Thanks to Mike Senior and his piece on mono mixing in SOS

[Krabbe]

Wow, this took a while. Despite the limited number of chans, I found this very difficult, so I had to have a few go before landing somewhere near a useful result.

The drums caused me a lot of problems, and I wanted to replace them all with samples, but the result wasn't very good nor natural sounding, so I didn't  

I still think that she's a star

Tips, tricks and comments are much obliged

[Roy]

Overall it feels good. I listened in mono and stereo. There are some things that jump out at me but this song always felt weird to me and here it generally this well. One thing that catches my ear is the breath that seems to be on the right. Is that a panned parallel compressor? The breath really jumps out and gives the vocal some movement in the stereo image.

When I listen in mono the vocal feels a bit buried.

I think there's some low mid/upper low build up that could be cleared out but I keep second guessing this.

Overall it works. The only thing that bothers me is the vocal thing.

I didn't see the article but how did you approach the mix? The final product is in stereo. Or at least the guitars and vocal. So did you mix with a mono plugin on the mix bus and pan out anyway while listening in mono or did the panning happen later in the process?

[Krabbe]

Thank you for your time.

It is a bit of an odd tune. It really is nothing but 2½ minuttes in your face at 100mph.

About the process, I mixed, as you guessed, with a mono plugin and did the panning anyway, because I knew that end end result was going to be in stereo.

I probably have buried the vocal a little too much. I heard it too, when I listened to it again.

I have like 8 FX buses running parallel with the vocal tracks, so they probably generates some mid build up.

About the mids ... I find it to be a tricky balance, because on one hand I want the vocals to be crystal clear, but without giving up too much body, and on the other hand, I don't want to to be too 2k-ish, so it's ... I don't really have a recipie, I just turn the knobs until it feels sorta right, so there's really no equality when thinking about the result. In general I aim to do as little EQ as possible, and try very hard to spend as little time EQ'ing as possible, because ... basically I find that it's really not that important. Basically all I aim to do EQ-wise is to "remove the towel", and bring forward some clearity.

[jorge_guitar_music]

Hi Krabbe

I think your mix needs more punch and comp to glue all instruments but the most strange think is the voice are always and mostly right panned...not center !?!? thats the most strange of all... and need a little bit more eq it sounds a little bit to radiophonic for my taste...overall...

Cheers

[Krabbe]

Hi Krabbe

I think your mix needs more punch and comp to glue all instruments but the most strange think is the voice are always and mostly right panned...not center !?!? thats the most strange of all... and need a little bit more eq it sounds a little bit to radiophonic for my taste...overall...

Cheers

Hi 
Thanks for the feedback. The breath thing is just odd ... I think it's due to a poorly configured plugin. I'll have to go back and check.
I think that issues here are ... a little beyond what comping usualy does, but thanks
Cheers