Diesel13 - Colour Me Red - First draft mix!!

[idearden]

Dear all

Still trying to work out how this posting process works!!

Hopefully the first draft of my mix is attached!!

Mixed in PT, mainly using the new iZotope Neutron plug-in, plus Nectar for the vocals & a few other bits and pieces.

Cheers

Ian D

[johnfueston]

Good first draft mix.
If I were to give some criticism I would say increase the volume of the electric guitars- they are a little buried.
The effects on the guitar feedback at the end of the song sound interesting in and of themselves, but stick out a little too noticeably from the rest of the mix.
I hope those comments were helpful.
Happy mixing!

[idearden]

Thanks johnfueston.
Have posted an updated mix, taking on board your very helpful critique, and making a few other adjustments as well.
I now have the masking/inverse EQ aspects of iZotope Neutron better figured out.
Have adjusted relative volumes of drums cf bass.
Have reduced the feedback guitar level (the effect was increasing levels of delay & reverb, and panning from centre to sides).
Electric guitars now much more "present" in mix (volume & EQ).
Cheers

Ian D

[Mike Senior]

Listened to you version three mix and you're got a nice cohesion on the drums here, plus I like the way they fit together with the electric guitars in particular. Certainly, the groove skips along very nicely, which is a good sign in terms of the balance of the rhythm section, and I like the gutsy attitude of the mix as a whole. Careful with the low end of the toms, though, which seems to boom out on that big fill at the end of Verse 4. As with a lot of the mixes for this multitrack, I reckon you might get a fuller low-end sound by adding more fundamental to the bass guitar, and I'd probably also cut a bit of 150-200Hz on the kick, bass, and/or electric guitars, where you're getting a frequency build-up that's making things seem a bit muddy.

The other culprit in terms of subjective muddiness, though, is the lead vocal, which seems very veiled tonally, especially by contrast with things like the cymbals, acoustic guitars, and banjo. A 2-3dB of EQ cut around 250Hz on the lead vocal would probably help straight away, I reckon, allowing you to pull the track up further in the balance for a more upfront overall effect. I also wonder whether some slightly more stereo effects might help glue it in with the wide drums/guitars better, as well as giving it a bit more of a sense of 'air'. A bit of a boost to the mix overall in the top octave of the spectrum might also open it up in general (I'd try at least 3-4dB up above 10 kHz, although you might want to rein in the acoustic guitar transients a little in that case, to avoid them sounding too plasticky.

I wonder whether you could make more of the clean guitar parts that arrive in the Mid-sections. At the moment they seem a little bit apologetic, where I think they could be a much more active source of arrangement variation and section definition. There also seems to be something slightly dissonant going on in this section too, and I wonder whether it's related to some processing on those parts or the Rhodes. Listen at 2:16, under "...taste, and everything's the..." -- it's like there's an E natural pitched resonance being added to that Cm chord somewhere, which feels odd. (I've quickly bounced this out for illustration, and I've also bounced out a version with a 656Hz notch that removes it, again just to illustrate what I'm hearing -- see the attachments to this post.)

Hope some of that's helpful, and thanks for posting!

[idearden]

Mike
Thanks so much for that detailed and thoughtful analysis!!

Now I can't wait to get home and into my studio so I can tackle the various issues you've raised!!

Cheers

Ian D

[idearden]

This version of the mix seeks to respond (hopefully effectively) to Mike's extraordinarily helpful and insightful critique. In particular I hope i haven't created too many other problems in the process!!

Best wishes to all the other participants - you inspire me with your thoughtful, and often startingly different contributions!!

Cheers

Ian D