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Hey Carrie Anne SpedeMix
#1
Hi. I've been quite a bit busy with real projects this fall (I'm actually arranging strings at this moment for upcoming recording sessions) but I decided to take the time away to do a quick (2-3 hours) mix of this song. When I first listened this song month(s) ago I immediately had this kind of vision which I went for.

I didn't use any of the string samples, the real strings sounded good enough. However the addition of midis was nice because I was able to "reamp" the dbl basses which were essential to the song, but didn't sound that hot.


.m4a    Hey_Carrie_Anne_SpedeMix_Mastered.m4a --  (Download: 7.63 MB)


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#2
Weird and brave opening!

That extremely dry vocal suits fine the message of this song, (whatever it is).

I feel that vocal is maybe slightly too bassy, but on the other hand it emphasizes nicely the weirdo feeling for this song. So, maybe it’s just fine the way it is.

Interesting and coherent interpretation. I like it!
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#3
Weird and brave indeed.

The strings got their share of the dynamics here, sounds great !
I wonder if its intentional the vocals have some distortion in my cans ? I know you often use saturation ...
Great sound on the strings !

Kinda mis the elgtr when strings kick in, but if i didnt know it was there I wouldnt miss it louder.

Great mix !
Old ears, old gear, little boy inside love music and sounds and my wife, not necessarily in that order
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#4
Well, this is anything but a conservative mix.

This could all be subjective, because your interpretation is flying in a completely different direction than mine, but I wonder a little bit about how effective some of the creative choices are. The odd telephonic effect on the piano in the intro is a good idea, especially because it gives the mix room to open up more gradually into the strings, but does it go on a little too long? It caught my ear initially, but then my attention started drifting, because there's so little going on otherwise, and the tonality of the vocal doesn't blend at all for me, and the (tube?) disortion feels a little exposed and effecty. The shift from restricted tonality to fuller tonality in the supportive instruments is really smooth and nice (love it!), but I can't hear the midrange contribution from the pizzicato basses as much as I'd like and the harmonica sounds like it's coming from under a blanket to me... Again it feels to me like the intention is to make more room for a bigger payoff, but I still feel like the mix needs more movement?
..
Excellent string sound indeed, and really good work letting the Cello shine during the instrumental break... it's really the highlight of your efforts here for me. My main bone of contention though is that I'm really holding out for the big emotional payoff at 2:50, given the restricted and spartan (yet building) nature of what came before... and it just never takes it to 11 for me?

I guess what I mean to say is that there are about a thousand super cool ideas in this mix that are big on creativity and light on execution? Although you said you did this mix quickly, so that may have been your intention... to quickly sketch out some ideas and share. For me the mix is a little incoherent and unfocused, but I still enjoyed listening as I always do with your work. That telephonic piano idea... and the automated tonal expansion... why did I think of that?
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#5
Thank you pauli for your thoughts! Your remarks are correct on many levels.

Sometimes these "total conversions" of mine (as I like to call them) can be a bit of hit and miss, with the least reason not being the fact I'm also testing my own limits (how far can I go and does it still make any sense? Big Grin). Had I actually worked with the artist on this one, I would've probably conducted this one we're hearing now in hopes he might get inspired by this and perhaps redo/add some parts to realize the vision 100%. So yeah, could say these kind of mixes of mine are very elaborate sketches. Regarding the dramatics of the song, I felt I used all my mixing cards here to build up the dynamics; in order to improve from here would be working on the arrangement of the song IMO (I agree the loudest part is not quite there yet).

Listening this one again I must admit I didn't quite nail the vocal sound I was going after. I had Live's Dolphin's Cry in mind when mixing the vocal here.
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#6
These sorts of total conversions are also really time consuming, at least for me, so for 2-3 hours of effort it's a really solid sketch! TheMetallurgist likes to craft really left-field mixes like this too, to test his limits, and it's something I should be doing more of... I tend to be very conservative and could use a bolder sound.

The idea here that's going to be the trickiest to get working is the vocal distortion in the sections where the vocal is very exposed... it almost sounds like you might be using a guitar stomp-box(?) which wouldn't surprise me at all given your admiration of Spike Stent, but I wonder if something more like a saturation style distortion would sound less effecty and help blend the vocal tone in. Although... a quick google shows that Brian Malouf mixed Dolphin's Cry (I don't know the song myself), and he's responsible for a lot of the grungy 90's sounds and I can definitely hear echoes of that sound in your mix. The original mix-work on Pearl Jam's Ten before they remixed it and took out all the reverb to sound more like Nevermind (that was Malouf, right?) is a long-time favorite sound of mine, so I wonder if bigger reverb's like Malouf was using at the time might 1. gel the sound together in the intro, 2. help smooth out the distortion on the vocal so it sounds trashy but not effected, and 3. give you some more wiggle room to fiddle with the ambiance throughout the song and help with that payoff at the end.

You'd know better than me because you're a pro, but that's just what direction my instincts would take me Big Grin
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#7
The mix is nasty, the vox are well,i think you should know better than mixing like this.Its the bands song not yours it sounds nothing like it should.
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