I was going for a dirtier and more coloured sound on this mix so I used the Waves NLS TG12345 master section, a Waves API 2500 Master compressor, 2 Pul Tec emulations, some soft clipping and Kramer Tape.

I used the original drums on this track with no sample replacement/reinforcement. The snare has an expander on it to help me get some punch and a little eq from a neve emulation with some drive. Other than some overall drum buss compression and soft clipping the drums are pretty much how they came.

The bass in the track in run through an ampeg SVT emulation in guitar rig with a sledgehammer distortion driving it for some grunt and aggression.

The guitars have some minor high and low passing done but are otherwise the way they came. I only used 18 tracks of the guitars (that includes the dual mic'ing on some of the tracks, really it equates out to 15 tracks) to clean up the arrangement a little.

The vocals were ran through the CLA Vocals plugin and got alittle compression from an LA-2a emulation for some colour.

I did some mastering to bring it up to K14 and to fine tune the eq of the track.

Overall this was a fun mix to do, definitely one of my favorite records on here. Please leave your comments and critiques below and enjoy!

[jrk]

Nice. Airy.

[kapu]

Hi! Tanks for your feedback. I get the impression that the mix is maybe bit too much "under control," although I think you've got everything in their place. For me it sounds just a little bit too dry and sharp, but as you heard my mix I probably overdid it with reverbs in some parts. You could perhaps just loosen "everything" a bit and make the overall sound and colour a bit darker? The balance between the instruments is great, and I like very much what you've done with the bass. Your kick is good too. Very good work. ^_^

[dcp10200]

Hi! Tanks for your feedback. I get the impression that the mix is maybe bit too much "under control," although I think you've got everything in their place. For me it sounds just a little bit too dry and sharp, but as you heard my mix I probably overdid it with reverbs in some parts. You could perhaps just loosen "everything" a bit and make the overall sound and colour a bit darker? The balance between the instruments is great, and I like very much what you've done with the bass. Your kick is good too. Very good work. ^_^

Thanks for the reply, glad you liked the mix. Funny enough nothing in this mix is actually being controlled so much, I did a very small automation of volume on one set of guitars but not much else there. The mix is actually just me driving the tracks into compression and saturation with some reverb on the snare and toms. Adding some reverb I think would probably give the impression of a looser mix but part of me wants to keep it drier and more punchy. I'm going to try adding some reverb to the drums, adding more verb to the guitars at this point with all the effects would probably too extreme.

[Shul]

Hello

For this particular song, anyone will give it their own taste on their mix. I believe most of the mixes on this song will sound good given the magnitude of it. Having said that here are a few observations.

*intro panning on those pads bugs me a Lil bit. The left side sounds with more low end than the right one (listening on studio headphones)
*I feel you left out one set of guitars that is essential for the arrangement of the song. (Feel free to check my mix to see what I'm talking about. There are a few things I still need to fix but I'm sure u will hear the melody.)
*nice grungy bass. Distortion is a bit too much for my taste but that's alright, everyone has different taste.
*there is a resonating freq. On the snare at around 100hz or so. On some parts its too overwhelming for me.
*good balance with what you have.
*I like the overall drum sound here
*the one word that comes to my head when I hear this is "isolation" perhaps that's what the other user mentioned as too under control. It gives me the impression that everything was played in an isolated place.

Anyways.. The mix is good with what you have. Just minor details I pointed out.

All in all this is pretty solid

[dcp10200]

Hello

For this particular song, anyone will give it their own taste on their mix. I believe most of the mixes on this song will sound good given the magnitude of it. Having said that here are a few observations.

*intro panning on those pads bugs me a Lil bit. The left side sounds with more low end than the right one (listening on studio headphones)
*I feel you left out one set of guitars that is essential for the arrangement of the song. (Feel free to check my mix to see what I'm talking about. There are a few things I still need to fix but I'm sure u will hear the melody.)
*nice grungy bass. Distortion is a bit too much for my taste but that's alright, everyone has different taste.
*there is a resonating freq. On the snare at around 100hz or so. On some parts its too overwhelming for me.
*good balance with what you have.
*I like the overall drum sound here
*the one word that comes to my head when I hear this is "isolation" perhaps that's what the other user mentioned as too under control. It gives me the impression that everything was played in an isolated place.

Anyways.. The mix is good with what you have. Just minor details I pointed out.

All in all this is pretty solid

Hi Shul, thanks for the critique, I made some adjustments to my mix and ended up adding reverb to the main dirty guitars, Overheads and HiHats, and boosting the verb on the snare. That resonance on the snare was taken care of with some dynamic eq at 160 Hz.

After listening to your mix I can kind of see where you're coming from however I felt that a more stripped back sound was what this record needed, the big arrangement is nice but I find that alot of the guitars seem to take away from what the bass and drums are doing. Really it's to balance out the arrangement rather than having one particular focus and everything else in the shadows.

The reason why there is more low end on one of the intro guitars is that I used Mic 1 of the first take of intro guitars and mic 2 on the other take. Also Waves NLS, especially on the master section model I used, emulates the inconsistencies and misalignment of the boards that it replicates. The TG console (in the emulation at least) has a tendency when driven to favor one channel to the other and is just part of the sound of that console. I liked the warmth that the board gave to the mix so I just put up with the misalignment and worked from there.

As I mentioned the only reverb used on this record is on the snare and toms, which maybe why there seems like alot of isolation, I went more liberal with the verb on the next mix to see what it sounded like.

[Shul]

I see. And I agree on the different outcomes. Like I said.. This song is big.

Hearing your mix through my studio monitors now and I love your snare man
. awesome reverb work.
Also separation is greatly noticeable. Fits the style you gave it.

Mix 2 sounding better in my opinion.

[dcp10200]

I see. And I agree on the different outcomes. Like I said.. This song is big.

Hearing your mix through my studio monitors now and I love your snare man
. awesome reverb work.
Also separation is greatly noticeable. Fits the style you gave it.

Mix 2 sounding better in my opinion.

Thanks for the reply, I agree, this new version is alot nicer sounding than my first mix. If you're wondering the reverb I used was Waves RVerb on the Plate 1 algorithm with a 1 millisecond decay and an 1176 style compressor to dirty it up.

Cheers,
Dcp