Tears In The Rain - HB Mix

[HbGuitar]

very challenging mix...way more than i thought it would be....getting everything to sit together was a bit like herding cats.

Each time an instrument came in, or left, the whole balance of the song would change. Plus, imo, the guitars whilst nice sounding individually, putting them together was like mixing oil and water.

final mix had lots of automation (levels, EQ, panning, fx levels)

[pauli]

This is a really good mix, dude... many of the challenges are very well tended to. Just a few things I think could be a little better... The acoustic guitars sound very good in their own right, but if you're going to hard pan them in opposition, you really ought to high shelf cut the treble... the sparkle on the sides channel sounds really good at first but it ultimately gets distracting and a little wearying... I'd suggest a compromise... narrow the spread maybe 20 percent and you can get away with a slightly less aggressive high cut.

The electric guitars have lots of lovely warm midrange content... but carving some of that way and bringing the level up to match would give it a little more definition/clarity, which'd be great during the solo in the intro. During the nylon's dominance they sound great, and the nylon sounds nice too.

I think as a whole you'd benefit from more ambiance... the arrangement is quite sparse so you can get away with more clearly audible reverb.

And the automation is well judged for sure, but the implementation is pretty sloppy in a few places... there are a few spots where the EQ, volume, and panning changes are quite noticeable, so ease up on the transitions or mask them with something else and you're golden. I didn't notice any obvious automation of the FX levels, so great job on that.

Overall... great mix. Better than mine and most of the others so far, just a few technical fixes are necessary (listen to it in phones and you'll really get what I mean about the sides being too bright, and purely subjectively, a sparse mix sounds naked to me without a nice, diffuse reverb or a pad to fill it out

[HbGuitar]

Hey pauli...thx for your feedback and comments...i think you're spot on

the AcuGtr was probably the biggest challenge....trying to find a compromise between panning left and right for stereo width, and appropriate EQ/level so they don't get too fatiguing....but yet add some contrasting brightness to the warmer elecgtr and nylon....but the brightness make them fatiguing...ahhhhh the horror!...

i did try and mitigate the fatigue by having some acugtr free zones (or at least heavily reduced). Your idea of a treble shelf cut is an elegant yet simple solution that I'll certainly look into.....maybe alternate bright with less bright sections as a change up or something.

[Olli H]

SOunds good. Balances feels good. Good mix!

One thing came to my mind. The sound of the rhythm section is just fine the way it is, but I think it draws to much attention to it when one listen with headphones. Just a drop of saturation or lowpassing there could help brains to focus more easily to solo instruments. Or you could find some other trick to do the same thing. Maybe some automation that darkens them when there's something more important happening.

And now that I read what Pauli said, I think he's talking about the same thing - but only more precisely.

[pauli]

the AcuGtr was probably the biggest challenge....

Yeah...

i did try and mitigate the fatigue by having some acugtr free zones (or at least heavily reduced).

I brought down the acoustics in response to sections of the mix that needed to be more intimate, but it still didn't quite mitigate the issue..

Your idea of a treble shelf cut is an elegant yet simple solution that I'll certainly look into.....

it can create the illusion of depth, too... pushing things further away from the listener. it'd be best to do this after compression (if you're using any) so that it doesn't mess up your current gain reduction, and I'd use an EQ with an auxiliary makeup gain control so you can volume match pre and post EQ... make sure the sound is less fatiguing and not just quieter.

maybe alternate bright with less bright sections as a change up or something.

now THAT is an interesting idea I hadn't considered... allowing interim periods of darker tonality..

a couple things that might be worth considering about that approach...

any sudden shift in mix tonality is going to throw the "suspension of disbelief" out the window and make the mix less engaging and immersive as a result.. and a sudden shift from darker tonality to brighter tonality could be uncomfortable/painful, so these changes would have to be gradual and very well controlled. Dave Pensado once mentioned he sometimes feels the need to automate the EQ on EVERY SYLLABLE of a lead vocal, so that might be what you're getting yourself into.

another thing that might be helpful is automating the tonality of your send effects in response to however you choose to vary it up. Maintaining a consistent overall tonality will make the mix more believable. if you alter the nature of the reverb sends as certain elements (i.e. rhythm guitars) become brighter you might be able avoid any wild shifts in overall tonality whilst still reducing the fatiguing aspect of sharp transients in high frequencies section by section.

when you post a revision don't let me miss it (PM or something), you've got my interest piqued!