06-05-2023, 04:30 AM (This post was last modified: 14-05-2023, 01:46 PM by Quathamer.)
Hello!
This one was a little tricky. I wasn't sure about tuning the vocals or anything like that, so I left most of it as is. I think I only ended up tuning the bass.
The guitars in this track were really nice to work with. I felt like the right mood for this one was a dark, more mid-rich tone. Used a lot of decap on the mix buses, bringing out a bit of darkness. But I also felt like it needed a bit of sizzle as well.
Comment below if you have any thoughts.
**Edit Mix1.2**
Hey folks,
Big thanks to all the really great feedback, I agreed with most of it. I took what you all said and produced a second mix with less distortion, and let it breath a little more with an emphasis on repairing the drums (original drums). Still as loud (sorry Roy) and hopefully has as much body and vibe.
I gave it a quick listen this morning. Overall it moves along nicely. I think there could be a little more 'depth'. There's a lot going on in the 400-500 range and maybe opening up that area might make things breathe a bit. Maybe the organ could come back a bit. I think the vocal eq might move the vocal into the range of the instruments as well and add to the traffic there. The effect catches the ear in a good way but then it may just have the vocal competing with everything else.
I like the bass but I think it could use a little less of the subs (40hz area, I'm not sure) to give more room to the kick and maybe give any bus compression less work to do. It feels like the bass is there well enough and can give up some of those lows to the kick.
It's a bit 'loud' for my taste in that I feel like I'm hearing the overall mastering trying to get it to that level. That's still a bone of contention with people so I'll just say I notice it and leave it at that.
Not sure the mix sounds loud because of master bus processing - as it's really not that hot LUFS wise (9.5). From what you say it might possibly be a little too much saturation? I don't know... I would have thought there would be enough saturation on the recording as is, being mainly guitars? I think it might possibly be making the mix feel a little brittle around the 3k area too.
A/B-ing level matched with a couple of other mixes and the library mix - I think this would sound really good without the added saturation (if that is what I am hearing). I'd try just using a touch of eq instead to get the effect I think you are after, rather than leaning on saturation for tone and thickness perhaps? If you are not using saturation for an obvious effect, maybe try just dialing it in until you hear the tinyest of subtle 3D lift in the track and then still dial it back a hair. I feel that might perhaps work better?
Cheers!
Just uploaded a mix/master? Waiting for comments? Why not give back and critique a mix/master, or two!
13-05-2023, 03:13 AM (This post was last modified: 13-05-2023, 03:17 AM by Quathamer.)
Hey lads,
Yeah some excellent feedback here.
I was intentionally hitting for a saturated mix. I just felt like this song needed to be a little more interesting. It also fits the genre and style pretty well. But maybe I did take it a bit far, I'm not sure. And good pickup on the master there Mike. I actually have very little compression going on on the limiter. It's just catching the peaks (no more than 1.5-2db of gr).
The saturation is probably a bit much, now that I'm having more of a critical listen. Especially on the drum bus and the guitars. But, I like the vocals, so there's a bit of stuff to keep working on in this mix.
A word on the loudness, I do feel one of the jobs of a mixing engineer is to bring a track up to a competitive level. It's like you said, I'm hitting around -9 lufs, but the mix is pretty in your face. With all of my clients, this is a skill that they really come to want because they want their music to "pop out of the speakers." If you reference other tracks in this genre, you'll notice that the tracks are super present, and that isn't the mastering engineer's job, its the mixing engineer's job (and the recording engineer's job).
A word on the mixing elements
- the kick I tend to hpf quite aggressively, but then I will sidechain the kick to the bass so that the bass doesn't get in the way of the kick. I like an open bass rather than an open kick, because when you're listening on smaller speakers, the kick is punchier and more dynamic, and the bass fills quite a lot of the spectrum below say 150hz. So I would rather be super tight with the kick and let the bass fill that harmonic real estate.
- I see what you mean about the 500hz area. It is a bit busy, and if I revise the mix I might look into it, but since the guitars and the vocal's sweet spot is in those ranges, it might make it a bit tricky.
13-05-2023, 12:59 PM (This post was last modified: 13-05-2023, 01:39 PM by vovolan.)
Hi
I don't like it, too much distortion, squashed drums, a bit overcompressed (sounds like masterbus wall) , lack of energy/warmth in the low mids, vocals too much up front, in certain parts some instruments get totally lost like the acoustic guitars or organs
Originally listened to it on regular pc speakers, it sounds much better now that I'm on headphones which means the mix doesn't translate well to lower tier gear
no hard feelings just saying what I'm hearing
best of luck
I was intentionally hitting for a saturated mix. I just felt like this song needed to be a little more interesting. It also fits the genre and style pretty well. But maybe I did take it a bit far, I'm not sure. And good pickup on the master there Mike. I actually have very little compression going on on the limiter. It's just catching the peaks (no more than 1.5-2db of gr).
The saturation is probably a bit much, now that I'm having more of a critical listen. Especially on the drum bus and the guitars. But, I like the vocals, so there's a bit of stuff to keep working on in this mix.
A word on the loudness, I do feel one of the jobs of a mixing engineer is to bring a track up to a competitive level. It's like you said, I'm hitting around -9 lufs, but the mix is pretty in your face. With all of my clients, this is a skill that they really come to want because they want their music to "pop out of the speakers." If you reference other tracks in this genre, you'll notice that the tracks are super present, and that isn't the mastering engineer's job, its the mixing engineer's job (and the recording engineer's job).
A word on the mixing elements
- the kick I tend to hpf quite aggressively, but then I will sidechain the kick to the bass so that the bass doesn't get in the way of the kick. I like an open bass rather than an open kick, because when you're listening on smaller speakers, the kick is punchier and more dynamic, and the bass fills quite a lot of the spectrum below say 150hz. So I would rather be super tight with the kick and let the bass fill that harmonic real estate.
- I see what you mean about the 500hz area. It is a bit busy, and if I revise the mix I might look into it, but since the guitars and the vocal's sweet spot is in those ranges, it might make it a bit tricky.
Thanks lads!
I've just woken up. In fact I'm saying things like "woken up". Anyway, yeah, maybe I was reacting to the saturation or the clipped bits which plays into loudness issue. Thankfully we're moving into a level standard for streaming and I'd rather a good lower level mix than a good mix that gets ruined in an attempt to make it needlessly louder. I'll disagree and say that it is the mastering engineer's job to get the overall eq of the track to be present. Most of the time we may not have the luxury of a mastering engineer though so I get taking the steps to 'finalize' a mix.
I just don't see the need to hit the mix's head against the ceiling for no real benefit. A mix at -1/-14 sounds just as good as a 'louder' mix that clips or is limited to change the shape of the mix to fit in a box that already has plenty of room. I've never heard a bad mix that I thought "at least it's loud". I'm sure I've probably ruined good mixes back in the day (or yesterday) trying to get them to be loud. And yeah, I could work on getting things louder but I'm just more into mixing than mastering and there are people who are better suited to take good work to another level.
I've listened to a lot of versions of this song and sometimes I've had to click the volume button on my computer. I've more cursed the loud, limited, clipped, mixes than I have the quieter ones I've had to turn up a button press or two. And if they're streaming the levels get worked out anyway. That's not to say that the quieter mixes were better or that this is a bad mix. They've all varied. But on a number of loud ones what bothered me was the extra fiddling that they took to make it loud.
It's like racing, being fast isn't really about speed.
Anyhoo. I'mma sorry to rant and this doesn't really even apply to this mix but it's a general thought I've had and this was the spot I brought it up on. I'm going to get some coffee. I fill it to the brim to get every last drop out of it and make it really hard to not spill.
I don't like it, too much distortion, squashed drums, a bit overcompressed (sounds like masterbus wall) , lack of energy/warmth in the low mids, vocals too much up front, in certain parts some instruments get totally lost like the acoustic guitars or organs
Originally listened to it on regular pc speakers, it sounds much better now that I'm on headphones which means the mix doesn't translate well to lower tier gear
no hard feelings just saying what I'm hearing
best of luck
Hey,
No hard feelings, I agree with your take on this. Your comments were helpful, thanks so much. I'll only say that I like vocals right up front, so I'm cool with that.
