16-04-2020, 01:45 PM (This post was last modified: 02-05-2020, 07:05 AM by wunderbier.)
Hi! This is my first post here and the first song I've actually finished mixing. There's a couple things I'd go back and fix, but my ears are fatigued, and I'm just as likely to make it worse at this point.
I'm uncertain if I struck the right frequency balance even though I used a reference track. I don't have the greatest hearing above 10k and one ear is decidedly worse (I did swap L/R occasionally).
I'm going to post a follow up comment about what I did, but it's more for me than anything else.
I have a terrible memory, so these notes are just as much for me as anyone else. I figured I might as well post them if I'm writing them when anyway. Feel free to ignore.
My first goal was to give the song motion. I thought the abundance of bass tracks was great so I bounced between then in different sections to change the energy. I wish I could have squeezed a little more clarity out of the thumpy one without using so much saturation, even though I left everything before 100 hz clean. I also added some motion to the synth pads. The organ got a ramping tremolo and the saws a slow warble effect. The strings went through a format filter during the first guitar riff. I panned them around throughout the track.
I took liberty with affecting the guitar parts. I felt they didn't have an anchor to the rest of the tracks as the only acoustic sounding instrument. So the first one guy lots of chorus and delay, which I panned around. The second one... I'm sorry, it screamed vocoder to me and I caved. I promise that's your guitar part in there!
I made two fundamental alterations to the track flow. First, I cut the intro shorter and had the drums come in first. I know I didn't time that filter sweep right fwiw. Second, I added hits to the beginning of the first and second chorus. For the latter I chopped the track. That was kind of my own experiment and I won't be offended if I'm the only one who likes it. I couldn't quite get the hits as cinematic and big as I wanted. The rumbling part is sampled from one of the synth basses and heavily edited.
I did use a drum replacer, but it's only half of the final drum sound. Parallel compression and saturation, and reverb send. Everything except the vocals are ducked by a dynamic EQ with the drum hits.
I was pretty radical with some of my track level EQ choices. I feel the result is probably too dark to good ears. That first synth track, which followed the second bass track, was particularly raspy and hard to place. The first base synth was also quite sibilant.
I used as much autotune on there vocals as I could without getting wildly glitchy. I've never used autotune before and really haven't done any vocal processing either. I took out the breaths and de-essed with automation as I couldn't really get a gate and de-esser to do the trick. I also did some light vocal syncing.There's also done chorus on the vocals. The single tracked verse has more than the rest.
I did some minor time adjustments as well. The drum track seems to have glitched and went off the grid in the second chorus so I cleaned that up. I also felt the bass parts were a little off from each other and the drums, so I tightened that up.
Anyway, that's all of the big changes I remember making. This was a fun song to mix; thanks for making it available!
I love the energy of all the cuts, and added hits and drops. Great use of utilizing spaces and silence to get more impact.
The kick has a CRAP ton of sub at the beginning. . . I don't know if I like it or love it. Either being the case, that might mean there is too much of it, haha. I have a penchant for wanting super sub information, and often when I like where the sub is, it may be too much.
I don't think the mix is too dark at all.
One thing that might do well is to make sure you have the scale set for the autotune. If i remember correctly I either used D dorian or F lydian (technically the same thing, but I think I labeled it F lydian). There were just a couple of notes on the chorus where my pitch was a little more wild than the others, and the autotune picks it up as a different note. Note to self: drink a little less when recording vocals (damn virus).
I really enjoyed what you did, and you gave a great feel of movement.
btw, loved the guitar solo sound. There was a note that was different than in the actual guitar part, though. It doesn't kill the song for me at all, just fyi, so in the future if you use the same trick, for someone who might care about a change of note, you can be aware that might happen.
Maybe the solo itself could come up a little bit, though.
Personally I like the drum tone and the ambient they have. I really like the chop (I don't know if it is the right term) or for me the dynamic change you've done before the first vocal line and less the break after the first chorus.
I like the overall sound of the track.
(16-04-2020, 04:29 PM)loweche6 Wrote: btw, loved the guitar solo sound. There was a note that was different than in the actual guitar part, though. It doesn't kill the song for me at all, just fyi, so in the future if you use the same trick, for someone who might care about a change of note, you can be aware that might happen.
Maybe the solo itself could come up a little bit, though.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll probably give the sub, autotune and vocoder another look. I grokked that the key was f lydian and thought I set the key to match, but maybe I missed one.
I got stuck in ADHD hyperfocus mode on that vocoder part and couldn't see the forest for the trees. I just got my guitar out to actually see how it was played. It's clear now. I should tighten up the timing on that part anyway. Though there's a neat double stop effect when they're off by just a bit.
(16-04-2020, 04:45 PM)Fab354 Wrote: Personally I like the drum tone and the ambient they have. I really like the chop (I don't know if it is the right term) or for me the dynamic change you've done before the first vocal line and less the break after the first chorus.
I like the overall sound of the track.
Thanks for taking the time to listen! I really appreciate it.
I finally got around to some final changes. I cleaned out the low end, fussed with the solo, fixed the autotune and made some more subtle changes as well. I don't think I'll make any further revisions at this point, but have enjoyed working with this track.
wunderbier Wrote:I finally got around to some final changes. I cleaned out the low end, fussed with the solo, fixed the autotune and made some more subtle changes as well. I don't think I'll make any further revisions at this point, but have enjoyed working with this track.
Hi Wunderbier ,
Listening to your latest Mix and sounds great on my monitors !
