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Colour Me Red - my mix
#11
Quote:...This might have to do with my particular monitors but I hear a couple harsh resonances on a couple words in the vocals. Particularly the first time he says "Red" and stretches the word out. I had to automate an EQ cut on my mix around 3500hz on a couple parts, but like I said, might be my setup. Nice mix!...

Thanks a lot Dave, great tip, haven´t noticed it before but it seems very clear now! I´ll fix this, maybe with a dynamic EQ notch, probably also with an EQ after the vocal delay since it seems to build up on stretched out notes like you said.
Cheers,
Herb






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#12
Solid balance here

The only thing I see wrong from my perspective is the lack of body in the guitars. It sounds like you took a lot of the mids out.
For example if we take the bass as reference and compare how that works with guitars, the guitars are really thin sounding.
So if I mute the bass track the overall mix will have no mid base to stand on.

I could be wrong.. maybe the brights are enhanced and it's making me feel like some mids are missing.


anyways this is a taste thing i supposed because I overdid it the mids in my mix but I honestly feel like this is lacking in that area..
everything else is good.
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#13
I like your adventurous effect "tails" that you added for vocal punctuation.
Although they seem a little out of body from the song as a whole.

I noticed that the far sides of your mix are subdued. Maybe you did some mid/side eqing on your reverb or overall mix but your stereo field is shrunk regardless of what happened. As a result you mix is very centered.

That being said, I like you mix because it's punchy and in your face and the only thing I would like to hear is more depth.

Cheers.
My Original Music

"One often learns more from ten days of agony than ten years of contentment."

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#14
(19-11-2016, 09:34 PM)Shul Wrote: Solid balance here

The only thing I see wrong from my perspective is the lack of body in the guitars. It sounds like you took a lot of the mids out.
For example if we take the bass as reference and compare how that works with guitars, the guitars are really thin sounding.
So if I mute the bass track the overall mix will have no mid base to stand on.

I could be wrong.. maybe the brights are enhanced and it's making me feel like some mids are missing.


anyways this is a taste thing i supposed because I overdid it the mids in my mix but I honestly feel like this is lacking in that area..
everything else is good.

Hey Shul, thanks for the comment, appreciate it!

Now, I guess it´s an actively discussed topic how much low mids you allow to reside in your mixes. And since this is also a highly subjective one like you said there are of course no "rules" that anyone has to follow. Like we discussed your mix is more on the warmer mid heavy side, so assuming you are used to the sound your own mix a lot obviously other mixes may seem to lack those qualities even more.
So for me when in doubt I like to reference my mixes to pro level mixes a lot and see what´s going on there in terms of frequency content. And when you do that you will see that there is a very strong tendency to slim and crisp low end and low mids to gain overall clarity, so I would rather be geared to that and I´m pretty sure I´m not too far off, at least in terms of overall tonality. Not claiming to be able to compete with the top level guys of course, but we all try our best...

Thanks again!
Herb

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#15
(20-11-2016, 02:30 PM)wesleyamltd Wrote: I like your adventurous effect "tails" that you added for vocal punctuation.
Although they seem a little out of body from the song as a whole.

I noticed that the far sides of your mix are subdued. Maybe you did some mid/side eqing on your reverb or overall mix but your stereo field is shrunk regardless of what happened. As a result you mix is very centered.

That being said, I like you mix because it's punchy and in your face and the only thing I would like to hear is more depth.

Cheers.

Thanks Wesley, you´re probably right and I could work on my vocal delays a bit more.
Now your comment on the stereo field is interesting. I personally have the impression the mix is actually sounding quite wide since i created a doubled track (different performances copied from other parts of the song to be exact) for the electrics and panned them left/right which typically has a wide sounding effect. I believe I didn´t pan them all the way to 100% though since personally I find it easier to listen to on headphones when not panned out completely. Maybe I could also widen the drum overheads / drum room a bit to fill up the stereo field more, gotta check that...
Cheers,
Herb
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#16
(18-11-2016, 10:40 AM)Herb Felho Wrote: Mixinthecloud, i really like how you analyze the mixes here from a more psychological point of view. Often times that´s exactly what a mixer needs to hear as an advice since in this business there´s so many things that can distract from what really matters when fiddling around forever. I think you caught me on that one, i dialed in some of the echo effects real quickly for example, kinda liked it and went on to the next thing. I could have spent more time here for sure and really "finish my thoughts" like you expressed it.
Hope my english could transmit what i wanted to say here, not always easy for me...
Thanks mate!

Your communication skills are just fine, Herb. Interesting comment about the consideration of psychological aspects of music and mixing. I consider commercial aspects as well. Truthfully, there are all kinds of influences on mixes by anyone. In this free-form environment without encumbrances from 'the client', we have no limits or constraints, just those which are established by our individual experiences and perspectives (and skills). Also, there are no time restraints or budget restraints either. That can make for a very different approach when you are getting paid to do this. This freedom gives the opportunity to reflect upon the repercussion and affect mixing and content decisions have on the perception of the music. In that area, we do have significant influence. This song has an hypnotic and pulsing rhythm to it which we can either accentuate or diminished as we see fit, irrespective of the wants or intents of the artist. The same thing can be said about the tonal content. Part of the challenge of mixing artists you have no relationship or contact with is trying to divine the artistic intent of the performance as a whole and the individual parts within the composition. Getting into the artist's and performer's heads is a real challenge. When recordings present themselves which have significant low-mid content (such as these tracks), the first thing I have to say is, 'is this tonal content reflective of the artistic ideas of the artist or is it an artifact of the recording process? All I have is ears, years and intuition to assist in that decision. Thankfully, that is a fertile valley to hew from.
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#17
Just listened to version two: well, you're preaching to the choir on that banjo, because I think it's a great part in this song, and also works very well in the intro as well, so I'm certainly not going to question that arrangement call. Overall, this is another almost punk-flavoured interpretation, which is an approach I rather like, as it emphasises the inherent aggression of the lead vocal performance. I wonder whether you might have overplayed the 2kHz region, though, as there's a slightly telephoney edge to the tone. This doesn't help with the backing vocals, which really hit this range hard and feel a bit piercing as a result.

A touch less 150-200Hz overall as well, perhaps? It's mostly the bass that feels slightly too porky there, so maybe it could simply be a dip on that channel required. Overall I love the attitude here, and it all holds together within that concept -- the heavily compressed drums, the electrics-heavy balance, the hairy vocal tone. The vocal treatment is particularly nice in that it really brings out his performance character, so nice job there, although I wonder whether you could have 'hardened' the sound a little more to compete better with such hard-edged guitars. In terms of effects, I like what you've done -- there's great blend and that delay spin in the Mid-section is nicely placed.

As with some of the other mixes, I think maybe the acoustic guitar transients are undermining your 'band turned up to 11' illusion here -- maybe just dial in a touch of transient reduction there. (I seem to remember you're a Reaper user, in which case, try Reaper's JS Transient Controller, which works well for this.)

One thing that niggles slightly is (I'm guessing) the action of your buss compression, which feels like it's unduly ducking the backing in response to the lead vocal. Check out the end of Verse 3, for instance, and how the track seems to suddenly bump up in level when the vocal finishes (around 1:48). And then you really seem to lose impact at the start of Verse 4 when the vocal ducks the backing level again. I have nothing against the healthy vocal level in the mix, but I think it might be worth controlling it a little more on the channel, rather than relying as much on the buss compression for that purpose. Admittedly, this kind of thing can be complicated to deal with in practice -- in fact, this is one of the reasons people sometimes use multi-buss mix processing, so that they can keep the main buss compressor pumping away on the backing-track without it excessively catching the lead vocal.

I do like this version a lot, though -- bags of attitude, but still well controlled where it matters. Thanks for posting, Herb!
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#18
Nice mix Herb!

I really like the distorted delay on the vocals, it adds a really cool vibe. And I like your overall balances, but I do hear a few things. The guitars seem a little heavy in the mids. It feels like there is an overall buildup of mid with in the guitar parts, so try and bring 1k-2k down a bit. . When the vox really get going, it can be a little overemphasized. Maybe the overall buss can be processed a little less, or if you have the option, lower the compressor wet mix if you have a wet/dry option on your plug or DAW. I think that will help mitigate the areas that are overloading.

I think if you clear out the guitars a bit, your mix will sharpen pretty quickly.

Nice work so far!

Draper
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#19
(22-11-2016, 10:25 PM)Mike Senior Wrote: Just listened to version two....

Thanks for the critique Mike, some really good points for me to work on for the final version. After spending a week or so with the mix and listening on some other speakers and environments some of the piercing frequencies catched my ears as well. Have to take a closer look at my main listening system I guess. I have the suspicion it´s a little to forgiving in that frequency region...
One other thing that could also be a problem: I realized i set the ceiling on the limiter to -0,3 dB which could be a bit too close to 0 for mp3 mastering. Feels like the mix is slightly distorting at the louder sections due to intersample peaks?
Anyway, the good news here for me is, these issues should be realtively easy to correct...
Thanks!
Herb
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#20
(23-11-2016, 02:46 AM)loweche6 Wrote: Nice mix Herb!

I really like the distorted delay on the vocals, it adds a really cool vibe. And I like your overall balances, but I do hear a few things. The guitars seem a little heavy in the mids. It feels like there is an overall buildup of mid with in the guitar parts, so try and bring 1k-2k down a bit. . When the vox really get going, it can be a little overemphasized. Maybe the overall buss can be processed a little less, or if you have the option, lower the compressor wet mix if you have a wet/dry option on your plug or DAW. I think that will help mitigate the areas that are overloading.

I think if you clear out the guitars a bit, your mix will sharpen pretty quickly.

Nice work so far!

Draper

Hey Draper,
thanks for your thoughts! Really helpful to hear other opinions, especially the tonality issue in the mid region is getting more seizable now as others mentioned that as well. Already learned a lot here on the forum, also about probable weaknesses of my listening system. Definitely points that are on my to-do list now...
Thanks!
Herb
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