Our Good Wolf: 'Tourism'

[Hirsute]

Hey everyone

My mix for this song, I did some light arrangements.

[BlueTiger]

hirsute, i thin you have to start again changing completely your workflow and maybe your gears...

[Hirsute]

hirsute, i thin you have to start again changing completely your workflow and maybe your gears...

Waiting for your arguments?

Just as a reminder it's a learning forum, personnaly I do that for fun, of course I go toward a template more and more with time, but you know I don't want to end up like your kind of "mix", safe, playing security, voice front, ruined deessed vocal, lifeless kinda deal...
So yeah, there's issue in my mix no doubt, does it slap more than yours? I think so, and you know I did that on earbuds on a 10 years old i5 desktop, so without being too arrogant, I think with your gear in a treated room I would do far better than what you did frankly.

Was that my bass that tickled you, you want my trick big tiger?

[mikej]

Hi Hirsute!

Whilst BlueTiger's comments are a little lacking in the explanation department, to me your mix does seem to have a few issues to be addressed. There's really no need for you to go on the attack.

This is just a guess, and I could be wrong here... Listening to your mix and reading your comment, (and also assuming you haven't got any room correction software on your mixbus that you've forgotten to remove), I suspect you might have been mixing for too long at too loud a volume on your earbuds without a break?

Under such conditions our brains can adjust to fooling us that a wrong sound and balance is actually correct. It's a particular problem on headphones. If you find yourself continually cranking up the volume, that's the time to take a break. In addition - if you think that other mixes are sounding completely wrong, that is also a sign that your ears are likely fatigued for the day. We've all been there - which is why I suspect this is maybe what has happened in your case here.

To me the mix sounds a bit odd - too wide, kind of out of phase, and looking at a spectrum analyser the bass looks to be about 10-20db louder than it should be. I suspect the bass is likely eating up all your headroom and is possibly also blowing up any mix bus compression you have on the master bus too - which is further making things sound odd. You have to be careful with the low end on earbuds, as most earbuds simply cannot reproduce the subs, and low end properly so you might not actually be able to hear the issue. A lot of earbuds do also have quite strange frequency response curves too.

Line up your mix and the library mix in your DAW, and match the levels. If you look at a spectrum analyser, I think you should be able to see the difference between the two mixes? I think you should be able to hear it too. I would try switching between the two mixes, and if you can try and listen on different headphones, or speakers if you have another set available.

I hope this helps!

Cheers!

[BlueTiger]

yes, it's a learning forum but not only... it's a training and improving board too...
it's very clear your mix have a lot of problems: distorsion, wrong phase, many instruments lost...
for my opinion you have to make two important things before to upload a new mix:
1- learn the mixing process from the abc but not on youtube, from someone, and do a lot of tests, not for one week, for months
2- buy some listening system because it's impossible you have released this mix after a listen on monitors, cars or proper headphones... i suggest you to buy yamaha hs5, very cheap n 2nd hand market...
And please don't attack me because you are wrong, not me... have a nice day...

[mikej]

yes, it's a learning forum but not only... it's a training and improving board too...
it's very clear your mix have a lot of problems: distorsion, wrong phase, many instruments lost...
for my opinion you have to make two important things before to upload a new mix:
1- learn the mixing process from the abc but not on youtube, from someone, and do a lot of tests, not for one week, for months
2- buy some listening system because it's impossible you have released this mix after a listen on monitors, cars or proper headphones... i suggest you to buy yamaha hs5, very cheap n 2nd hand market...
And please don't attack me because you are wrong, not me... have a nice day...

I feel that you were only being attacked due to the way your initial post came across. Your post maybe wasn't exactly the kindest thing to write? We all have to start somewhere, and mixing is not easy by any means. Listening skills do take quite some time to develop. I think some of the issues with the posted mix are ones that we are all familiar with and have experienced to some degree or other.

Not all of us are in a position to buy the gear we would like, and we all have to do our best with what we have. There are people out there that can do a decent mix on earbuds.

Cheers!

[Hirsute]

yes, it's a learning forum but not only... it's a training and improving board too...
it's very clear your mix have a lot of problems: distorsion, wrong phase, many instruments lost...
for my opinion you have to make two important things before to upload a new mix:
1- learn the mixing process from the abc but not on youtube, from someone, and do a lot of tests, not for one week, for months
2- buy some listening system because it's impossible you have released this mix after a listen on monitors, cars or proper headphones... i suggest you to buy yamaha hs5, very cheap n 2nd hand market...
And please don't attack me because you are wrong, not me... have a nice day...

What part or elements of my mix as a phase issue exacly professor? It feel to me you're just looking at a program telling you that, are you using your ears at some point?

I spread things intentionally, what you call lost element is in purpose too, maybe overdoing it yeah, but I'm not paid.

End of day, you think my mix suck, I think your mix suck and is anemic, yeah you have what you call "perfect" balance, actually your voice is too loud, everything is stripped to match your idea of a clean, mix. You know what I call your kind of work, fastfood for music, you don't like music, you're the opposite of what music need, you're just stripping the life of everything.

Honestly, when I listen to mix made by you or some guys on this forum, it's always the same, It's like you've never heard any big tracks, your using template, sampled calibrated at every level, 10 seconds in, and anyone can see that from 10 miles, it's awful.

[Y's Man]

yes, it's a learning forum but not only... it's a training and improving board too...
it's very clear your mix have a lot of problems: distorsion, wrong phase, many instruments lost...
for my opinion you have to make two important things before to upload a new mix:
1- learn the mixing process from the abc but not on youtube, from someone, and do a lot of tests, not for one week, for months
2- buy some listening system because it's impossible you have released this mix after a listen on monitors, cars or proper headphones... i suggest you to buy yamaha hs5, very cheap n 2nd hand market...
And please don't attack me because you are wrong, not me... have a nice day...

What part or elements of my mix as a phase issue exacly professor? It feel to me you're just looking at a program telling you that, are you using your ears at some point?

I spread things intentionally, what you call lost element is in purpose too, maybe overdoing it yeah, but I'm not paid.

End of day, you think my mix suck, I think your mix suck and is anemic, yeah you have what you call "perfect" balance, actually your voice is too loud, everything is stripped to match your idea of a clean, mix. You know what I call your kind of work, fastfood for music, you don't like music, you're the opposite of what music need, you're just stripping the life of everything.

Honestly, when I listen to mix made by you or some guys on this forum, it's always the same, It's like you've never heard any big tracks, your using template, sampled calibrated at every level, 10 seconds in, and anyone can see that from 10 miles, it's awful.

maybe calm down and explain your intentions with the mix in the original post because if what you are going for is "out there" and you dont say anything then this is the response you will get. Whatever it is you were going for if this sound is intentional is not pleasant, but keep trying avant garde stuff and something will land

[Roy]

Yeah, I don't mean to pile on but this mix feels off. For various reasons that have already been tread upon. I'm all for alternative mixes but ultimately this mix fails the song. Which is the main cardinal sin of mixing. It's a mix to be intentionally different at the detriment of the song and the artist. It doesn't support the song at all. It doesn't make the average person want to keep listening. I'm just hearing the mixer and the mix and not the lyrics or the song and the end result is unappealing and lifeless.