25-12-2020, 12:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 29-12-2020, 02:56 PM by Vibhu Dixit.
Edit Reason: Update Essay.
)
Preferred Listening levels:- Master 55% i.e. Little more than Half and Media Player Levels Should Remain 100% i.e. Full and there should be no audio processing in any stage. 
If possible then please listen to the WAV file of the Mix, You can download it by Clicking Here
Session Discussion:-
Well, This Song is excellent, I really appreciate the band's efforts to produce this Prog. Rock Song. I especially like its lyrics. They are pretty well written.
Although everything else was great, Some things turn out to be a little difficult to process. Maybe you also have encountered these issues while processing.
So I'm going to make my points in chronological order from Recording Feedback to Mixing and Master Bus Processing in points(although I'm going to skip some details, Instead I'll provide the session so you can check them on your own and make corrections if possible ):
1- The first challenge/problem (as common with many other live sessions) was that the instruments were not tight with Metronome. Although it is very common in live music. But. in this production, it was significant most of the time. And because of this, the song was not getting a sense of rhythmic Tightness, So in order to tackle it, I followed the same suggestions which Mike Senior has provided in Demonstration Videos of Mixing Secrets For The Small Studios. I'm Also attaching the Images of the session.
2:- After editing and Correcting the Time of Drums by Grouping them, I moved to the bass and then Acc. Gtr, Piano, Hammond Organ, Elect. Gtrs, Backings, and then Finally Lead Vocals. ( Huff, it took 5 hours to fix all the issues related to the timing
)
3:- As I was approached the end of the Drums, I discovered that the Song (Gtr Solo) was up-tempo i.e. more than parent tempo 61BPM 4/4. So I decided to go with the band taste and leave that part without serious editing. I just corrected piano and Guitars a Little and some work on Bass. That's It. ( I can't handle any editing more than this
)
4:- By now I have Fixed major time-related issues and now I moved on to Overheads, ( Remember Mike's teaching "To get the most natural-sounding drum kit, Start with Overheads First.) So, by this, I Pushed the fader Up and had a listen to it while making some mental notes. The first note was to correct the channel timing and make the snare image more consistent in the center. For that, I used JS time delayer and put a 0.2ms Delay in the Right channel.
5:- After that, I moved on to Snare and toggle the Phase invert Button to hear the difference. And Then I thought to phase align the snare manually by dragging the bottom snare file. (It's just a subjective decision).
6:- After addressing these issues I moved on to Tuning and there was not much to do, So I decided to go with the band's taste and only fixing a small amount of tuning using Melodyne.
7:- Then moving on to High Pass Filtering. I decided not to do anything that can harm the fundamentals. So, I left that for the later Eq stage and ended up cleaning Mostly Sub Sonics and unwanted low end.
I believe in maintaining the organic Texture of the sculpted sound, And because of this reason, I don't Use HPF for Eq Purposes.
8:- After HPF I moved on to Balancing Faders and Using Compression. For me, compression was for a reason and the reason was subjective:- To Control The Excessive Dynamics of Sound that can Hinder its Musical Engagement. For this, The ratio of No more than 3:1 is used and Compression was moderate. Yes, On Overheads I used a 4:1 ratio and 0.28ms attack time to Turun down Snare and drums hits. In-room mic no more than 3db Compression with Slow attack and release time to really bring some room from it.
I really think that now you should have a listen to audio files. I'm providing Google Drive Link As all the files are in WAV format at 48000Hz 24 Bit. ( There are session Snapshots also.)
LINK:- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pJfYmyMgOAcBLuc7HVVPXisGP756pwyw?usp=sharing
After listening to the audio files of different stages, You may get a guess of what I'm trying to say about those room mic.
And I also think that now is a good time to provide my opinions and feedback regarding the recording.
Well, I am really disappointed with the drums' sound of my mix. They are not what I was trying to bring (Maybe that's my lack of experience or knowledge) But as with my current knowledge and some recording experience, I think that the drums are really close micked, Have a listen to overheads, The overheads are falling too short, they are not even and Hi-hat mic is doing some really mysterious things as there is no Hi-Hat used in this version of the song. Also, the drums are not moving with the song's dynamic structure, like in the verse and choruses the levels of drums remain constant. Instead, they should go from Mezzo Forte to Fortessimo at least. ( if Micro and Macro dynamics are corrected while playing and recording then it's a difference of day and night after properly mixing the tracks).
The same goes for vocals, I think the mic used is either a Dynamic microphone with very high self-noise or a budgeted condenser place straight on the Horizontal axis and this is causing some serious sibilances and unevenness of vocals as the vocalists are moving slightly off-axis, Because dynamic and budget condensers only had a good on-axis amplitude and frequency response. Things don't work well off-axis. And talking of Bass guitar, if you have listened to it, then probably you know better than me.
I'm not blaming or Nitpicking, I am just providing my subjective opinions, also I'm not saying by any means that the recording is bad, its good, but it can be much better and saved a lot of CPU and processing while mixing. Also, I'm not as experienced as some of the members of Mixing secrets of small Studios Discussion Forum, So, Please do correct me If there anything Wrong I've said.
I"ll update the post soon. Till now waiting for Feedback and Review.
And yes one more thing. I must say that there are already some great Mixes here at Discussion Zone of this song, And I Really Like them and I've learned many things from them and Implemented them in my Mix.
No sample Triggering Used and No hyped Music arrangement is made, Also there is no automation in this version.
If possible then please listen to the WAV file of the Mix, You can download it by Clicking Here
Session Discussion:-
Well, This Song is excellent, I really appreciate the band's efforts to produce this Prog. Rock Song. I especially like its lyrics. They are pretty well written.
Although everything else was great, Some things turn out to be a little difficult to process. Maybe you also have encountered these issues while processing.
So I'm going to make my points in chronological order from Recording Feedback to Mixing and Master Bus Processing in points(although I'm going to skip some details, Instead I'll provide the session so you can check them on your own and make corrections if possible ):
1- The first challenge/problem (as common with many other live sessions) was that the instruments were not tight with Metronome. Although it is very common in live music. But. in this production, it was significant most of the time. And because of this, the song was not getting a sense of rhythmic Tightness, So in order to tackle it, I followed the same suggestions which Mike Senior has provided in Demonstration Videos of Mixing Secrets For The Small Studios. I'm Also attaching the Images of the session.
2:- After editing and Correcting the Time of Drums by Grouping them, I moved to the bass and then Acc. Gtr, Piano, Hammond Organ, Elect. Gtrs, Backings, and then Finally Lead Vocals. ( Huff, it took 5 hours to fix all the issues related to the timing
)3:- As I was approached the end of the Drums, I discovered that the Song (Gtr Solo) was up-tempo i.e. more than parent tempo 61BPM 4/4. So I decided to go with the band taste and leave that part without serious editing. I just corrected piano and Guitars a Little and some work on Bass. That's It. ( I can't handle any editing more than this
)4:- By now I have Fixed major time-related issues and now I moved on to Overheads, ( Remember Mike's teaching "To get the most natural-sounding drum kit, Start with Overheads First.) So, by this, I Pushed the fader Up and had a listen to it while making some mental notes. The first note was to correct the channel timing and make the snare image more consistent in the center. For that, I used JS time delayer and put a 0.2ms Delay in the Right channel.
5:- After that, I moved on to Snare and toggle the Phase invert Button to hear the difference. And Then I thought to phase align the snare manually by dragging the bottom snare file. (It's just a subjective decision).
6:- After addressing these issues I moved on to Tuning and there was not much to do, So I decided to go with the band's taste and only fixing a small amount of tuning using Melodyne.
7:- Then moving on to High Pass Filtering. I decided not to do anything that can harm the fundamentals. So, I left that for the later Eq stage and ended up cleaning Mostly Sub Sonics and unwanted low end.
I believe in maintaining the organic Texture of the sculpted sound, And because of this reason, I don't Use HPF for Eq Purposes.
8:- After HPF I moved on to Balancing Faders and Using Compression. For me, compression was for a reason and the reason was subjective:- To Control The Excessive Dynamics of Sound that can Hinder its Musical Engagement. For this, The ratio of No more than 3:1 is used and Compression was moderate. Yes, On Overheads I used a 4:1 ratio and 0.28ms attack time to Turun down Snare and drums hits. In-room mic no more than 3db Compression with Slow attack and release time to really bring some room from it.
I really think that now you should have a listen to audio files. I'm providing Google Drive Link As all the files are in WAV format at 48000Hz 24 Bit. ( There are session Snapshots also.)
LINK:- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pJfYmyMgOAcBLuc7HVVPXisGP756pwyw?usp=sharing
After listening to the audio files of different stages, You may get a guess of what I'm trying to say about those room mic.
And I also think that now is a good time to provide my opinions and feedback regarding the recording.
Well, I am really disappointed with the drums' sound of my mix. They are not what I was trying to bring (Maybe that's my lack of experience or knowledge) But as with my current knowledge and some recording experience, I think that the drums are really close micked, Have a listen to overheads, The overheads are falling too short, they are not even and Hi-hat mic is doing some really mysterious things as there is no Hi-Hat used in this version of the song. Also, the drums are not moving with the song's dynamic structure, like in the verse and choruses the levels of drums remain constant. Instead, they should go from Mezzo Forte to Fortessimo at least. ( if Micro and Macro dynamics are corrected while playing and recording then it's a difference of day and night after properly mixing the tracks).
The same goes for vocals, I think the mic used is either a Dynamic microphone with very high self-noise or a budgeted condenser place straight on the Horizontal axis and this is causing some serious sibilances and unevenness of vocals as the vocalists are moving slightly off-axis, Because dynamic and budget condensers only had a good on-axis amplitude and frequency response. Things don't work well off-axis. And talking of Bass guitar, if you have listened to it, then probably you know better than me.
I'm not blaming or Nitpicking, I am just providing my subjective opinions, also I'm not saying by any means that the recording is bad, its good, but it can be much better and saved a lot of CPU and processing while mixing. Also, I'm not as experienced as some of the members of Mixing secrets of small Studios Discussion Forum, So, Please do correct me If there anything Wrong I've said.
I"ll update the post soon. Till now waiting for Feedback and Review.
And yes one more thing. I must say that there are already some great Mixes here at Discussion Zone of this song, And I Really Like them and I've learned many things from them and Implemented them in my Mix.
No sample Triggering Used and No hyped Music arrangement is made, Also there is no automation in this version.
Hard Work With Correct Knowledge+Information in the Right Direction is Not The Key To Success , But Success Is The Name Of these Three Elements Unified.