Tim Mathis "Comfort Lives In Belief"

[Artbass]

Talking about compression: If at all possible, make your mp3 as big as you can. 320kBit/s allows us to concentrate on your mix more easily. Yours is at 160kBit/s.

Listening to mix #3 I really feel lost during the first seconds. There is a quiet guitar chord and a heavy (let me repeat that: heavy) hihat before an overcompressed/distorted kick enters. Maybe you should simply cut these few seconds. Because when the band starts it becomes clearer.

Should you use different stages of compression make sure that you start with the one that is last in the chain. I usually mix through a compressor on the masterfader, one on the group track and one or two on the individual track (if needed). I always start with the compressor on the masterfade, set it so that it improves the track, than move on to the group tracks (busses) and see what I can get out of this compressor. And only than I start using individual track compression. The first two aren't compressing much (2-3db perhaps), but it usually is enough for a lot of tracks.

[Olli H]

Hi Tim, I didn't notice you had added a third version.

I think you've made a huge progress. Now overall sound is much more natural and powerful than with your first mix. Now one can also listen the balance of instruments, and it feels quite good. Vocals, bass and guitars are now just right, and they are the main thing in this song.

And the third mix is much more powerful than the first, although it's not that loud. So, with your learning speed, after couple of more songs you'll be making great mixes.

In my opinion the weakest link in your third mix is the drums. As Artbass noticed you're still compressing drums too much or with wrong settings. If you plant to work still with this song, I would suggest to bybass the compressors from drums altogether, adjust the balance and check how the sound is after that. And then start putting them back one by one if needed.

With compressors and eqs, try to find such setting that bybassing the plugin doesn't affect the appearant level of the instrument. That way you can check if the sound really gets better. And as long as you're not totally certain of what you're doing with compressor, try to keep the reduction level around 2-4 db. And most of the time that's good reduction level even if you know what you're doing. (If you're practising parallel compression, then you need to use bigger reduction levels.)

[Tim Mathis]

Hi Tim, I didn't notice you had added a third version.

I think you've made a huge progress. Now overall sound is much more natural and powerful than with your first mix. Now one can also listen the balance of instruments, and it feels quite good. Vocals, bass and guitars are now just right, and they are the main thing in this song.

And the third mix is much more powerful than the first, although it's not that loud. So, with your learning speed, after couple of more songs you'll be making great mixes.

In my opinion the weakest link in your third mix is the drums. As Artbass noticed you're still compressing drums too much or with wrong settings. If you plant to work still with this song, I would suggest to bybass the compressors from drums altogether, adjust the balance and check how the sound is after that. And then start putting them back one by one if needed.

With compressors and eqs, try to find such setting that bybassing the plugin doesn't affect the appearant level of the instrument. That way you can check if the sound really gets better. And as long as you're not totally certain of what you're doing with compressor, try to keep the reduction level around 2-4 db. And most of the time that's good reduction level even if you know what you're doing. (If you're practising parallel compression, then you need to use bigger reduction levels.)

I will continue to make adjustments on this until it gets right. I always learn the best that way. The first time is always the hardest. It would have taken me forever to figure this out on my own. Thanks to everyone for all their feedback.

[gopener]

I will agree with Olli for one more time.

Great improvement on the arrangement of the instruments!

[Tim Mathis]

Talking about compression: If at all possible, make your mp3 as big as you can. 320kBit/s allows us to concentrate on your mix more easily. Yours is at 160kBit/s.

Listening to mix #3 I really feel lost during the first seconds. There is a quiet guitar chord and a heavy (let me repeat that: heavy) hihat before an overcompressed/distorted kick enters. Maybe you should simply cut these few seconds. Because when the band starts it becomes clearer.

Should you use different stages of compression make sure that you start with the one that is last in the chain. I usually mix through a compressor on the masterfader, one on the group track and one or two on the individual track (if needed). I always start with the compressor on the masterfade, set it so that it improves the track, than move on to the group tracks (busses) and see what I can get out of this compressor. And only than I start using individual track compression. The first two aren't compressing much (2-3db perhaps), but it usually is enough for a lot of tracks.
That is an interesting technique. I am not ready to try it yet but the concept makes sense and intrigues me. Backward compression makes a lot of sense. I will let you know when I get the nerve to experiment with it. Pretty cool concept but not for a novice. I have to learn to walk before I run.

[Olli H]

I listened your version 4. Sounds much better.

If something you might check the balance between kick and snare. For example: solo drums, and listen if it feels like a forwardgoing and balanced instrument alone. And check also the balance between kick and bass. And continue to the next song.

BTW, if you add a new version to first post, none of us who have commented you previously will get a notice of it, unless you post a new reply to your thread with content "new version added to post 1". I just happened to be active this week, and I found it. Normally I'm extremely lazy.

[Tim Mathis]

Thanks again Ollie and everyone for all of your help. I am working on my next mix already with much more confidence than before. Much gratitude extended to all.

[Pedaling Prince]

THis kind of retro song would benefit hugely of 10-12 dB dynamic range. Now the dynamic range of your mix is all the time something like 4-6 db. (Only Metallica has a permission to use so low dynamic range)

Not even Metallica should be using such a ludicrously low dynamic range; the first time they did that on Death Magnetic even their FANS complained how horrible it sounded.

Even on super aggressive music like Metallica, dynamic range should never, IMHO, be in the single digits; 10 dB, I feel, is the absolute rock bottom minimum dynamic range you can have and still have the music sound reasonably natural.

Only one of my mixes, one of the death metal songs on this site (I can't remember which one) ever had a dynamic range of 10 dB; my mixes generally average between 13-15 dB, 12 or 11 on rare occasion with really loud forms of music.

[Pedaling Prince]

Thanks again Ollie and everyone for all of your help. I am working on my next mix already with much more confidence than before. Much gratitude extended to all.

I listened to all four versions of your mix of "Comfort Lives in Belief." Definite, and rapid, improvement. Everyone's already helped you see your most serious mistakes during your first three attempts so I'm going to focus my comments on your fourth and final mix here.

Sounds pretty nice overall. Good balance among the instruments and all that, but I find the sound overall to be a little on the harsh side; sounds to me like too much content in the 5-6 kHz range. Might want to dial back on your EQs a bit in that range.

Related to that, vocal sounds way too bright. Voelund's original vocal track was actually very well recorded and didn't need any aggressive EQ; I'd say you could get away without using any EQ at all, or perhaps a gentle 4-5 dB boost around 5 kHz for presence and maybe a couple of dB boost at 12 kHz just to give it some "air" but that's it.

It seems to me your biggest problem is this idea that you have to process the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of everything. Like every track has to have SOME kind of EQ and compression.

Except in the case of poorly recorded tracks, that's virtually never true.

As you can read in my profile, my mixing principle I like to call the "principle of least treatment." In short, I find you get the most natural sound by minimizing EQ, compression and automation as much as possible, only making the most subtle adjustments necessary to solve a problem or create the desired effect.

The only times I use heavy processing is when I'm going for some very specific effect, if there's something seriously wrong with the recorded track that needs attention, or when dealing with a bone dry recording of a boring electronic instrument. And I NEVER apply ANY processing during mastering. Ever.

Aside from some subtle reverb and gentle EQ, I do very little other than balance everything in what, to my ears, is the most pleasing way I can.

One of the best pieces of advice I saw for you in this discussion is to try doing the mix without ANY processing before you do ANYTHING. I would add that you should then think about doing the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM you need to do to solve any problems you notice in that "rough mix."

The overall balance you've achieved in this song suggests to me that you have potential; you just need to relax a bit and let the musician do the lion's share of the work, so to speak.

[Tim Mathis]

Thanks John, your "principle of least treatment" makes a lot of sense. I had to find out the hard way but at least I am teachable. I am starting to understand that less is more. Thanks for the great feedback I will put it to use.