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Amber- Howlin Mix
#1
I did this mix for the Puremix contest.This was my first attempt at mixing this style of music so things might be off.

After not listening to the mix for awhile there are somethings i would do a little different know( vocals, snare),but it is what is is.
Thanks for the listen.


.mp3    Amber-Pure Mix-Howlin_.mp3 --  (Download: 10.05 MB)


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#2
Good one!
Only things that I would touch just a little bit were vocals, snare and bass. Changes would be minimal and belong to category of personal preference.

Vocals: there's some kind of dark veil in front of vocals.
Snare: it seems to be a bit hasty. Just a little bit of tail might make it fit better otherwise relaxed groove
Bass: I might add just a little bit more of that modern farting character to the bass that was quite strong in the bass track.

Also I might check just for sure the low end with analyzer. There may slightly uncontrolled elements there. But I'm not sure.

So my conclusion is: I like it, very good!
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#3
Quote:Posted by Olli H - 06-08-2014 12:29 PM
Vocals: there's some kind of dark veil in front of vocals.
Snare: it seems to be a bit hasty. Just a little bit of tail might make it fit better otherwise relaxed groove
Bass: I might add just a little bit more of that modern farting character to the bass that was quite strong in the bass track.

Also I might check just for sure the low end with analyzer. There may slightly uncontrolled elements there. But I'm not sure.

Hello olli H! First thing thanks for the listen and thoughts.

AS for the

Vocals- still not sure how to get them to set in the mix.I guess
just more practice and understanding( eqing,Fx etc...) an how to place
them in and fit the song.

Snare-maybe a little less low mids and learning to blend different
snare's theres always something new to learn tho.

Bass- I think your wright on adding a little more of the farting
thingy. I sidechained it to the kic and lost that
part of the sound.

Will check the low end out with Span.

Thanks again ! This helps.


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#4
Try some sort of analog saturation simulator before your balance EQ insert on the vocals... that will generally give you enough harmonic content to work with if you're struggling to cut the frequencies you don't like without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Tube distortion is often helpful as well, but I don't like it on a female vocal so much personally.

A plate reverb is also a good idea when the vocal feels muffled. Often you can get a nice tonal coloration without any of the nasty time smearing/phase uglies you might with eq boosts.

To emphasize the snare tail, you might try a compressor with a slow attack and slow release. That'll also give you a nice, fat sound. I'd recommend doing that prior to any low mid cuts, personally.

IMO the farting quality of synth basses is useless and annoying.... UNLESS you treat it the same way you'd treat saturation/distortion. There's a hell of a lot of harmonic content there, so you could if you chose to be really aggressive with the EQ and I really doubt you could lose anything important if you stayed outside the bass range. With bass tracks like that, I like to low pass around 500 and get the bass right with the kick first. Then as I add other instruments I'll experiment with which harmonics I can allow in the bass for maximum punch and attitude without masking anything. That's the fun part of mixing electronic music... bend it, twist it, break it, take a steaming crap on it and roll it in glitter... as long as it sounds good, nobody's gonna care, because a synth can sound like anything you want it to. It's not natural to begin with, so why bother with the gentle processing you'd apply to an acoustic instrument? Chew it up and spit it out until it suits you... anything's better than a toad farting Tongue

Hopefully that helps in some way... these are just my methods tailored to my tastes.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#5
Quote:Posted by pauli - 11-08-2014 04:35 AM
Try some sort of analog saturation simulator before your balance EQ insert on the vocals... that will generally give you enough harmonic content to work with if you're struggling to cut the frequencies you don't like without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Tube distortion is often helpful as well, but I don't like it on a female vocal so much personally..

Thanks for the info:
I will try adding saturation before the eq to see How this works.I think i had some on a parallel track under the main vocal will check.

I was thinking it might of been one of the compressors on the vocal track?



Quote:A plate reverb is also a good idea when the vocal feels muffled. Often you can get a nice tonal coloration without any of the nasty time smearing/phase uglies you might with eq boosts.

To emphasize the snare tail, you might try a compressor with a slow attack and slow release. That'll also give you a nice, fat sound. I'd recommend doing that prior to any low mid cuts, personally.

I never would of thought to try a plate verb when a vocal feels muffled,but i will also give this a try and also the other thing you mentioned. Thanks for your time!

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#6
Another quick idea came to mind... If a vocal feels muffled, sometimes it's because there's other stuff going on in the same frequency region, but obviously you know that. Now assume it's a complicated mix like this song... You've made all of your arrangement adjustments and you're pulling all the stops for the final vamp out. And some instrument occasionally masks the vocal in passing. Eq, vocal rides, automation... All sorts of potential solutions for this.

But if it's like I mentioned and just an occasional issue for a small section of the song, a really elegant solution is a simple widening delay configuration. I prefer tempo based for metronomic styles like this because it snaps into place and complements the drive. You set up two delay taps... One panned hard right, the other panned hard left. Give them slightly different delay times.. For a fast song I'll often use 2 eighth notes for one tap and 1.75 eighth notes for the other. This can for a short time "unveil" the vocal if you low pass much of the clarity on the delay channel.

Mixing is all about areas of light and shade- contrast. The delay configuration I just detailed serves two purposes... It widens monophonic tracks, which really brings a vocal to life. It also gives you the opportunity to contrast your lead vocal track with a very low clarity version of itself almost subliminally, which can liven up your vocals without any nasty processing artifacts. Another use got the same configuration... Go even more nuts on the low pass filters and increase the delay times... It will sound like a distant echo, which creates great depth and helps catapult the vocal to the front of the mix!

Obviously if the masking issue is continual throughout the song, you're better off using traditional mixing methods and arrangement edits, but this delay trick gives youuch more flexibility if you're not over-relying on it.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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