Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Love this song :)
#1
I used to make music that sounded a lot like this back in the 90s Smile So I'm really in love with this song.

Unfortunately I worked with equipment that wasn't as good as the stuff this song is obviously recorded on, so I could never save my own tracks in term of sound-quality.

So with this track I tried to do what I would have liked to do to my own old music (Times have changed in those 20-30 years. Technology is so different now)

Anyway, I aimed for a dry and tight sound on this track.
I don't know what the song is about, as I don't understand Italian, but the song just sounds great to me and I hope my mix-version here carries that over Smile

Lovely track Smile
(I'm sure this band is cool, they sound like it, so getting to work with this song was great. Thanks guys Smile )

Technically I just want to add that I used a plugin of my own design, to balance the kick's wave-form, which I found only used about 2/3 of the full wave-space (It only peaked into one side, which I straightened out so it peaks equally to both sides)
The plugin "Otto" does that. Maybe somebody is interested in such a plugin. In that case you can find it here: https://jelstudio.dk/JELSTUDIO_software.html


.mp3    Cunegonda - \'Guerra Alla Frontiera - JELmix.mp3 --  (Download: 7.08 MB)


Reply
#2
(01-07-2017, 04:34 AM)JEL Wrote: I used to make music that sounded a lot like this back in the 90s Smile So I'm really in love with this song.

Unfortunately I worked with equipment that wasn't as good as the stuff this song is obviously recorded on, so I could never save my own tracks in term of sound-quality.

So with this track I tried to do what I would have liked to do to my own old music (Times have changed in those 20-30 years. Technology is so different now)

Anyway, I aimed for a dry and tight sound on this track.
I don't know what the song is about, as I don't understand Italian, but the song just sounds great to me and I hope my mix-version here carries that over Smile

Lovely track Smile
(I'm sure this band is cool, they sound like it, so getting to work with this song was great. Thanks guys Smile )

Technically I just want to add that I used a plugin of my own design, to balance the kick's wave-form, which I found only used about 2/3 of the full wave-space (It only peaked into one side, which I straightened out so it peaks equally to both sides)
The plugin "Otto" does that. Maybe somebody is interested in such a plugin. In that case you can find it here: https://jelstudio.dk/JELSTUDIO_software.html

Hi there, good sound of guits, bass.

The kick is really disconcerting, in my opinion. The click component of the sound is, I believe too prominent (louder than the snare) and very uneven. Sounds like clipping in the plugin.
I think I understood what the plugin does to the waveform, but to the audio... not sure.

The hard pan of the guits is also disconcerting. In the headset (90% of any listening experience) the bridge riff leaves an hole in the "other" ear.
I would try to glue things up on the guits with a mono amb reverb panned opposite to the guit sound. I would also pan not 100%, say 80% max.

The snare is a little dry, a plate reverb + reverb eq would help also here to beef it up in a controlled way.

Not much to say on voxes, try just a little louder, and try to get some space filling with the aaaah's and mmmmmh's through wider panning.
Just my 2 cents.
cheers!
"... I'm listening. Yes."
from Switzerland
Reply
#3
(03-07-2017, 10:58 PM)Lammy Wrote: Hi there, good sound of guits, bass.

The kick is really disconcerting, in my opinion. The click component of the sound is, I believe too prominent (louder than the snare) and very uneven. Sounds like clipping in the plugin.
I think I understood what the plugin does to the waveform, but to the audio... not sure.

The hard pan of the guits is also disconcerting. In the headset (90% of any listening experience) the bridge riff leaves an hole in the "other" ear.
I would try to glue things up on the guits with a mono amb reverb panned opposite to the guit sound. I would also pan not 100%, say 80% max.

The snare is a little dry, a plate reverb + reverb eq would help also here to beef it up in a controlled way.

Not much to say on voxes, try just a little louder, and try to get some space filling with the aaaah's and mmmmmh's through wider panning.
Just my 2 cents.
cheers!

Thank you Smile

No the kick doesn't distort. The 'klick' is intentional. I've run into a few situations before where I left the kick only in the very deep, which sounds cool on systems with sub-woofers but render the kick 'invisible' on systems that don't go low enough. So it's become a habit to make the kick have an element in a higher frequency-area that would work even if you listen to the song as muzak on a phone-line.

The plugin attempts to balance the positive and negative peak so they extend the same length from the body of the sound. In extreme cases a sound may extend only into the positive or negative space, meaning it can push the speaker-membrane only half its full travel-length. The plugin doesn't really change the sound, but just makes it possible to use the entire travel-length of the speaker-membrane (Allowing a larger dynamic range)

Yes, I did pan the guitars 100%, and you're correct; in headphones it gets quite dramatic when you suddenly lose one side. I really like that effect myself though (Like a brief touch of vertigo and then back on track, I just find such breaks can be stimulating in small doses), but perhaps a reverb could be useful. On loud-speakers the effect is not quite as prominent though.

Yes, the snare is completely dry (With only the little bit of room that bleeds from the overheads). Again a stylistic choice as I didn't want the song to be wet. Obviously we all have different taste, but I don't have good results myself when I 'wetten' up songs like this. I find it takes away from the raw'ness or gritty'ness or grunge'ness and pushes it from 'alternative' over more into indie-styles (Indie-styles, I find, are usually more 'light-weight' than 'alternative'. A bit like sneakers vs boots)
It's kinda hard for me to explain, but it's like it looses its weight a bit when reverbs soften things up. I love reverbs, but just not on this kind of music Smile

You want the vox louder? I was afraid I had placed it too loud already. I noticed in the preview the vox is much more drowned out under the guitars, and I wasn't sure if that was intentional or not.

Yeah the aaaah's and mmmmh's are quite centered, although some of the tracks are panned. I did this so they wouldn't compete with the guitars for width, but rather complement them by mostly only taking up the center (So you have 3 distinct side-ways 'locations' in the image)
I did pan a few tracks though, to make sure the chorus did have SOME width (Really only to separate it from the main vox, which is dead-center, so there was at least a little contrast between lead-vox and chorus)

Thanks a lot for your comments. I will give them some more thought and re-listen to the song later when I've put some distance to it and can hear it with fresh ears again Smile (And maybe re-do the mix, I'm not sure)
Reply
#4
I agree with Lammy, before reading his comment I thought the same thing, the kick sound a little bit strange, and the gap in the guitars is annoying if listened with headphone. You can use some pan automation just in the point when guitars are in solo, if you don't want to use much reverb on the guitar, even though I noticed you have used a delay effect with a long decay on the guitar, I think it is worse in term of definition than using a reverb, to create a little bit of ambience, with a long pre-delay (maybe 28-30ms, in time with the song that is 132bpm) and a short decay time.
That being said, I like your mix! Wink
Reply
#5
(17-09-2017, 09:58 PM)Rob Sidhe Wrote: I agree with Lammy, before reading his comment I thought the same thing, the kick sound a little bit strange, and the gap in the guitars is annoying if listened with headphone. You can use some pan automation just in the point when guitars are in solo, if you don't want to use much reverb on the guitar, even though I noticed you have used a delay effect with a long decay on the guitar, I think it is worse in term of definition than using a reverb, to create a little bit of ambience, with a long pre-delay (maybe 28-30ms, in time with the song that is 132bpm) and a short decay time.
That being said, I like your mix! Wink

Thank you Smile

I will take another look at the kick and see how it sounds now that I've been away from this mix for some time.

There is no delay-fx on the guitars. Just hard-panning.
There is a small reverb on the bass though. Maybe that's what you're hearing?
Reply
#6
Maybe... but surely I don't think it's a good idea to put some reverb on the bass track, usually I insert a high-pass filter on the reverb return just to keep under control low frequencies in the side channel... better to keep the lows of bass and kick in the mid.

Since I'm italian I thought it would be a good idea (hoping I haven't made too many mistakes) to translate the lyric of this killer song:

Cheers! Cool

---------------------

"Guerra alla Frontiera"

Faccia a terra contro il fango
Perdo i nervi con chi sta vomitando
Ho dei feriti da recuperare
E i barellieri non si vogliono alzare

Questa è la guerra alla frontiera
Conto i nemici quando si fa sera
Questa è la guerra alla frontiera
In una tregua qui nessuno ci spera

Hanno tagliato le nostre razioni
Ci sono solo morti dietro ai cannoni
Sento l’odore del gas nervino
Tocco il cianuro che ho nascosto nel taschino

Questa è la guerra alla frontiera
Conto i nemici quando si fa sera
Questa è la guerra alla frontiera
In una tregua qui nessuno ci spera

--------------------------------

"Frontier War"

Get on the ground in the mud
I lose my mind because of those are throwing up
I got to save the injured survivors
And the stretcher-bearer won’t get up

This is the frontier war
Once it’s evening I number my enemies
This is the frontier war
No one hopes in a truce

The cut our food rations
There’s only dead behind the cannons
I can smell the nerve gas
So I touch cyanide in my pocket

This is the frontier war
Once it’s evening I number my enemies
This is the frontier war
No one hopes in a truce


Reply
#7
Thank you for the translation Smile

I don't speak italian, so I wasn't sure about the song's actual meaning.

I will re-visit the mix with this in mind and see if I can make it sound more 'war-desperation' like Smile

And perhaps make the kick deeper too.

The reverb on the bass is only on the high-frequency distortion, so it shouldn't affect the deep end (Which is in the center, where I agree it should be), but I'll see if it needs some adjustment.
Reply