The Inner Circle - Olli H

[Olli H]

I wasn’t so sure what to do, so I decided to make it loud. Not extremely loud, but loud enough to hide the biggest shortcomings of my view.

[thedon]

Hi Olli,
I like your mix ,sounds nice and clean ( I'm still working on cleaning up mine ) the electric guitar that plays along with the bass sounds a touch harsh around 3-4k area could be jumping over the vocals just a touch ?
Just a thought while listening !
Well Done !

[Dangerous]

Generally a great sounding Olli. I would have to agree with Don with the harshness, Most noticeable on my mid-rangy monitors. It seems to start with the left guitar and creeps into the other guitars as the mix intensifies. For me, I found using a saturation plugin on the guitars helped control this. Massey's TapeHead work wonders and is very natural sounding.

Well Done,

Dave

[Olli H]

Thanks Don and Dave, I'll check those issues. And I also must check soon what others have done and comment some of them...

Massey's TapeHead is my favorite saturation plugin. I've tried to find a replacement for it, but I almost always end up using it.

[Olli H]

New version. Touched almost everything. At the moment I think it's better, but tomorrow I may change my mind.

[Dangerous]

Listening this time round with headphones I can't really fault anything. You have certainly brought some extra clarity into this mix. This has helped with the snare and has made the guitars more defined and present.
I think good listening breaks might be the key to mixing this one. I found the fatigue kicked in pretty quickly

Dave

[loweche6]

I think 2 is definitely a lot stronger, but I agree with Spontanious, the vox do sound a bit up front and dry. Maybe a little delay, a little verb for some depth? And the snare is a touch up front, I think I agree that the snare bottom could come down a bit.

The levels across sections is pretty good! You have a nice energy build throughout the song.

However, I will say there is some harshness in the guitars at higher volumes, mainly when they are distorted. I remember I had to low pass the guitars a lot more than I more than I normally would. There also may be some phase issues with the gits. I'm not sure, but they seem to kind of come in and out sometimes.

Maybe the whole thing is compressed a little too much? I dunno, I'm in an odd mood, so it could be me.

Nice work so far! Just a little more work and it'll be awesome!

Cheers
Draper

[Olli H]

Thanks for all for comments with vision. I'll have a week’s break with this one, and then I'll check vox and snare and other issues.

However, I will say there is some harshness in the guitars at higher volumes, mainly when they are distorted. I remember I had to low pass the guitars a lot more than I more than I normally would. There also may be some phase issues with the gits. I'm not sure, but they seem to kind of come in and out sometimes.

Distortion is one of my weak points, must practice it more. (During the time when I still had 10 quick fingers instead of these slowly moving 10 sausages, I didn’t use any distortion in my guitar playing.) The distortion amount is automated currently, partly by accident, partyl conciously. I must check it.

I’m glad you noticed the in-out movement with guitars. It was not phase-issue. I was testing Reapers parameter modulation. I wanted to try it but I didn’t come up with any ideas what to create with it, so it was just gain parameter that I was changing with left and right guitars. So when left goes down, right comes up and vice versa. And that pumping happens rhythmically every seocnd beat. I added it quite much just to hear it properly, and I wasn’t sure whether to like it or not. I'm still trying to find my opinion about that effect.

Maybe the whole thing is compressed a little too much? I dunno, I'm in an odd mood, so it could be me.

Yes, that’s for sure. It’s too much now. Currently I’m trying to learn to make musical movement with compressors. I’m not using them to make it louder, but to shape the tone and ambience. I’m adding pretty heavy doses just to be able to hear the effect a bit clearer. I don’t believe in using plugins if I don’t hear them doing anything to the sound. When I someday learn to use and hear it better, I will not use it so drastically.

Also the master compressor-limiter is working too hard with purpose. I want to learn to hear and use master buss effects. If a mix with preserved dynamics is balanced well, it can be quite often made pretty loud - if wanted - in mastering phase. If there’s a badly balanced mix with huge dynamics, typically it cannot be made loud (=typical commercial level of the chosen genre) without too audible side effects. So currently I’m testing the balances of my mix with my ”pseudo mastering”.
Maybe someday we have two separete slots for our mixes, unmastered mix and mastered louder version.

[loweche6]

Thanks so much for your explanation and reasoning! It all makes sense! Thanks for taking to time to comment on my mix as well!

With regards to using an effect until you hear it working, what I started doing was bringing the effect high enough to hear it, then pulling it back by 5-10%. I may not have heard it originally, but I think that has helped me train myself to hearing some of the mor subtle effects. I'm nowhere near perfect, but it has definitely made it easier for me to identify lower level effects.

Cheers,
Draper