Magician's Nephew - Get Out Of Bed [OctoOnFire]

[OctopusOnFire]

Main post updated with version 2. Now I really need opinions to help me evaluate if the adjustments worked or not.

[FytaKyte]

Main post updated with version 2. Now I really need opinions to help me evaluate if the adjustments worked or not.

It's still not working that well for me - still sounds pretty harsh in the top end & the drums are lacking punch.

I'd be interested to know what sort of sonic ballpark you're aiming for - do you have any references in mind?

[OctopusOnFire]

I'd be interested to know what sort of sonic ballpark you're aiming for - do you have any references in mind?

I was using "Get Free" from The Vines during mixing to readjust my ears, mostly because of the aggressive sound of that song. It has a lot of energy in the mids (not so much on the hi-mids) and still sounds pleasing. but I'm afraid it's due to the tone of the guitars and the voices. It's a great mix, and that's obviously a factor.
I've been also listening to Mastodon's Emperor Of Sand, which has INSANELY distorted drums, just to see if I could go for something similar (considering the different genres, ofc). BTW, the drums seem to have "zero" punch at some parts of this album, It's weird and even some would say wrong, but I dunno, it got my attention. Check 'Scorpion Breath' or some sections of 'Clandestinity' and let me know what you think.

Could you be more specific about that harshness? like, where is it coming mostly from? The voice, the quitars or drums, the center or the sides...? Is it top top end or more around 5-7KHz?

Listening back I see that I could rebalance some things, like bringing the kick forward. Probably the snare could have a little more 200Hz now, too.

[FytaKyte]

I was using "Get Free" from The Vines during mixing to readjust my ears, mostly because of the aggressive sound of that song. It has a lot of energy in the mids (not so much on the hi-mids) and still sounds pleasing. but I'm afraid it's due to the tone of the guitars and the voices. It's a great mix, and that's obviously a factor.
I've been also listening to Mastodon's Emperor Of Sand, which has INSANELY distorted drums, just to see if I could go for something similar (considering the different genres, ofc). BTW, the drums seem to have "zero" punch at some parts of this album, It's weird and even some would say wrong, but I dunno, it got my attention. Check 'Scorpion Breath' or some sections of 'Clandestinity' and let me know what you think.

Yeah, for me, I think The Vines mix is a good one to reference for this style. There is a lot of nice punch to the drums

The Mastadon mix I'm not so keen on, so this may be partially a taste thing. To my ears, it's pretty much a big angry ball of distortion without a lot of definition... and true enough, the drums are lacking in transient punch too.

Here's the thing though: The Vines mix has relatively sparse instrumentation, so there is room for the drums to punch through. Whereas in the Mastondon mix, the guitars and bass are this big, dense, fuzzy wall of sound that hogs pretty much all of the frequency spectrum, so there is little real estate for the impact of the drums. Basically all that is poking through is the sustain portion of the drum hits, which kind of makes sense in that context (even though it wouldn't be my solution to that mix issue).

On the other hand, The Magicians Nephew track is even much sparser than The Vines track - a good percentage of the time, it's only drums bass and vocals, so there is definitely room for the transients to punctuate the mix and be heard...

Ultimately, I guess in the end it's down to an aesthetic question, but on a slightly less subjective level the fairly uncontrolled sustain on the snare drum is messing with the rhythm of the track to my ears - somewhat like a too-long reverb tail can do.

Could you be more specific about that harshness? like, where is it coming mostly from? The voice, the quitars or drums, the center or the sides...? Is it top top end or more around 5-7KHz?

I'm hearing it mainly in the drums and the vocals & yes, around that 5-7k range. Specifically the cymbals and hihats on the drums are suffering from compression-induced distortion. One way to combat that when you are "smashing" room mics is to shelve down the high end of the room mics.

Regarding the vocals, because the vocalist has quite a peaky voice around the 6k mark, the additional distortion in the top end tends to add to the harshness.

Overall, I'm hearing too much mids and high mids, with your low mids really scooped around the 400-600hz mark.

When I downloaded your mp3 and did some quick and dirty eq moves with your mix by shelving some highs above 12k, cutting some high mids at 3.7k & 7.2k & boosting fairly broadly and significantly around 590hz, I started to hear some transients on the drums again! I could hear that lovely "boing-y" trashy sounding hyper-compressed snare and it really suits the track!... maybe it's mainly a case of too much "smiley-face" eq!

[kapu]

thanks for feedback. took a listen at the second mix, and also that mastodon record mentioned. dont know, how much time and effort you're putting on this, but the mastodon record (at least the track show yourself) seems to back its main drum punch between 100-200Hz, with nice lofi distortion. and even though the bass sounds low tuned/5-string, they/the mix/master is taking very little if any use of the lowest octave for the 'main band groove'. to counter this, the average high frequency energy starts to gently roll of also relatively soon, at around 4-5kHz. with only hints of higher frequency transients, mainly from ride cymbal, and lead vocal sibilances to keep them 'in front of things'. but from the very beginning, for me, the pedal hihat/and/or/shaker/tambourine kind of 'ruins' it by being very present at the 10k-ish area, even though it doesnt sound harsh. at least my brain start to call for 'complementary' musical information at the sub bass octave, if there is musical energy in the highest audible octave, and vice versa. but at least my, and from personal the average, brain seems to tolarate sub bass with lack of highs better, than the other way around. but in overall, i think the mastodon records has a nice appeal to it with it's smashy sound.

so, if you're after that kind of sound, you could try constraining (pre-filter) the overal frequency range of drums, and 'energize' them with some type of clipping/saturation, as you mentioned earlier. the lead vocal (source track) seems to also have some nasty high frequency ringing, i think somewhere between 7-10k-ish, which would require similar type tricks. i honestly dont know how to fix that without really mufflying and/or blend distorting the vocals, but seems to be a result of loud vocals tracked with large diaphram condenser microphones and 'clean' or 'non-coloring' preamps. it seems to be present in pretty much all mixes here, mine included, and seems to make the highs sound somewhat 'harsh' when combined with the constant cymbal spanking.

but you seem to know your trade, so just keep in mind people rarely appreciate 'separation' or 'clarity', 'high air' etc when mixing dense high energy stuff. in fact, the resulting reactions can be quite the opposite when trying to mix it 'clean', perhaps bringing up flaws in musicianship, performances, source track tones and so on, or the track sounds just boring and unexciting. and if you bring up the fact that this it how it actually sounds when mixed 'properly', that's when you start destroying your own career. in dense stuff, the nice bright-/tightness of guitars could come from when combined with drum transients/cymbals, and the 'defined low mids' from combining snare, guitars and bass. even if the individual tracks end up sounding somewhat non-optimal, and guitars might be off time and so on. not saying i did any better job with the mix, or there would be any significant 'no-show' issues with the source tracks, but if you're after the mastodon sound for example, your mix sounds like you're perhaps trying to make individual elements 'better' than in the reference, when, at least for me, the 'goodness' of the mastodon record seems to come from the 'forgiving' sound of the entire mix, and my brain start to fill in the gaps for what actually isn't there. ^_^

[Deliza]

V1 is a little more fun, feels looser and has more air. Also, bass is warmer (though yes, a little boomy) and the low end on guitars fill space better. Harshness and fatigue are very personal, but I don't think it's much of an issue with your mix. The hi part of the spectre may lack definition or clarity but this not acid jazz, it's supposed to be messy!

I wish I had more technical advice to give, but it's likely you know a lot more than I do. Está de puta madre.

[OctopusOnFire]

@kapu Thanks, I share most of your feelings about the Mastodon record, especially the remark about the tambourine. It actually pissed me off to the point I stopped listening to that record for months after purchasing for full retail price. I won't go deeper into my love-hate relationship with this album ^^". I'm not specifically after the sound of it, just getting inspiration from these extremely mangled drums and see where can I take it, considering the different overall character of Mastodon and this song we're mixing, ofc.
The sound I envision is loud, open, larger than life and also "silky" for lack of a better term. I want the listener to picture them playing in a hangar or a canyon, or in the eye of a hurricane. The words from your last paragraph really resonate with me when I think about this. That ability to make all the elements interact wildly and push some of them to the limit, but achieving a 'forgiving' sound (which I identify as smooth and contained). I know my craft much less than I'd like, so this is what I came up with (still, I'm very happy and proud about it! )

I don't think I'll start it all over again, but I'll eventually go back to it and do some more adjustments from the feedback I'm getting.


@Deliza I really welcome all the technical feedback, it helps a lot. But I also really want to know what people FEEL about my mix. Gracias!

[OctopusOnFire]

New Version after a couple weeks away from this. Snare is back, and the whole mix is a tad less harsh. Let me know what you think!

[FytaKyte]

Liking the new snare on the latest version - nice improvement!

[axxessdenied]

Sounds pretty good overall. I like the grind on the bass m/ I think I would rebalance the mix a bit personally. bring the bass down a bit and bring the vocals up more up front. I wouldn't bring the vocal FX up anymore though, if anything I'd bring them down in some spots but that'll depend on how they sound with the direct mics brought up a bit.