Encanto Tropical Mix 1

[Cudjoe]

Great song,my first mix at high sample rate and must say that some of the plugins behaved slightly different but in a nice way,comments welcomed,this was a quick mix.



Mix2 uploaded with less gating artifacts on the vocals comming to the end of the track,comments welcomed.

[mikej]

Hi!

Listening to mix 2...

Pretty good mix with nice focus. The whistling part sounds pretty good (and not phasey, which it can do) too.

I think the vocals could maybe come up a db against the guitars? I like the tone of the guitars and they are sounding good and nicely up front. I am missing just a slight touch of air and space around the vocals though perhaps? Maybe the bv's could come up a little too?

The sub of the bass and kick is perhaps dominating a touch too much and could be balanced a little better with the band? I like the pulse of the kick and bass coming through though, which I think you need for this style. I feel it could be brought back a little bit, as the subs are a bit too strong for me still and I feel are clouding some details in the performance.

It's possibly just the low end of the bass mainly perhaps? (I think I was a little shy with the low end on my mix and could have added just a touch more).

Yeah a decent mix, but just a little too much bass for me. Anyway those are just my thoughts - what do you think?

As an aside -

I think you have to be a bit careful/suspicious of plugins that sound drastically different when you change bit depth and sample rate. To avoid issues I feel it's best to stick and one setting for the mix and render, and do any conversion as a seperate step.

I have come across plugins that shift eq points, etc when changing sample rates - the GUI won't always show it, but analysis does. You can always use test tones and analysers to see and measure what is really going on though.

Sample rate changes the highest frequency that can be captured - higher sample rates than 44.1 may make things easier for eg anti-aliasing filters etc, but I am sure that being able to record tones above 20KHz is a waste of time, unless you are making recordings for bats (and have speakers that can reproduce those frequencies cleanly). Bit rate of course just changes the noise floor and dynamic range. I doubt most music uses more than 30db range (eg the intro to Money For Nothing, I think is about 20-30db difference from memory, I'd have to check!).

There is an argument for using 32 bit float though, as you won't get any clipping/distortion in the files.

Anyway personally I think it is important to have half a clue of what is going on so you can have confidence in your tools and have a bit of insight into why they might sound different at different rates.

A famous one is the Reaper eq - it cramps at Nyquist - you can see eg bell curve cramping in the display at 44.1 as you move towards 20kHz). - It's probably my favourite eq and I do use it at 44.1 in the main.

To my mind plugins shouldn't change sound dramatically when changing sample rates if they are well programmed. Some plugins might use fixed rates internally, etc.

Anyway, again just my opinion (I'm sure others are available!) and apologies for quite a bit of a digression there.

Cheers!

[Cudjoe]

Hi!

Listening to mix 2...

Pretty good mix with nice focus.  The whistling part sounds pretty good (and not phasey, which it can do) too.

I think the vocals could maybe come up a db against the guitars?  I like the tone of the guitars and they are sounding good and nicely up front. I am missing just a slight touch of air and space around the vocals though perhaps? Maybe the bv's could come up a little too? 

The sub of the bass and kick is perhaps dominating a touch too much and could be balanced a little better with the band?  I like the pulse of the kick and bass coming through though, which I think you need for this style.  I feel it could be brought back a little bit, as the subs are a bit too strong for me still and I feel are clouding some details in the performance. 

It's possibly just the low end of the bass mainly perhaps?  (I think I was a little shy with the low end on my mix and could have added just a touch more).

Yeah a decent mix, but just a little too much bass for me.  Anyway those are just my thoughts - what do you think?

As an aside -

I think you have to be a bit careful/suspicious of plugins that sound drastically different when you change bit depth and sample rate.  To avoid issues I feel it's best to stick and one setting for the mix and render, and do any conversion as a seperate step. 

I have come across plugins that shift eq points, etc when changing sample rates - the GUI won't always show it, but analysis does.  You can always use test tones and analysers to see and measure what is really going on though. 

Sample rate changes the highest frequency that can be captured - higher sample rates than 44.1 may make things easier for eg anti-aliasing filters etc, but I am sure that being able to record tones above 20KHz is a waste of time, unless you are making recordings for bats (and have speakers that can reproduce those frequencies cleanly).  Bit rate of course just changes the noise floor and dynamic range.  I doubt most music uses more than 30db range (eg the intro to Money For Nothing, I think is about 20-30db difference from memory, I'd have to check!).

There is an argument for using 32 bit float though, as you won't get any clipping/distortion in the files. 

Anyway personally I think it is important to have half a clue of what is going on so you can have confidence in your tools and have a bit of insight into why they might sound different at different rates.

A famous one is the Reaper eq - it cramps at Nyquist - you can see eg bell curve cramping in the display at 44.1 as you move towards 20kHz).  - It's probably my favourite eq and I do use it at 44.1 in the main.

To my mind plugins shouldn't change sound dramatically when changing sample rates if they are well programmed.  Some plugins might use fixed rates internally, etc. 

Anyway, again just my opinion (I'm sure others are available!) and apologies for quite a bit of a digression there.

Cheers!

Hi Mikej thanks for your detailed comments regarding my mix,i will look into those issues and adjust accordingly in my next mix,about the plugins and sample rate! i think what i was really trying to say was at that rate more information of the instrument(s) is captured (if recorded properly) therefore making the plugins react better in a very,very subtle way,i know even some expensive plugins can fail on this level.

Don't get me wrong iam not saying that you're wrong i just didn't explain myself properly in the first comments,thanks again.

[mikej]

Hi!

I forget the exact figures, but a 32 bit float file gives you a db range of around 700db or so.  The loudest sound physically capable of being generated on planet earth is around 200db or so I think.  This is why a 32 bit float file will not clip, and is useful format for recording.

The maximum (highest) frequency you can record is half the sample rate.  So at 88.2kHz the highest frequency you can record is 44.1kHz.  Human hearing maximum range is up to 20kHz.  Most people's maximum will likely be somewhere between around 12-16kHz for those of us not in our 20's, or something like that.  That's assuming your microphone and equipment can handle that too.

I am just saying that in the past I discovered some plugins that sounded different at higher sample rates because they worked differently at higher bit rates / sample rates as the plugins eq points changed internally when you switched sample rates, which they weren't supposed to. Eg you would set an eq at 100Hz and it would jump to 200Hz or something when you increased the sampe rate, but wouldn't reflect that on the plugin controls.

Anyway, I won't labour the point (any further ). Probably just me but I thought it might be of interest.

Cheers!

[Shul]

solid mix man.. nothing else to say other than I enjoyed this. good mix. I'd love that whistle to have some reverb though.. it's too dry for me.

[Cudjoe]

Hi!

I forget the exact figures, but a 32 bit float file gives you a db range of around 700db or so.  The loudest sound physically capable of being generated on planet earth is around 200db or so I think.  This is why a 32 bit float file will not clip, and is useful format for recording.

The maximum (highest) frequency you can record is half the sample rate.  So at 88.2kHz the highest frequency you can record is 44.1kHz.  Human hearing maximum range is up to 20kHz.  Most people's maximum will likely be somewhere between around 12-16kHz for those of us not in our 20's, or something like that.  That's assuming your microphone and equipment can handle that too.

I am just saying that in the past I discovered some plugins that sounded different at higher sample rates because they worked differently at higher bit rates / sample rates as the plugins eq points changed internally when you switched sample rates, which they weren't supposed to. Eg you would set an eq at 100Hz and it would jump to 200Hz or something when you increased the sampe rate, but wouldn't reflect that on the plugin controls.

Anyway, I won't labour the point (any further ). Probably just me but I thought it might be of interest.

Cheers!

Absolutely not just you,your comments are very educational,thanks for your postings.

[Cudjoe]

solid mix man.. nothing else to say other than I enjoyed this. good mix. I'd love that whistle to have some reverb though.. it's too dry for me.

Hi Shul i was thinking of putting some verb on it but for some reason found it sounded more authentic without,cheers anyway and glad you liked it.