30-01-2014, 04:28 AM (This post was last modified: 05-02-2014, 12:38 AM by ALX.)
Hello Everyone. This is a quick mix of "Much Too Much". Focused mainly on matching the panning position of the instruments to the room mic and leveling. I did not do any automation. Added a small peak to the Sax on the very right just to help it cut trough a little. Tried L/R then M/S compression on the Room Mic and Horns Bus to tame the trumpets and both started to make the overall balance and cymbals sound phasey and weird. May try linear phase, but I usually do not like what LP does to the bass response. Compressed the DRM BUS and added some RenBass to the kick for some sub help. This song was the perfect example of the Yin and Yang affect of tracks with a lot of bleed. EQ or compression on one instrument affects all the others. Easy to have things start sounding weird and unbalanced. Quickly roughly compressed and EQed the VCL to fit. Chose a large Plate that sound similar to the room mic. The VCL was an after thought. Mixed the band and then added the VCL. This mix was all about panning and leveling the Band. Added some 1.5:1 compression on the Master BUS, a 1.5db wide band bump at around 4.5k to smooth out the averaged response curve, and pushed into a brickwall limiter to get the RMS to the recommended range for Jazz. Have to admit I was a little lazy on this mix also. Cut this mix short to mix Lyndsey Ollard's "Catching Up". Am planning to pull out all the stops to make that sound like a record ready for mastering.
I really like the Band with just leveling and panning and no processing!
Sounds good.. like you said about the none-automation it still sounds well balance to my ears in specific parts.. of course if you would of done some I bet it would of had sounded much better.
I like the unprocessed version better.
Just some thoughts on size. In my AKG headphones it seems the rhythm group are bigger than the band. Also the horns are left to center and piano is pretty alone to the right.
I realise you placed each group of instr. accordin to room mics.
Just think the right channel is a bit empty.
Really like the bas sound.
Old ears, old gear, little boy inside love music and sounds and my wife, not necessarily in that order
05-02-2014, 12:04 AM (This post was last modified: 05-02-2014, 12:09 AM by ALX.)
I agree. Made me start to wonder where the room mics were placed. The leveling towards the end was so sensitive that +/- .01 on the fader or panning nob of any channel would cause the mix to start to become unfocused. The horns in the room mic are very loud. Maybe they were place in the middle of the room and not at the front. Only saw a picture of the horn section and could not tell where they were in the room.
05-02-2014, 02:48 AM (This post was last modified: 05-02-2014, 02:53 AM by ALX.)
Glad you pointed that out. I only saw the first picture for some reason. Looking at the recording set up, the room mic is useless. The piano and vocalist should be up front with the horns behind across from left to right and the the drums in the corner for a real life perspective. Probably better to drop the room mic and create my own room. Can add compression without worry about the room mic blend.
05-02-2014, 12:52 PM (This post was last modified: 05-02-2014, 12:52 PM by Voelund.)
Thats a bold decision
I found the room mics to be the most natural soundin and build my mix around them, I heard other mixes of this where the room mics were not used much, and the goodies in form of warmth, blend etc. were missed a lot, by me.
Ditchin them may eliminate some pan problems, but create other problems.
I look forward to hear what you come up with !
Old ears, old gear, little boy inside love music and sounds and my wife, not necessarily in that order
