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"All Souls Moon" Unplugged
#11
(26-01-2014, 02:52 AM)ALX Wrote: My goal is to hear a mastering engineer say that everything he tried made my mixes sound worst, so he transferred them untouched because they were that good.

Hah! Good luck with that! Smile Not that you're mixing isn't any good, but I just think there are very few mastering engineers who can resist the urge to tweak just one little bit...

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#12
(23-01-2014, 11:57 PM)ALX Wrote: ...... and placing them in a really nice ambiance. Let me know what you think.

sometimes i feel people get quite obsessed with "nice". it makes me think of mother-in-law type comments when asked what they thought about the piece of chocolate just devoured...."Nice". if nice is your goal, that's fine of course, it's your thing (which immediately conjures up the issue of subjectivity). but from an audience's perspective who are struggling with comprehending the stage where the performance is happening because of entirely false feedback cues, then i'd suggest it's a different matter?

this is unplugged, i want to hear it unplugged.

in mono (hello some radio channels, shopping center PA's, owners of compaq 615 notebooks LOL, iphone monitor etc, it's perhaps not so nice? lead vocal is dry, so too the acoustic geetar. the backing vocals drop right out and sound.....not nice.

but what about in stereo? odd things occur, like the violin only appearing in my left ear. the backing vocals? i've got one in each ear with Doris in my left, and Gertrude in my right. neither are occupying both ears which would normally occur in a realistic space, to mention just a couple of key points which from my listening enjoyment are important. no, they are essential. this is real music, with real people with real instruments, and my expectation of the genre is that they perform in a convincing space - we aren't talking Lady Gaga here. if my expectation isn't met, then the mixing engineer has missed an opportunity and the music won't translate in quite the way the Artist would prefer? that's lost sales and a missed chance to attract attention from A&R.

we have responsibilities which go well beyond EQ and "nice"? for me, nice is superfluous here and a distraction from the main event which should be an emotional response through engagement so it floats my boat enough to make me want to rush out and buy it. "Nice", whatever nice is, with the greatest of respect probably won't cut it?

my OvationII HD560's aren't digging the occasional sibilance here either ".....down my SSSStreet run SSSScores of eager SSSSoles", and occasionally the acoustic spits out a bright transient. ouch, so that makes it a distraction, uncomfortable and an experience i'd rather avoid. i note there's been some discussion here about compression? i haven't heard the original tracking, so perhaps it has an issue that couldn't be resolved without a compromise?

many of the best hits on the planet, had rubbish technical standards. are you a Virgo?

on the subject you touched upon regarding HD and this audiophile thang, you might like to read this thread for your own self amusement:
http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthre...-it-a-scam

there is a thing in audio which is to do with self-fulfilling prophecies, it's all tied up in psychology. in other words, our eyes (AND EARS!!) can trick our brain into false beliefs and assumptions. we play what we think is a 96kHz sample rate because it says so on the tin, and convince ourselves we can hear the benefits because it says it's 96kHz. just be alive to the potential issues associated with what you think or believe is going on around you, and this includes your perceptions about the brick wall limiter you are slapping on the master buss. the only test of pure honesty and whether you are fooling yourself, involves here someone switching the effect on and off silently, and you having to assess the status. try it. but make sure you are using a transparent one without dither running. but if you don't care that the highest peak is -8dB off 0dBFS, then hey, why bother? when is a clip not a clip? now i'm just being silly. must go.

good hunting meanwhile.
Dave, from over in the Met' Lab

Beware...........Cognitive Dissonance!
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#13
Thank you Mike for responding. I respect your opinion and know exactly what you are talking about. I have to try though. Shoot for the moon and even if you miss you will be amongst the stars. That's not a bad place to be.

HDTrack - One of the last places you can get a true wave file since there are not many local retailers to buy CD's from in the Washington DC area. Wav. file definitely sound better than mp3's. I have some 44.1 recordings in my reference library that sound better than 192 files. I prefer to use a wav. over a mp3 as my mix reference. HDTrack's is not better. They are assessable.

Dry Vcls and Gtr. Listen to the vcl at around 2:52 to 2:56. Dryer Vcl, not dry. My mix preference. I do not like to hear reverb ring out all over my mixes. But when I mute the reverb channels I should be able to hear a clear difference.

We are all guest here to learn. Mike has done a wonderful thing in creating this site and I am sure in the near future some big time engineer will come from this site.

It seems the compressor topic has shaken the tree pretty hard. Wow! I was not attacking anyone for using a compressor. That is one tools that I am extremely good at using. At one point it was the only tool I knew how to use. I have other weaknesses that I am working on and the songs on this site give me a wide range of situations to apply them. Each mix can be used to learn something different. Some engineers turn all the nobs and some turn just a few. Both with very good results.

Quick note. I said in one of my reply's that I was being LAZY towards the end of the mix. Once I was satisfied with learning a new way of choosing EQ and Reverb settings, the mix was over for me. This was not for a paying client. It was an exercise with specific goals. This mix was not a representation of a track that a mastering engineer would transfer untouched.


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#14
I think the important thing to take away from this discussion is that the tools you should use in any given situation should reflect the needs of the material. I think given his intentions, ALX made a good choice by avoiding compression in this scenario. Leaving out the drums cleared up so much room from everything else to breathe naturally, and I'm not hearing anything drop out or pop out (that was very silly) so I commend you sir. The EQ seems very well executed to my newbie ears.

What I'm wondering though is if you tried any sort of parallel compression for this mix before you chose to go the route you did. I think you've gotten a lovely sound, I'm just curious. My instincts at this point in my learning would be to go for very light parallel compression so people can listen to it in their cars on a busy highway and low levels of parallel distortion to make some elements of the mix a little denser. I haven't tried this one yet, but I may just give it a go Big Grin

Good work and cool idea!

And if you can get a mastering engineer to throw his hands up and walk away, pints are on me. Tongue
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#15
Finally have a moment to reply. I did not try any kind of special effect processing. A song this natural and raw will draw attention to any kind of processing if not applied correctly. You really have to be able to hear very deep into the mix to make processing invisible but still accomplish your goal. My monitoring system is not to that point yet. Getting close though.

The one thing I love about this site is that you have 2 to 100 extra ears in different listening environments. Those extra ears tell you what you are missing while mixing. If someone says that the left side is a little heavy, it makes me search out why I did not hear it. Checking on every monitor and headphone I have until I find which one will expose the imbalance or problem. Then I add it to my mix process. Every mixer should have a process, an order of building a mix. It should be documented and update when ever you learn something that helps you work faster. I am always tweaking my monitoring system and my mixing process (my formula for a good mix). The extra ear on this site help me do that. I think that this is the true value of this website.

I finally have some free time and hope to post something new soon. Happy mixing everyone.
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