Jay Menon:'Through My Eyes"

[daniel.tan]

Hi there, please listen to this and I would appreciate your feedback as I am trying to develop my skills.

This is a ballad and I am going for a warm sound and am trying to make it lyrical. Thus I mixed the percussion so that the kick drum gets masked slightly and the snare is out of the way yet providing the beat.

I noticed that there are lots of harsh sound from the singer's mic and had to EQ it out by doing many narrow and deep cuts which drastically affected his sound so i tried to go for a warmer sound by increasing the 250Hz of the reverb in volume and 350Hz in damping. I also boosted 2800Hz of the reverb slightly for the sparkle.

By the way, I also boosted 5100Hz and 2500Hz on the lead guitar to give a stronger sound. Does it work?



Cheero!
Daniel

[daniel.tan]

Will also attach a pre-master mix so that you could evaluate the mastering.
Oya, this piece does require a lot of attentive automation.

[thedon]

Hi Daniel
Your mix has a good balance ,you have given the band vocalist a live sound Sitting in an empty room with timber floors.
Maybe the vocals could have some de-essing .

[daniel.tan]

Maybe the vocals could have some de-essing .

Yeah, I should add that to my repertoire of skills. Will get back to you guys when more comments come in.

Hi Daniel
Your mix has a good balance ,you have given the band vocalist a live sound Sitting in an empty room with timber floors.

Ah, I guess your floors are great for this kind of sound.

[daniel.tan]

Could someone enlighten me if the frequencies right around 2800, 6300 and 8000 in the vocal are meant to be? Because they are the primary cause of the "txk txk txk" sound especially when the vocal sings louder. Is it part and parcel of recording with a condenser mic (I have yet to record anything at all) or is it bad recording? I hear similar stuff in the vocal of "Frozen", albeit that their "txk txk" is more subtle.

[pauli]

Hey Daniel, sorry for the delay in reviewing your mix.

Actually, it sounds like you're on the right path, to me... you seem to basically understand the arrangement and what instruments should be taking priority in most situations, i.e. your level choices are pretty good. Many of your EQ boosts seem to be enhancing the subjective character of the guitar and vocal, so you're generally getting the picture. But I'm hearing several distracting technical mistakes that are preventing your mix from being engaging, so I'll try and go through them one at a time since you mentioned wanting an in depth conversation...

The main thing that's hurting your balance here is that there's not enough separation between the instruments. As I mentioned in our conversations, it's better to focus on cutting rather than boosting, and this is a really good argument for that case. Right now, I think you're focusing too much on improving the sound of each instrument and you're losing sight of the big picture. For instance, in the climax of the song when almost every instrument is playing, there are very noticeable frequency buildups in the low mids... meaning that from around 200 hz to 500 hz, too many instruments are feeding too much sound into the mix. In the low mids, excess damages clarity, which is why you're having a hard time balancing the lead vocal and probably why you're hearing so much of the 8000 hz "air" in comparison to the rest of the vocal part... the low mids in the mix are swallowing everything else and this is feeding into your perception that the vocal track is harsh. Check each track out on an analyzer and make notes of which instruments are contributing heavily to that region... and whether or not they need to be. For my money, I'd look at the guitars and piano as the primary culprits.

Secondly... I'd rethink your drums quite a bit. You generally don't want the kick to be masked, and there are other ways of making it less up front... like a high shelving dip, for instance, but you're going to want that low end contribution, and your mix will be more believable if the kick's attack is heard a little more clearly. Ballads need to be reverberant and spacious for sure, but definition is paramount in any modern pop song.

I've already somewhat addressed the vocal harshness.... it's honestly not an issue in my opinion. Are you sure the vocal is harsh, or is the txk txk txk sound you're mentioning the sibilant consonants? There's some very noteworthy sibilance in the vocal track and I'm willing to bet that's what's bothering you. A static EQ cut at 8000 would certainly solve the problem, but it would kill the vocal track stone dead. Instead you'll want a tool that responds to sudden spikes in the sibilant frequencies, and as Don mentioned, that's a de-esser. De-essing can be tricky at first, but it sounds like you're already aware of where the sibilance is. Usually dialing in a quick gain reduction of 3dB is enough to make sibilance a non-issue. BTW, virtually every small studio mix you'll ever encounter will have vocals recorded on condenser mics... some of them have annoying boosts around 3000, especially the cheaper ones, but as your EQ skill improves, you'll find it's not usually too hard to fix. To my ears, this vocal is recorded splendidly, so relax and let the arrangement fill out a bit before you start notching all of the life out of it... sometimes the best thing to do is nothing The vocals in "Frozen" (you're talking about the film, right? I have kids so I know it very well) and in virtually every Disney movie post-1989 are recorded by the very best engineers with the best equipment out there, so I think you might be looking for something that's not there and it's coloring your perception... in fact, I think some of the Disney films of the last 10 to 15 years or so would be excellent references for this song... for example, Michael Bolton's "Go The Distance" in the closing credits of Hercules are very appropriate.

Finally... your reverb needs some more finesse. Most of the time people worry way too much reverb, but in a ballad like this it's critical and it needs to be perfect. Unfortunately reverb is a very complicated topic. When Don mentioned that your vocal sounded like it was recorded in an empty room with a wooden floor, I agree... but it sounds completely disconnected from the rest of the track. You're going to want some commonality in the spacial sound in a song like this, so I'd recommend at least one reverb that applies broadly across the entire mix, preferably something lush... and I'd introduce this early in your balancing process to make sure you're leaving room for it, and vary the levels to which each part of the mix is sending to the reverb channel. It makes sense to me to then apply more individual reverbs to each part depending on where you want to place it in the mix and how much it should blend. I'd listen to the pads while judging these reverbs, so your gauge of depth a size is relaive to them. Experiment experiment experiment!

This sounds like a lot of negatives, but I mean it when I say you're on the right track and on your way to a nice sound. I recommend you check out the track "Queen's Light" by Dino's on the loose for a less challenging mix to practice your skills while you finesse this one: the reverb situation isn't nearly as complicated and I think you'll find the overall sonics a lot easier to manage.

Hopefully this helps at least a little. Practice your listening skills by commenting on the mixes of others while you're learning how to use the various forms of processing, and concentrate on BALANCE for now. If you can get a good balance, it will be considerably easier to get subjectively better sounds out of each instrument... and if you can't get a nice sound out of an instrument that balances the trick... well, that's a good argument for deleting it, isn't it? In particular, I'd check out mixes by Voelund, theDon, juanjose1967, TheMetallurgist and takka360. 5 very skilled mixers with 5 very different attitudes/approaches to the craft, all of whom helped me considerably when I was wearing your shoes. You're more than welcome to speak your mind about any of my work also... if you check out my very very early mixes, you'll find my opportunities were very similar to your own!

[daniel.tan]

Was busy the last few weeks.
This is in response to the above. Maybe the low mid frequency build up is due to the room frequency response. Tried to correct it.

Also focused more about balance and please tell me how you got the vocal to sound like what you did.

Cheers!

[pauli]

The overall balance sounds a lot better to me The main balance issues I'm hearing now are with the bass guitar... it's eating up a lot of midrange content that other instruments, particularly the vocal, are wanting to occupy.

For the most part, your reverbs sound a bit better, too, but the ambience on the vocal is comb filtering the original signal, which is why you're having a hard time getting a nice sound. Basically it sounds like he's singing in a locker room or an untreated vocal booth, because the early reflections are almost instantaneous and very tonally similar to the main signal. Turn the reverb down a bit, up the predelay to maybe 50-60 ms, and lengthen the duration... and I'd highpass the reverb channel and give it a gentle high shelving cut.

If you mean the vocal on my mix... I used a gentle low shelving cut and a slight dip around 3000, and used a tape saturation emulator and a little compression to smooth it out a bit. There's a verb effect similar to the one I described to you and a subtle delay... they're both automated so that the levels don't cause frequency buildups when the mix gets busier. All of this is very, very subtle, though... the recording is excellent, so try and take it easy on the processing and I think you'll be surprised.

Much better, you're getting closer

[daniel.tan]

The overall balance sounds a lot better to me The main balance issues I'm hearing now are with the bass guitar... it's eating up a lot of midrange content that other instruments, particularly the vocal, are wanting to occupy.

For the most part, your reverbs sound a bit better, too, but the ambience on the vocal is comb filtering the original signal, which is why you're having a hard time getting a nice sound. Basically it sounds like he's singing in a locker room or an untreated vocal booth, because the early reflections are almost instantaneous and very tonally similar to the main signal. Turn the reverb down a bit, up the predelay to maybe 50-60 ms, and lengthen the duration... and I'd highpass the reverb channel and give it a gentle high shelving cut.

If you mean the vocal on my mix... I used a gentle low shelving cut and a slight dip around 3000, and used a tape saturation emulator and a little compression to smooth it out a bit. There's a verb effect similar to the one I described to you and a subtle delay... they're both automated so that the levels don't cause frequency buildups when the mix gets busier. All of this is very, very subtle, though... the recording is excellent, so try and take it easy on the processing and I think you'll be surprised.

Much better, you're getting closer

Yup, third try! I fiddled with the reverb and put the voice upfront. I guess there is still a bit too much 200hz to 600 hz. I also added varying amounts of distortion to the guitars to keep their high mids in check and introduced parallel compression to the voice and bass guitar. I think I did it wrong for the bass cz the nuance are still not coming out and it's very unstable. Oya, and what did you do to the bass guitar just before the drums come in?

Oh, and for the kick, I Eq-ed it (using subtractive EQ of course!) to let a bit of the 110ish to come out to differentiate it from the bass and increased attack of the compressor to increase the transient. I sent it to a different reverb unit and adjusted the delay so that it will sound further back. I tweaked the predelay though, so I dont know if the mix is still disjointed.

Just to check, is the bass guitar still masking the voice very badly?

cheero!

[pauli]

Hey Daniel

In the third mix, I'm hearing improvements in some places and setbacks in others. Unfortunately, ballads like this have very very complicated reverb needs, so it's very difficult to get the lush space you need without turning the tonal balance upside down... and usually the answer in those situations is the use of multiple reverbs of different types, with instruments outputting to the different reverb in different mixture levels. I'm not going to harass you for it too much at this stage in your learning because reverb is in my opinion one of the hardest things to get right... and it's the one really complicated part of mixing a ballad.

Just to give you an idea of what's involved, on my mix I have a dedicated reverb send each for the snare, acoustic guitar, piano, lead guitar and vocal tracks, as well as a dedicated delay for the vocal and a global reverb send that affects most of the instruments to some degree... though some instruments you may feel like you're hearing verb, but I've actually blended them into the pads... and the vocal delay, vocal reverb, global reverb, and lead guitar reverb have tiny automations in level, wet/dry, and length... and I was going to do a good deal more but my PC isn't powerful enough for all that reverb without a lot of trial-and-error submixing, so I chose to settle. Most mixes aren't so complicated, but a ballad lives or dies by the reverbs... this is still a brave and commendable effort for your experience level. For right now, I think you should start with turning the reverb send channel down all the way, and slowly increase the level as you make broad EQ cuts until you've got more of a feeling of blend.

Now for tonality, the vocal sounds better... I'm not sure if it's because of changes in processing on the vocal or if it's because the surrounding instruments are supporting it a little better... though I do feel that particularly the guitars and piano are a bit high in level relative to the vocal, and the bass is high in level relative to everything . Reverb could be playing a role in that perception (because what one hears isn't always obviously related to what the meters are telling you... listen with your ears and not your eyes!), but I think you should be referencing a bit more. If your references are telling you the supporting tracks aren't loud enough relative to the vocal, and you can't seem to GET them loud enough without masking it, THAT'S when you reach for your EQs and compressors for balancing. There are no rules in mixing, but in general you'll want to give the vocal some room around 1.2 kHz in the spectrum, and use that air in the treble to help it cut

Many of the instruments sound quite nice during certain sections, but they suddenly bloat the balance here and there, so make sure you're not doing your primary balance EQing while the instruments are soloed, because that basically never works. Get a static mix where everything decently serves the balance at all times... then automate some "color" into the supporting instruments when it's their turn to shine... at least that's what I feel works for me. I've found it's helpful to use an EQ that has a makeup gain function... so as you make your cuts, you can switch the plugin on and off and correct the level difference based on what you hear... and then if you're not sure if your EQ is helping, you can bypass the plugin for a volume matched comparison!

As for the bass and kick... my interpretation of the song may be very different than yours, but it sounds to me like you're thinking too hard about the wrong things. For me the bass and kick, although important for the sonic foundation of the mix, weren't central to the emotional message of the music, so I didn't really apply much processing to them at all... and the bass part to my ears was performed with the perfect dynamic, given it's mostly just single notes and no fills... so I didn't automate it or compress it or anything.. All I did was highpass the bass at 50 and took 5 decibels out with a narrow notch at 59. For the kick, I took out a few dB with a small peaking filter at 100 and a gentle 3 dB high shelving cut at 300. Then I focused on what was important to me: The vocals, snare, piano and ambiance. Rather than fiddle with a compressor insert on the bass to help with the transient, why not use a simple mild compressor on the entire drum buss and let the kick relax?

It's usually best to restrain most of your processing for the instruments central to the character of the music. The kick drum is going to be absolutely CRITICAL in dance, r&B, hip hop, and some rock styles, because those genres need the bass energy to drive the rhythm and make the connection. In pop music, and most genres really, you're going to spend more time on the vocals than anything else, and the snare is generally the second most important track in upbeat pop styles. Bass guitar is going to figure prominently in jazz, funk, and some rock (think RHCP), and most essentially in reggae. But there's a reason they call this style of music a piano ballad... the vocals and piano want to be the principal drivers of emotion in the main, so I'd base all of your processing decisions on what they're doing, while in most cases I'd want the rhythm section (drums, bass, rhythm guitar) mixed first. Not all engineers work this way, but for me it's easiest and best to mix to what I consider the primary character if the song... and leave uninteresting things like bass guitars playing whole notes in purely supportive roles by mixing them later on when there's less valuable mix real estate available.

Anyway, I'm not trying to discourage you and I'm certainly not telling you you're wrong... this is just the way I think about it and approach it, and I'm far from the best on the forum. You're doing good work, and the struggle I'm hearing right now in your work is one that's familiar to all of us: one our first couple tries, we get passable mixes until we learn enough rope to hang ourselves When I go back and listen to my first few mixes I think "huh, this is better than I remember." And then I look at the few mixes that followed and some of them were quite a bit worse than this! The main message I have is PRACTICE! I'd like to see you commenting on other people's mixes (and not just of this song!) because that's simply the best way to learn how to listen.... we're all friends here, and all feedback is good feedback, even if it's "wrong." Listen to someone's mix and think "man, that sounds great... what qualities do the vocals have that are helping them work so well?" or more importantly: "sweet jesus, those drums are way out of balance... what can I do to avoid that sound?" And when you make these comments (politely) on others mixes, you'll almost always learn something, even if they never reply!

Keep it up, dude. Try another mix and come back to this one with fresh ears