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Moosmusic - Big Dummy Shake
#1
This one needed lots of compression all over the place, particularly in the lower frequencies. Unfortunately compression is a huge weakness for me... I always seem to overdo it, so I try to use parallel compression wherever I can.

I tried Mike's trick with layered compression in parallel for the vocals, but I don't have the wide variety of compressors he uses, so while the sound is more natural in a way, the blend isn't nearly as good. That's a super cool trick so I'll start amassing more compressors to choose from.

Any input you may have would be very helpful. I started working on this song looking for something easier and more familiar than what I've been challenging myself with lately... bit of a break, yeah?... but found it to be just as challenging in its own ways.

Thanks for listening and any comments Big Grin


.mp3    Big Dummy Shake Master.mp3 --  (Download: 7.67 MB)


I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#2
Vox sound great to me and sitting in the mix nice.
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#3
I think you've got here a good mix. I agree with Alan and the voice sounds very good to me. I also like how the guitars sound during the choruses. Did you rise the guitars' volume during the chorus? I like the strength they give to that part when they start (at 1:37 and 2:46) Smile
mixing since April 2013
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#4
(16-03-2014, 10:24 AM)juanjose1967 Wrote: I think you've got here a good mix. I agree with Alan and the voice sounds very good to me. I also like how the guitars sound during the choruses. Did you rise the guitars' volume during the chorus? I like the strength they give to that part when they start (at 1:37 and 2:46) Smile

Thanks for listening and commenting guys Smile I worked really hard getting those vocals to play nice with the rest of the track.... if it's of any interest to the group, I did as Mike suggested and cut the vocal up into different tracks for the verse, chorus, and bridge, and used different send levels to a couple different compressors... did some similar adjustments to how much was feeding into the verb and delay so that each section had a different character but still felt consistent.

Juan for the chorus guitars I doubled the strong one and panned in opposition about 60 percent, and there's some shifty stuff going on with the send levels and send panning for the reverbs and delays. There's a lot of mean compression going on... 6 dB of reduction in many places and it was killing the dynamic range of the track as a whole, so to combat that (and also to get the choruses louder than the verses, which is tricky) I automated the volume of the entire mix during the mastering phase, and automated a mid channel compressor which lowered the vocal volume a little bit to make those guitars sound bigger and more powerful, only during the choruses.

Thanks again guys, I appreciate it!
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#5
Hey Pauli, just checked out your mix, sounds a bit muddy try high passing everything except the kick and bass. And compression a bit to much it's squashing the mix. Try faster attack times and release to let the track breath a bit more. Good effort! Keep practicing!
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#6
(17-03-2014, 06:03 AM)lram87 Wrote: Hey Pauli, just checked out your mix, sounds a bit muddy try high passing everything except the kick and bass. And compression a bit to much it's squashing the mix. Try faster attack times and release to let the track breath a bit more. Good effort! Keep practicing!

Thanks for checking it out and the suggestions!

You think the guitars are the source of the mud? Everything is highpassed at 100 Hz or more and several of the instruments have layers of highpass filtering. Makes me think maybe the compression is doing it.

As for compression, I couldn't figure out how to get everything to behave itself without it Blush I can try faster attacks and releases to see what happens Big Grin Have you tried this track? Getting the bass to work with the two different kick drums in a consistent way compelled me to use a lot of compression in the sub and bass area with a multiband... it was a lot trickier than I bargained for.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#7
(17-03-2014, 05:35 PM)pauli Wrote:
(17-03-2014, 06:03 AM)lram87 Wrote: Hey Pauli, just checked out your mix, sounds a bit muddy try high passing everything except the kick and bass. And compression a bit to much it's squashing the mix. Try faster attack times and release to let the track breath a bit more. Good effort! Keep practicing!

Thanks for checking it out and the suggestions!

You think the guitars are the source of the mud? Everything is highpassed at 100 Hz or more and several of the instruments have layers of highpass filtering. Makes me think maybe the compression is doing it.

As for compression, I couldn't figure out how to get everything to behave itself without it Blush I can try faster attacks and releases to see what happens Big Grin Have you tried this track? Getting the bass to work with the two different kick drums in a consistent way compelled me to use a lot of compression in the sub and bass area with a multiband... it was a lot trickier than I bargained for.
If you have trouble getting the kick and bass to co exist in the track, try side chain compressing the bass and use the kick as the trigger or vise versa. mess with the attack and release time till you get them both sharing that space.
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#8
Yikes, I actually did sidechain the bass to the kick. Maybe all the weighty compression in the bottom end is carry through over the gain reduction... it's currently 3dB and I'm afraid any more than that will be really obvious on hi fi systems
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#9
(18-03-2014, 05:00 PM)pauli Wrote: Yikes, I actually did sidechain the bass to the kick. Maybe all the weighty compression in the bottom end is carry through over the gain reduction... it's currently 3dB and I'm afraid any more than that will be really obvious on hi fi systems

Could be, sometimes what I'll do if I'm having trouble getting them to play together is to pan one very slightly to right and the other just a tad to the left to give them room. But with out it being noticeable in the mix, it still sounding centered.
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#10
sunding good. like the drums, nice separation.good job Pauli.
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