Remember December - C U Next Time - Domino's mix

[Domino]

Had a lot of fun doing this, my first ever mix!

I picked this track because I knew it would be a challenge and I liked the song

I'm running Sabayon Linux, using Ardour 3 and various LV2 plugins. The only tools I'm currently missing on Linux are a way to make the trigger track play a sample and an autotune.

So I faked the Tom 1 by dropping the trigger track an octave, heavy EQ and lots of echo and reverb. It sounds more like a plank of wood being hit but mostly seems to work ok in the mix. There's a couple of points it doesn't though, so I will have to manually create a Tom 1 track if I can't find a way to use trigger tracks on Linux

I didn't have a plan when I started. After a quick balance and listen I decided to do the overheads first. I was focused on the dynamics of the track rather than the sound and used a transient shaper to boost the attack and cut back the sustain. I did some heavy eq and compression until I got something I liked. I added a parabolic reverse echo to soften it a bit as I wanted gritty not pebbled!

I didn't do anything else weird - touches of compression, eq and reverb / echo. I'd two reverbs, one small & tight the other more medium hall size. Most tracks went to one or the other reverb and echo for effect on some BG vocals. Somewhere along I started going for a live recording feel, think unamplified drummer being slightly drowned out by large amplification of the guitars, with lead vocals having to shout over all that and that's the sound I went for.

I know it's not perfect, but as a first mix of anything I'm really happy with how it came out. I'd welcome any tips on improving it and hopefully I can fix the tom and come up with a r2 sometime!

Edit: Arrgh! Exporting it has introduced some distortion that spoils it. I'm trying to figure out the issue and should have a fixed version soon!
Edit 2: replaced distorted mix with less distorted r2 below (still a work in progress)
Edit 3: changed to r3 which has distortion under control..

Edit: v2_r1 now available here: http://discussion.cambridge-mt.com/showt...2#pid15922

[Domino]

A few things weren't quite sitting right in the r3 mix for me, so I fixed them and did a r4

[Domino]

Brought lead vocals up and rebalanced things. Cut & Paste a Tom 2 to fill the glaring Tom 1 misses. Added a few touches of automation in places. I was making better decisions later in the mix, so revisted the early tracks and tweaked the low end filter & compression in particular. This is the one I'm most happy with now so hope you enjoy it!

[Moonwrist]

Well that is a really thin mix. There is a lot of room for more lows below 200 hz but there is also room for high above 8khz.

To listen what I mean try to put an eq plugin to your master. +3 db low shelf at 200 hz, + 6 db high shelf at 8 khz and -2 db bell at 4 khz.

That sound more balanced to continue with so I don't say more about your current mix.
Okay two things. Vocals. There is couple of parts where bvox override the lead vocal. Kick and bass need a new attention if you chose to follow my eq suggestion.
The lead vocal reverb sounds like there is too much modulation and thus unnatural. Yes I know punk isn't natural in the first point but this really strike out to me. Don't know what you use for reverb but if it has some adjustment for modulation speed or depth take it down a notch or three.

If it is your first mix use this forum for your benefit to improve your own mix and to learn from other members. Listen others mixes and read what kind of feedback they have received and see or try if you can use that to improve your own mix.

And I have to say that there is a lot of improvement between your first and last mix. Keep up the good work and remember to have fun

[Domino]

Yeah having fun and learning all the time! Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

Although this one did grow out of r5, I think it's fairly safe to call it a new mix. After I finished r5, I listened to more of the other mixes, read their comments and generally retuned my ear!

Listening to r5 gave me the feeling the lead vocalist lost the battle to shout over the band, and that didn't feel right. So I upped the vocals and reworked the mix around it.

Is there a specific section where the reverb was an issue on lead vocals or just all over? Am I still a bit bass light on this version?

[Moonwrist]

I would still say that your mix is thin.

The drum ohs sounds better in this latest version.

The lead voc and the guitars could use some fader automation to keep them more in control.
There is still parts where the vocal fall behind the guitars. That LO-FI part and before that and then after that the lead voc is clearly louder.
Maybe if you cut a little bit high mids from guitars they would sit better with the lead voc.

Basicly I try to make your mix sound more like mine. After all that is the greatest mix
So if you listened my mix and compared it to yours that would probably told you more than these messages.
And no my mix isn't the ultimate truth but could give you that different point of view to your own mix.
Maybe you think that my mix is too bass heavy and keep that in mind when reading my messages.

[Domino]

Thanks again for the feedback. I have done some more comparing and decided to start again with this track. I did a bit of work on it, but pretty much ended up at same point again. I've decided I was a bit ambitious for my first mix, so I'm taking a break from this one and doing some of the recommended for beginners tracks instead. I'll come back to this in a few weeks when I've a better idea of what I'm doing

[Moonwrist]

It can be both fun and educational to do something different and then come back.
You notice different things after a break and you might try some new working methods you have learned after your previous mix.
I made my first mix of this song two years ago in a different forum and last summer I made a new mix for this forum.
Needless to say that they differ each other.

[Domino]

OK, I'm back with my version 2! I spent a lot of time editing the tracks before doing a rough mix. I realigned all the harmony vocals and extended the tails on the guitar parts so they faded more consistantly. I then had to manually create the floor tom track by dropping and scaling samples. I also copied parts of Tom 2 to a new Ride Bell track and just deleted the parts where neither a tom or the ride was playing.

I started the mix from the overheads, paying close attention to where I panned the rest of the drum kit so they were as tight as I could hear. From there it was creative choices on placing everything else. I eq'd the guitars trying to lift a different section of the low to upper mid area to separate them in the mix, I used a saturator rather than a compressor on them.

There's quite a bit of automation on to get various effects, mostly subtle stuff, like turning down the reverb to make the stutter clearer just before the "I give you the needle". I whiz the pan back and forth between the shouts to vary the direction of the ping pong echo.

Anyway, apart from getting the singer to rerecord the "pressure" section I can't think of a way I can improve this. Hopefully some better trained ears can give me some suggestions

Thanks to Moonwrist, bmullen and takka360 whose mixes I used for reference along with "Runaway" by "Halo Friendlies" and "Hanayome" by "Inugami Circus Dan".

Edit: I decided I wasn't making good use of the space in the r1 mix, and fixing that led to a different approach to mixing the guitars. That led to eq and level adjustments and fixing up a few other things. I was happy with r2, but decided to redo the mastering stage (which I'm clueless about) and did an A B test with an r3.

I liked the r3 three one better and tweaked a few more things to get to this latest version.

[grizwalter]

Moonwrist nailed the proper description of you initial mixes--incredibly 'thin.' Were you mixing through headphones?

Moving forward, I'm not hearing that same 'thin' issue. Now hear just a hair too much on the 200-ish range.

Not necessarily bad, btw...just something, isn't 100%.

Also, I had a battle with what to do on the reverb/delay with this one. Almost went 100% dry. In the end I bused it up, added mild delay to lead vox and reverb to back vox, with a littlie delay added to guits. Sounds to me like you took a very similar approach. Come down about 1 "notch" (that's an official term, of course) on the wet/dry, and I'd say you've nailed that part.

Overall, I think you've nailed it. Our job here is to nit-pick. So I nit-picked.

I do want to know, however...Were the early mixes headphones? lol