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Hannes Keseberg - You Know Better (Patron Member) - Post MS Comment Competition Final
#11
(08-01-2019, 10:08 AM)thedon Wrote: Hey DDL
Great job with Patreon F ,
Enjoyed listening
Cheers Big Grin

Hey Don thanks for the listen. Hope all is well.
M1 Pro MBP: is my Hattori Hanzo.
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#12
(08-01-2019, 03:18 PM)Mixinthecloud Wrote: The unusual arrangement, a little distortion in places and the heavy plodding of the kit seems out of character for the song. The mix is solid as are most of the instrumental sounds but the arrangement seems to step on itself to many times.

Hey Mix, Happy New Year. I wanted to try to maintain a warm Reggae feel and I wanted to accent the song with “familiar” hints moving into the climactic end of the song where everything is rocking.

I’ve had good feedback from people I’ve had listen to it that don’t know what the original stems are arranged like. I stand by it for the params of crafting something that is aimed as commercial as possible.

Thanks for the listen and feedback.
M1 Pro MBP: is my Hattori Hanzo.
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#13
Hi Digitaldruglord! It's easy to tell you've been around the block a couple of times, because this is a very solid mix. The overall tonality is great, although I think you could afford to have a touch more sub-80Hz heft. You could probably just stick that in as EQ on the master-buss, to be honest, because the bass/kick balance at the low end is already well-judged, in my opinion. If you feel it's getting a bit tubby, you could always cut a little around 130Hz, but it's a question of taste -- I used less of this frequency than Ben L'Oncle Soul, for instance. (The solo guitar feels a touch too warm in the low mids on occasion, especially when overlapping with the lead vocal or during the fuller Chorus, Reintro, Mid-section, and Outro textures, so that might be another candidate for EQ cuts if you wanted to clarify the low spectrum. That said, I like the guitar's fullness in the Intro, so perhaps there's a case for multing that track, or automating the EQ.)

In general, the effects use here is great: varied and yet extremely tasteful at the same time. And what I most like about the effects is the moments of depth contrast: the ambient whistles during the verses; the guitar solo's delay in Chorus 3; the 'stage-right box' feel of the mob backing vocals in the Reintro. (Featuring the mob vox there is also a canny rearrangement move, as it allows us to appreciate their unique character more clearly than is possible during the Outro.) The effects do still feel a little static, though, especially on the lead vocal, which felt like it could 'blossom' more during the choruses and Mid-section.

Another strong point of this mix is the ensemble balance, which felt inherently 'right' to me, and the long-term dynamics too. The drums are lovely too, with solid kick, snare and sidestick sounds that worked as well in combination during the verses as they did separately during the fills and Reintro/Outro. The claps are nicely judged too, and have a kind of compactness during the Outro than I really like. The rhythm guitars are nice and widescreen in stereo, but I think they probably suffer too much in the mono balance, which changes the character of the groove rather a lot for single-speaker listeners. It may just be that you need to find a better polarity/phase match for the instrument's multimic setup.

The vocal sound is another highlight -- lovely and smooth, but with judicious warmth too and enough presence to feel intimate. The inconsistencies in low-frequency level in the raw vocal recording could be addressed more, though -- notice, for instance, how the word "night" booms out during the first two lines of Verse 1. In addition, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to mult the verse vocals to different tracks than the rest of the timeline, because there's more space in the texture for low-midrange vocal warmth during the verse arrangement.

However, I also wonder whether, during the mixing process, you might have developed a bit of a 'blind spot' as far as the vocal's concerned. What I mean by this is that I think you've started to take the vocal for granted, because you're so familiar with it (from hearing it so often), and have forgotten to factor in that you're trying to captivate the mainstream listener who may never have heard the song before. So, for example, the Hammond in Chorus 1, while an appeallingly gnarly timbre, rather overpowers the vocal while it's presenting the chorus melody and lyric for the first time; and in Chorus 2 the higher Hammond register and added guitar riff do this even more. It's not that those parts aren't cool, but that the singer still needs to be the star here.

Or take the mob vocals, which are very effective in the Reintro, but when you bring them in for the opening of the Mid-section, it feels like overkill, and distracts from a lead-vocal line that should really be the focus of attention, because it's new material that you want the listener to remember. (The absence of those mob vocals from the second half of the Mid-section also feels a little like a step down, energy-wise, for me.) The concept of bringing the whistles into the arrangement earlier in the song is also very sensible, but they feel a bit redundant during Verse 1 (there's plenty for the listener to digest with the vocal lyrics and guitar interjections alone -- and, besides, it leaves Verse 2 with nowhere to go in terms of building the arrangement), and then they distract from vocal's new melody and lyrics during the Mid-section. These are all basically questions of putting yourself in the shoes of the first-time listener, and trying not to make life too difficult for them in terms of getting to grips with the core melody and lyrics of the song.

Other than that, there are a handful of other little suggestions I had: the conga edits sound too audible (eg. at the start of Verse 2), so I'd try to smooth those out; the timbale feels a little too forward and starkly isolated, so maybe try a bit of high cut and ambience reverb on that; there's some unpleasant-sounding distortion on "your eyes" during the Mid-section at 2:41; the mob vocals could come out more during the Outro, because they're not as clear as the whistles in the balance; the whistle fill into Chorus 3 is quite cool, but I do still wonder whether the gap is actually more effective at that point, given how often the whistle has been featured by then in your arrangement; and the song's fade-out feels a bit clunky, which leaves a less-than-ideal 'last impression'.

Also, although I thought the idea of bringing the Hammond in at the end of Verse 3 was canny in principle, the chords in the section you've flown in don't really sit very comfortably with the rest of the instruments. To be honest, you might as well just add in a bit of MIDI Hammond of your own for the purpose, rather than copying/pasting sections of what's already there. It'd give you more control over the addition, and no-one's ever likely to notice that it's a different patch, simply because Hammond organ by its very nature often changes its timbre through an arrangement by virtue of the player manipulating the drawbars.

Hope some of that's useful -- thanks for sharing your work with us!
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#14
Thanks Mike!
M1 Pro MBP: is my Hattori Hanzo.
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#15
(24-01-2019, 03:50 PM)Mike Senior Wrote: Hi Digitaldruglord! It's easy to tell you've been around the block a couple of times, because this is a very solid mix. The overall tonality is great, although I think you could afford to have a touch more sub-80Hz heft. You could probably just stick that in as EQ on the master-buss, to be honest, because the bass/kick balance at the low end is already well-judged, in my opinion. If you feel it's getting a bit tubby, you could always cut a little around 130Hz, but it's a question of taste -- I used less of this frequency than Ben L'Oncle Soul, for instance. (The solo guitar feels a touch too warm in the low mids on occasion, especially when overlapping with the lead vocal or during the fuller Chorus, Reintro, Mid-section, and Outro textures, so that might be another candidate for EQ cuts if you wanted to clarify the low spectrum. That said, I like the guitar's fullness in the Intro, so perhaps there's a case for multing that track, or automating the EQ.)

In general, the effects use here is great: varied and yet extremely tasteful at the same time. And what I most like about the effects is the moments of depth contrast: the ambient whistles during the verses; the guitar solo's delay in Chorus 3; the 'stage-right box' feel of the mob backing vocals in the Reintro. (Featuring the mob vox there is also a canny rearrangement move, as it allows us to appreciate their unique character more clearly than is possible during the Outro.) The effects do still feel a little static, though, especially on the lead vocal, which felt like it could 'blossom' more during the choruses and Mid-section.

Another strong point of this mix is the ensemble balance, which felt inherently 'right' to me, and the long-term dynamics too. The drums are lovely too, with solid kick, snare and sidestick sounds that worked as well in combination during the verses as they did separately during the fills and Reintro/Outro. The claps are nicely judged too, and have a kind of compactness during the Outro than I really like. The rhythm guitars are nice and widescreen in stereo, but I think they probably suffer too much in the mono balance, which changes the character of the groove rather a lot for single-speaker listeners. It may just be that you need to find a better polarity/phase match for the instrument's multimic setup.

The vocal sound is another highlight -- lovely and smooth, but with judicious warmth too and enough presence to feel intimate. The inconsistencies in low-frequency level in the raw vocal recording could be addressed more, though -- notice, for instance, how the word "night" booms out during the first two lines of Verse 1. In addition, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to mult the verse vocals to different tracks than the rest of the timeline, because there's more space in the texture for low-midrange vocal warmth during the verse arrangement.

However, I also wonder whether, during the mixing process, you might have developed a bit of a 'blind spot' as far as the vocal's concerned. What I mean by this is that I think you've started to take the vocal for granted, because you're so familiar with it (from hearing it so often), and have forgotten to factor in that you're trying to captivate the mainstream listener who may never have heard the song before. So, for example, the Hammond in Chorus 1, while an appeallingly gnarly timbre, rather overpowers the vocal while it's presenting the chorus melody and lyric for the first time; and in Chorus 2 the higher Hammond register and added guitar riff do this even more. It's not that those parts aren't cool, but that the singer still needs to be the star here.

Or take the mob vocals, which are very effective in the Reintro, but when you bring them in for the opening of the Mid-section, it feels like overkill, and distracts from a lead-vocal line that should really be the focus of attention, because it's new material that you want the listener to remember. (The absence of those mob vocals from the second half of the Mid-section also feels a little like a step down, energy-wise, for me.) The concept of bringing the whistles into the arrangement earlier in the song is also very sensible, but they feel a bit redundant during Verse 1 (there's plenty for the listener to digest with the vocal lyrics and guitar interjections alone -- and, besides, it leaves Verse 2 with nowhere to go in terms of building the arrangement), and then they distract from vocal's new melody and lyrics during the Mid-section. These are all basically questions of putting yourself in the shoes of the first-time listener, and trying not to make life too difficult for them in terms of getting to grips with the core melody and lyrics of the song.

Other than that, there are a handful of other little suggestions I had: the conga edits sound too audible (eg. at the start of Verse 2), so I'd try to smooth those out; the timbale feels a little too forward and starkly isolated, so maybe try a bit of high cut and ambience reverb on that; there's some unpleasant-sounding distortion on "your eyes" during the Mid-section at 2:41; the mob vocals could come out more during the Outro, because they're not as clear as the whistles in the balance; the whistle fill into Chorus 3 is quite cool, but I do still wonder whether the gap is actually more effective at that point, given how often the whistle has been featured by then in your arrangement; and the song's fade-out feels a bit clunky, which leaves a less-than-ideal 'last impression'.

Also, although I thought the idea of bringing the Hammond in at the end of Verse 3 was canny in principle, the chords in the section you've flown in don't really sit very comfortably with the rest of the instruments. To be honest, you might as well just add in a bit of MIDI Hammond of your own for the purpose, rather than copying/pasting sections of what's already there. It'd give you more control over the addition, and no-one's ever likely to notice that it's a different patch, simply because Hammond organ by its very nature often changes its timbre through an arrangement by virtue of the player manipulating the drawbars.

Hope some of that's useful -- thanks for sharing your work with us!

Great stuff, I stand by the general arrangement from the critique version and made some adjustments as advised and scaled back my in-song whistle to 1 track (instead of all 3) and removed the low hammond I previously flown in.

Thanks again.
M1 Pro MBP: is my Hattori Hanzo.
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#16
Second final upped.
M1 Pro MBP: is my Hattori Hanzo.
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