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Adam Buckley: 'Drag Me Down' is my first mix on this forum
#1
Hey guys, I've just discovered and joined this forum and I'd like to show you my mix for this Adam Buckley's song.

Any feedback is appreciated!

EDIT: updated with version 2 regarding some feedback from you!


.mp3    DragMeDown_lukemoralesMix_v2.mp3 --  (Download: 7.57 MB)


.mp3    DragMeDown_lukemoralesMix.mp3 --  (Download: 7.69 MB)


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#2
Your mix is clipping really bad. You should go easier on that master limiter. Louder is not always better Smile

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#3
As Shul said, louder is not always better.
I stopped listening at the 15 second mark, those guitars near rip your ears off. Are you a guitarist by any chance?

It sounds like there is compression over the entire mix, there is compression-like 'pumping' I can hear. Not sure what setup you have, but if you are looking for a good mastering plug-in sniff out the TDR (Tokyo Dawn Records) 'Kotelnikov' plug-in - it is a free and has a lot of good presets already in it ready to go.

I am not sure if this is your 'first mix' or just your first mix here. If it is indeed your first attempt at a mix and I am not being condescending - it sounds you are either monitoring (listening) way loud like some rock concert or monitoring very low and compensating for that in the mix.

Have another go at it, sometimes just a few minor changes can make a world of difference to a mix.
Oh, and always listen to your mix in mono - that will give you a good indication if something is way out of whack or not sounding right, it is not always easy to put your finger on a problem if you mix solely in stereo. Switch back and forward between each regularly, think of mono as a health check for your mix.

As an aside, if you are monitoring at loud volumes for extended periods, you will do nothing but destroy your hearing. You don't want that. 80dB is a good level to monitor at for extended periods, some say 85dB, but if you sit around 80 you're going to get peaks of 85 anyway. Get yourself a cheap SPL Meter off eBay or the likes, you don't need a fancy high-end version (unless you run a commercial studio). Your just looking to get an idea of the sound level - well worth the 20-30 dollars (I speak in AUD money) you pay.
► C. Emu ◄
The Box of goodies...
♪ DAW: Reaper / Ocenaudio ♫ Audio Interface: Focusrite 2i2
♯ Monitors: Alesis Elevate 6 / Focusrite Scarlett HP-60
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#4
I have been listening to your mix carefully. I can appreciate that your idea is good. Equalization is very correct. The balance between instruments is good too. What worries me is your excessive compression and limitation. I think you have a serious digital saturation problem. My advice is that you use some automated compression and limitation system that will help you understand. I learned how to compress and limit with Izotope Ozone 8. Use "mastering assistant". To learn is perfect.

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#5
(31-12-2018, 07:07 AM)Cranky Emu Wrote: As Shul said, louder is not always better.
I stopped listening at the 15 second mark, those guitars near rip your ears off. Are you a guitarist by any chance?

It sounds like there is compression over the entire mix, there is compression-like 'pumping' I can hear. Not sure what setup you have, but if you are looking for a good mastering plug-in sniff out the TDR (Tokyo Dawn Records) 'Kotelnikov' plug-in - it is a free and has a lot of good presets already in it ready to go.

I am not sure if this is your 'first mix' or just your first mix here. If it is indeed your first attempt at a mix and I am not being condescending - it sounds you are either monitoring (listening) way loud like some rock concert or monitoring very low and compensating for that in the mix.

Have another go at it, sometimes just a few minor changes can make a world of difference to a mix.
Oh, and always listen to your mix in mono - that will give you a good indication if something is way out of whack or not sounding right, it is not always easy to put your finger on a problem if you mix solely in stereo. Switch back and forward between each regularly, think of mono as a health check for your mix.

As an aside, if you are monitoring at loud volumes for extended periods, you will do nothing but destroy your hearing. You don't want that. 80dB is a good level to monitor at for extended periods, some say 85dB, but if you sit around 80 you're going to get peaks of 85 anyway. Get yourself a cheap SPL Meter off eBay or the likes, you don't need a fancy high-end version (unless you run a commercial studio). Your just looking to get an idea of the sound level - well worth the 20-30 dollars (I speak in AUD money) you pay.

Thank you Shul, salva433 and Cranky Emu.

I've update the post with a second version with less limitation, i really need to up my mastering and your comments help a lot understanding and realizing what I'm doing wrong. Also changed a setting on my instrumental bus compression, perhaps now there's less pumping?

Also, yeah Cranky I'm a guitarrist, so I don't like guitars being buried under the bass lol But I try to have a good mix between the guitars and bass, trying to blend them as one powerful instrument, at least in my sound they don't sound too upfront... maybe they were too harsh? I took out some harsh frequencies, maybe they sound less irritating to you now?
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#6
Before I comment any further I will listen to the original tracks, as I might be leading you astray. Downloaded in a download spree last night.
To me the guitars still seem to be to prominent in the mix.

What monitors are you mixing on Luke?
► C. Emu ◄
The Box of goodies...
♪ DAW: Reaper / Ocenaudio ♫ Audio Interface: Focusrite 2i2
♯ Monitors: Alesis Elevate 6 / Focusrite Scarlett HP-60
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#7
Luke;

I just installed Reaper today and was overly keen to give it a decent run, as such I decided to have a crack at this song.
This song is quite complex, there is a lot going on in it and it takes a bit of taming. My mix is a very rough one and by no means final, I am no Chris Lord-Alge or Bob Clearmountain either.

There are no effects on the mix, nor any EQ. Everything is as it was from the original files. The only automation I used was a fade on the master bus at the end.
Whilst I am not the greatest of mixers and I am sure there are far better than I here, I pay very close attention to levels and try to avoid clipping where and when possible. As Shul said "Louder is not always better".

I feel the mistake you have made is just trying to get everything loud and using a lot of compression, what kind of compression ratios did you use on different tracks?

Why I asked if you were a guitarist (not having a go at you - just an observation), is that I remember back to when I did live FOH mixing and guitarists were always the one's in the band who would constantly be wanting you to 'turn them up'.

Your mix is not bad by any means. Take all the effects off and start with the basics and get the mix going to where you are happy with it. Then add effects if needed, if they will enhance what is there, if they don't - toss em.
Easy to say huh?
I make the same mistake myself with effects to, reverb is my nemesis Big Grin

Don't know if you picked it up, at around 17 seconds in there is something out of whack, can't put my finger on it just yet, think it may be the snare sample but not sure.
Until I can work out how to get Reaper to stop the cursor at exactly where I stop the track (hit space-bar), I can't really pin it down.

Looking forward to hearing your next mix for sure.
I will keep working on mine, there is a lot of things with my prelim mix I am not happy with. Hopefully together we can come up with something decent!


.mp3    ADAM BUCKLEY - DRAG ME DOWN.mp3 --  (Download: 7.66 MB)


► C. Emu ◄
The Box of goodies...
♪ DAW: Reaper / Ocenaudio ♫ Audio Interface: Focusrite 2i2
♯ Monitors: Alesis Elevate 6 / Focusrite Scarlett HP-60
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#8
(01-01-2019, 01:10 PM)Cranky Emu Wrote: Luke;

I just installed Reaper today and was overly keen to give it a decent run, as such I decided to have a crack at this song.
This song is quite complex, there is a lot going on in it and it takes a bit of taming. My mix is a very rough one and by no means final, I am no Chris Lord-Alge or Bob Clearmountain either.

There are no effects on the mix, nor any EQ. Everything is as it was from the original files. The only automation I used was a fade on the master bus at the end.
Whilst I am not the greatest of mixers and I am sure there are far better than I here, I pay very close attention to levels and try to avoid clipping where and when possible. As Shul said "Louder is not always better".

I feel the mistake you have made is just trying to get everything loud and using a lot of compression, what kind of compression ratios did you use on different tracks?

Why I asked if you were a guitarist (not having a go at you - just an observation), is that I remember back to when I did live FOH mixing and guitarists were always the one's in the band who would constantly be wanting you to 'turn them up'.

Your mix is not bad by any means. Take all the effects off and start with the basics and get the mix going to where you are happy with it. Then add effects if needed, if they will enhance what is there, if they don't - toss em.
Easy to say huh?
I make the same mistake myself with effects to, reverb is my nemesis Big Grin

Don't know if you picked it up, at around 17 seconds in there is something out of whack, can't put my finger on it just yet, think it may be the snare sample but not sure.
Until I can work out how to get Reaper to stop the cursor at exactly where I stop the track (hit space-bar), I can't really pin it down.

Looking forward to hearing your next mix for sure.
I will keep working on mine, there is a lot of things with my prelim mix I am not happy with. Hopefully together we can come up with something decent!

As for what monitors I'm listening in, I don't have the ideal setup, I mix on AKG's 144P (by for not an ideal headphone for mixing but I know his sound very well) and check everything on my car. I try to do best with what I have.

If compared to the original mix, yeah my guitars are very prominent in the mix, but I guess if you're doing a Pop PUNK you should have rhythm guitars audible in the mix (in the original I can barely hear them so, what was the point of recording them?). I don't know if you realized but, in the mix files there's also DI's for the guitars and in your mix you let the DI's almost as loud as mine, but without the distortion Tongue

I can guarantee you, there's no clipping in any faders or plugins in my mix, I learned long ago and pay attention to gain staging (my mix peaks are at -6.4db or so, again, maybe my mistakes were on mastering). I use mostly 4:1 ratio for the compression, going over that just for parallel comp.

I'm not throwing any values at them, I'm following some techniques I've learned from some producers I got on Nail the Mix (mostly metal), i.e my snare has a -9db gain reduction, kick has -6db, toms have -3db on a 2:1 ratio... bass is more compressed and soft limited to tame most transients and make it a consistent wall of sound....

Maybe the techniques don't suit the pop genre as well as they suit metal, but I guess you can treat this song as if it was a metal ballad. At least, this is what I aimed for.
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#9
Version 2 is better than the first.
here are my observations

*Reverb on intro guitars is quite strong. There is a build up in mid freq. there that I particularly do not like. I would highpass the reverb a lil more to get rid of some of that build up. or perhaps the tail is too long and is making me hear that not sure.
*Vocals are very muddy in the low end. There is an excess of low end rumble in it. Sounds like a boost on the vocal track because the instrumentation does not suffer from this bulk in the low end.
*The drums are really punchy good job on them. If anything I would brign back that reverb. Not sure if it's in the master bus or in the snare but the stereo reverb in the drums is quite strong. It's a taste thing so you can totally ignore this.
*Is there reverb on the top end of the bass? if so I think it's too much.. if not then my ears are playing tricks on me.
*on the last part of the song that acoustic rhythm guitar has a really STRONG boost on the top end.. the strumming is really poking out way too much in my opinion. I would compress that with a de-esser or with a multicompressor.

Finishing the song sounds more like you added a master reverb on the master buss but you kinda over did it. I could be wrong.

It's a good mix. Just more polished reverb on it and that vocal clean up will get your mix on the money in my opinion. Perhaps less top end on that bass but hey that's a taste thing for me.

Hope this helps and good job.
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#10
Quote:I don't have the ideal setup, I mix on AKG's 144P ... / ... and check everything on my car. I try to do best with what I have.

I wasn't trying to put you or your gear down, so hope you did not get that impression. Just with the mix, it seemed as is you were over-compensating for what is lacking in your monitoring set-up. I can't comment on the AKG's, never seen nor heard them. Tried to google them but could not find anything.

Car stereos/speakers are really notorious for colouration of the sound. Your headphones would probably be far more accurate.

My headphones are by no means high-end either, nor are my main monitors. But we work with what we have.

Quote:in the original I can barely hear them so, what was the point of recording them?
Just because they are not in your face, doesn't mean they should not be there. A mix is a like a building, you start with a foundation, then build on that.

Quote:I don't know if you realized but, in the mix files there's also DI's for the guitars and in your mix you let the DI's almost as loud as mine, but without the distortion Tongue
Yep that is right, you don't always need distortion or massive amounts of it.

Quote:maybe my mistakes were on mastering. I use mostly 4:1 ratio for the compression
4.1:1 is a fair dose. But if it works... Mastering is a an art without doubt. If everyone could do it easily there would be no mastering studios in the world.

Quote:make it a consistent wall of sound....
Maybe that is where it is going wrong, trying to make that wall of sound.

As before, I think your mix is not the problem, the issues lay elsewhere. Maybe you are trying to make it something it isn't? Don't know. But to me there is just to much of everything.

Pity we had not connected earlier, I would have sent you my old Focusrite interface, I gave it away to a mate in America. Due to having balanced input monitors and the Solo having unbalanced outputs I having major earth-loop issues, so I upgraded to the 2i2, problem solved (balanced outputs on the 2i2).

► C. Emu ◄
The Box of goodies...
♪ DAW: Reaper / Ocenaudio ♫ Audio Interface: Focusrite 2i2
♯ Monitors: Alesis Elevate 6 / Focusrite Scarlett HP-60
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