Qupe-Eurovision challengers

[The_Metallurgist]

some nice energy in the arrangement, but i changed some of it because of congestion and a need for some creative sonic interest - yeah, i know it's a taste thing. one of those areas has a resonance on the end of a guitar passage which i kept forgetting to dose down having cranked it up @4:00

the original song was banging too hard for too long, an issue in the arrangement as i saw it. music is about contrasts....this song needed it too so part of my main vision was to find some and work it.

there's no room for compression in their multi; - 4dBLU is unhelpful and detrimental to audio quality and ultimately the listener's enjoyment - music is about dynamics, not loudness,...an all too common problem in the Library, in my opinion FWIW, and throughout the forum's posts generally. i thought their EQ was weird too and we also had to contend with printed automation. it's frustrating, indeed irritating because i know it's no effort to pull the processors down, set faders to udent and simply print the virgin. the trouble is, once someone puts the wrong compression on something, it sucks for ever...all the way through the production processes. at least if the ME puts the wrong compression on something at least he/she can go back later and change it.

one of the problems this compression thing brings with it, is that it makes it difficult placing instruments in the depth field, and it also prevents us from adding glue without risking yet more dynamic loss and audio quality degradation. instruments want to shout, all of them, and when they aren't allowed to shout, a simple attenuation of 0.5dB and the thing disappears off a cliff into a lifeless, limp sack of emotion.

despite the issues, enjoyed mixing this one. found it refreshing not touching a compressor!! but let's be clear, this isn't mixing!!!

thanks for the upload...but go easy on the compressors next time, eh? when i was about half way through hacking, i got the feeling it would make a worthy Eurovision Song Contest entry with some fettling

now crank it up and see what drops out!
thanks for listening.

[The_Metallurgist]

..........it would also help if the acoustic guitar had new strings

[Rufete]

Congrats! even with the changes and add ons it sounds clearer and more natural than most of our mixes, so obviously you got what you wanted. from my pint of view it's worthy to listen this mix and learn from it.

Regards!

[thedon]

Hi Dave ,
Love your mix sounds well balanced especially like the dynamics and creative effects as usual which took me on a journey through the song ,which has inspired me to start all over again.
Wondering what monitors and room you used to mix on as sounds punchy and well balanced my monitors the vocals and snare piano sound a touch boosted around the 300-1k area and the electric guitar around the 2-3karea.

Cheers

[The_Metallurgist]

Congrats! even with the changes and add ons it sounds clearer and more natural than most of our mixes, so obviously you got what you wanted. from my pint of view it's worthy to listen this mix and learn from it.

Regards!

thanks Rufete for dropping by and taking a listen and for the lines of encouragement. i look forward to hearing your mix shortly to see how you approached it.

laters,,,
BigDave

[Cudjoe]

Liking the originality and the clarity of your mix man!

[The_Metallurgist]

Liking the originality and the clarity of your mix man!

thanks for dropping by. glad you liked it, there was quite a bit of work here.

looking forward to listening to yours shortly.

keep fit.

[The_Metallurgist]

the vocals and snare piano sound a touch boosted around the 300-1k area and the electric guitar around the 2-3karea.

thanks for dropping by Don, and for your feedback. i've outlined some basic settings, as follows, which might help or hinder!

LV:
no boosts other than 2dB gain, Q3 at 1760Hz which was a sweet spot for the vocal clarity. there's actually a cut(!!) around 800Hz of -2dB, Q3 to clear a bit of honkiness i didn't like

SN:
only boost on the snare was a tickle at 5kHz - sweet spot for definition; miles away from the 300-1000Hz area though.

Piano:
i've used 2 different EQ configurations in my mix but neither's boosted in the region you've noted.

EGtr:
there's no boost at 2-3kHz, at least not directly


does this help?
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[Dangerous]

Hey Big Dave,
Firstly I would have to agree with things aforementioned here. I have not explored the raw multi's with this track as of yet and listening to this against other mixes here, I get a good clear view of all the elements within and the highlighted parts through out.

Now for something that is troubling me I have taken the time to listen to this over the last couple of days on several different playback devices and based on the style of song that it is, I'm feeling a slight lack of intensty and punch throughout . I feeling that if was sitting in front of this as an open session in my DAW, I would be reaching for some extra parallel comp prehaps and some sort of extra parallel drum processing. Listening to some of your other mixes posted here, this mix seems to be a stand out for me in this regard. I have found this interesting and it has certainly challenged my thought process as to how to tackle this particular track. Please note, this is more of an observation than a criticism and I'm very much interested on your thoughts with this. Your knowledge and passion for all things sound far exceed that of myself.

I am a lover of great dynamics myself (I think we all are whether we know it or not) I strive to get that balance sonically right when I mix although as I've said before I tend to be technically ignorant as far as meters and numbers go. I must admit, I find listening to an older recording of any genre nowadays compared to lets say, the latest Foo Fighters release more enjoyable and much easier on the ears. To be honest Joe Daniels and his hot shots on a Parlophone 78 still excites me in a crazy way and despite the limitations with these early recordings I find that they are still sonically very pleasing to the ear.
Maybe it's just a tolerance thing as we get older.

Thanks for the content.

Dave

[The_Metallurgist]

I'm feeling a slight lack of intensty and punch throughout . I feeling that if was sitting in front of this as an open session in my DAW, I would be reaching for some extra parallel comp prehaps and some sort of extra parallel drum processing.

lack of intensity???? thank goodness for that! it's normal

garbage in, garbage out. that sounds critical, not very complementary, but that's what we have here - it's hypercompressed stock. typical of hypercompression comes a loss of intensity and punch. the trouble is, once intensity has been removed, it can't be put back. there's no magical VST plugin for the task. the only solution is "PREVENTION".

we have minimal dynamic range left in the stock material.

it is possible to add yet more compression to the remaining dynamic and pummel the living daylights out of it, but we only end up deluding ourselves that it makes a more impactful mix. what it will do, however, is make it even louder....at the cost of those lost dynamics. some might think it sounds better, because loud is perceived better. if you want crap to sound good, just turn it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i think i mentioned it above, but will do so again....it's important:

when i set up the project, rough balanced, no processing, i got -12LUFS PL. that's a pathetic 12dB of dynamic left before we even touch it. this sort of value would normally be seen AFTER MASTERING....and even this would be considered fairly hot in today's anti loudness environment. played on iTunes radio, or most modern streaming delivery mechanism, it would be turned down by at least 5.5dB against a dynamic mix. it doesn't take any imagination to consider the negative impact this would have when drawing a comparison after loudness matching. for the band or musician pursuing loudness advantages......they lose. AND IT ISN'T EVEN MIXED YET! repeat: Program Loudness -12LUFS for the project.

i will also add, that i wouldn't mind betting the compression they deployed had completely the wrong parameters - nothing sounded good to me despite being 24bit? you don't upload songs for others to mix that is over compressed like this, or contains automation for that matter, unless you're ignorant of the mixing process, or simply bone idle and can't be arsed to switch it off before the print. their EQ was wild too which suggests their listening environment was far from optimised....which won't help when hearing the compressors outcome. i've no idea how this multi came about, but it doesn't really matter. what does matter is how we understand what confronts us and that's been my main focus....i don't want to put anyone down, nor do i wish to. but i am frustrated nevertheless. this could be a super song to mix otherwise....and shape with tasteful compression, etc etc. But we can't, it's been denied us. so, we just gotta try and make do with what we've got - and learn something from it.

we need to be able to differentiate between compressed material and dynamic material before working on it. without this awareness, it will lead to the wrong decisions being made in the vision. the common situation is that we take the material, drop a compressor on it, and aim for the kind of reduction we always aim for....unaware that the source has already had about 20dB taken out of it dynamically....and the 2-4dB of dynamic reduction we dial in (or more as is often the case) as a percentage of what dynamic remains, is actually crippling it completely. and because it will sound louder, we engage it as a positive. it isn't. music is about dynamics, not loudness. if we aren't careful, we simply end up with a noise on top of a drum beat.

i'm having a bit of a rant about this at the moment, to be honest, because i'm sick of the loudness war which invades this forum. there's a post you should read which goes to show how much ignorance actually exists here, and how loudness impresses, especially when it has a name to it (suckers!):

http://discussion.cambridge-mt.com/showt...3#pid34743

by the way, this is not the place for parallel compression! you need dynamics to begin with, and we have none left to play with. but this project brings some valuable learning points, and i think the fact that you've raised what you have shows you're thinking and not simply going around in circles. full credit and respect to you for that. but have a go with a vision and see what comes out......explore for yourself.

i'm not saying that compression is bad, it's only bad in the hands of the ignorant - which nearly always results in excess. and it's bad where there's not enough dynamic available in the first place to validate it's deployment - other than the fact its a SlaterMaterWangerLaterMutator and we just gotta use it on something! lol

as they say,"When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

I have found this interesting and it has certainly challenged my thought process as to how to tackle this particular track.

excellent!

but don't only think about it with this song....it's a general problem in the Library. it's not hard to find them....but it's hard to find a dynamic one which truly exploits the 24bit domain. in the old days of tracking to tape, it needed to be a hot signal in order to achieve a decent signal-to-noise ratio. with 144dB of dynamic range today in the digital domain, things are different, or should be.

Please note, this is more of an observation than a criticism and I'm very much interested on your thoughts with this.

no worries Dave, the forum exists primarily for such opportunities. without thinking, there can be no learning.....and you are dead right to bring the subject up.

I am a lover of great dynamics myself (I think we all are whether we know it or not) I strive to get that balance sonically right when I mix although as I've said before I tend to be technically ignorant as far as meters and numbers go. I must admit, I find listening to an older recording of any genre nowadays compared to lets say, the latest Foo Fighters release more enjoyable and much easier on the ears. To be honest Joe Daniels and his hot shots on a Parlophone 78 still excites me in a crazy way and despite the limitations with these early recordings I find that they are still sonically very pleasing to the ear.

it's quite possible that the 78 shellac has more dynamic range than most CD's printed since 1995 - and even this multitrack!!!!! mp3 also wasn't designed to be used with hypercompressed, 0dB clipping, over distorted, highly dense arrangements, but the Industry has sought to gain additional perceived loudness advantage from this too. everyone, for example, brickwall limits here to 0dB, which is just another loudness war hangover. but they dial it in without even thinking about what they are doing, or being aware of the problems perhaps because they can't hear it themselves. heck, i've done it myself....we are all born naked, eh? whatever, it's a problem.....and it's not going away until people understand and then start doing things themselves. only then can there be progress.

my first taste of dynamics was when my audiophile father brought home a rather expensive Bang and Olufson rig and wired up his Spendors and dropped the stylus into the groove of a John Barry album. i nearly wet my pants. that was decades ago....so my Terms of Reference come from credible experiences! and at the ripe age of 77, he's still messing around with gear so he can engage the music. i share his passion, but not always his taste, lol.

Maybe it's just a tolerance thing as we get older.

it isn't, hold on to your values at all costs! THERE IS NOTHING GOOD ABOUT AUDIO THAT HAS LESS DYNAMICS THAN AN EDISON CYLINDER FROM 1900. caps for emphasis of the ludicrous situation we find ourselves in today......no thanks to the Industry nor the people who are still influenced and conditioned by it today. in this forum too.

Thanks for the content.

thanks for your contribution to the discussion. many will be thinking along the same lines as yourself too, i have no doubt.




i wish others would help take up the mantle, it's a bit lonely out here and i'm typing my arse off and not getting paid for it!
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