Ben Carrigan - Hey Carrie Anne

[juanjose1967]

Here's my mix of this song. The lead vox was harder than usual but I think I've made it sound decent.

As usual, any comment will be highly appreciated!

[flyrecords]

esta buena la mezcla Juan, la armonica deberias darle mas predelay a la reverb asi se escucha primero el sonido directo y despues la rev asi le das espacialidad, asi como esta es como que la armonica esta muy distante, la voz al final te queda atras, deberias automatizarla un poco dandole dos o tres db mas en la parte final.

una pregunta por las dudas tenes el libro de mike senior en español?? en pdf?

[juanjose1967]

ya he corregido lo de la voz al final de la canción. Respecto a lo de la armónica, la quise poner allí a lo lejos, pero quizás tengas razón y es mejor acercarla, así que lo he hecho un poco más

He estado mirando lo del libro y solamente lo encuentro en inglés. Yo lo tengo en formato físico, es decir, libro de toda la vida.

Muchas gracias como siempre por tu ayuda!

[flyrecords]

quedo buena Juan!!!

[Voelund]

Listened mix 2.
The voice is really hard to make fit. It has a lot o 2-3k and still sound muffled. I like the piano and harmonica sounds great, a bit too loud though for my taste.
In last part you should save space for the timpani and beautiful deep doublebasses.
Snare could be much further behind. Less lvl, brighter more verb.

But please dont just change things because I say so, Im just sharing my thoughts. Great mix and hi strings are besutiful too

[juanjose1967]

Thank you Niels for your suggestions! don't worry, I don't change things because people tell me to.

When I get any advice or suggestion, I try what they tell me and compare it with my first mix decision. If I like it better, then I change it; if not, then it remains the way it was.

Somehow by applying this way, I've learned how to get better sound and mainly balance, which was one of my biggest flaws when I started mixing!

Anyway, I have to agree about the timpani... I could hear them in the first mix but they lacked the presence they deserve. I've tried to fix that and I think they're better now.

Also, I've carved out 1 db on the 2,5k vocal; and also the snare has been pushed a little bit back.

Thank you again for your help!

[pauli]

hey juan, enjoyed listening

a few opportunities stick out to me. There's a compressor on the piano that's triggering too early, and as a result the piano's transient is being blunted a little... slowing down the attack time would help there. Also, this tune has a really strong tendency to build up from 1000 to 3000 due to a characteristic of the mics being used... make sure there's enough room in there for the instruments that have the most valuable contributions, because it builds up and gets a teeny bit harsh when the strings come in. If it's any help, I personally found a chunk of real easte centered around 6000 where there wasn't much going on at all, so I tried to enhance some parts in that region to make the dips around 3000 less impactful on the sonics. And for three, the timpani's still a bit of a letdown... I think you could honestly get away with simply turning it up I was involved in a discussion in another song where we talked about keying compressors on the reverb channel to the kick (great trick, you should try it.) and I gave it a go with the timpani on this song. It made the timpani sound much more intense and I didn't have to turn it up so loud

Otherwise, I think this is very nicely done. In a multi like this, I think it would be wise to think outside of simply balancing on the whole. Several of the tracks, the piano and vocal for instance, have internal frequency balances that affect their timbre and the naturalness of their sounds individually. IMHO, it may be a good idea to address issues such as that before you get into balancing. Nice work!

[juanjose1967]

Hey, Pauli! thank you for the detailed review!

I checked on the piano and the compressor that I was using was one of those that has only a slow or a fast attack. It was already in the slow attack so I couldn't make it any slower because there were only two options in the knob. So I've changed the compressor and I'm using now one that can set the ammount of time you want for the attack. So I think that the piano has now more definition.

About the timpani, I'm so curious about that trick. I'm sorry but I don't remember you discussing this -in fact the last month I've been kind of 'lost' from the forum because of work and vacation- so can you tell me how to did it?

Anyway, I've turned the timpani up a little bit more and I've used a trick I sometimes use when I have problems with my kick drum to be heard in busy mixes: I duplicate the track, find a spot in the high part of the spectrum to enhance the sound of the kick (around 5k), I highpass filter the sound until that spot, I compress it as much as I can, and then I added little by little to the mix until all of a sudden, the kick is more present. And all that without the need of turning up the kick drum.

Apparently it has worked also with the timpani, but if I can learn a new trick, then the better

[pauli]

About the timpani, I'm so curious about that trick. I'm sorry but I don't remember you discussing this -in fact the last month I've been kind of 'lost' from the forum because of work and vacation- so can you tell me how to did it?

This probably won't make the timpani any more audible... you'll still have to turn it up a bit, but you can definitely intensify it with this method. On the reverb channel that's working on the entire mix, put a compressor after the reverb plugin. Then configure the compressor so the timpani feeds it's sidechain... so whenever the timpani plays, it very quickly compresses about 3 to 5 dB of the reverb and releases just as soon as the timpani's attack has finished. Your ears will naturally create an effect such as this when there's a very loud sound, so this can psychoacoustically fool your brain into thinking the timpani is much louder than it really is.

[juanjose1967]

cool!!! I DO have to try that!!! thanks!!