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Easy Tiger
#1
Only one other mix of this song, and it's been on the forum for quite a while.

I'm a brave man indeed.


.mp3    Easy Tiger Master.mp3 --  (Download: 9.8 MB)


I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#2
meh, disregard the long accapella section at the end. I'm not sure how I forgot to trim that out...
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#3
no feedback yet?

first impression was the low-end delivery here; 'twas big and meaty, but you kept the low-mids from building up which was cool in the circumstances which suggests good discipline wielding the EQ. your mid-range was working nicely and i thought overall the spectral distribution, and indeed the stereo field, was well handled. it was noticeable that you had room in the sides for some bass and you took the opportunity, AND without causing it to sound boomy and obnoxious; this helped give a full delivery. with a busier mix, you'd never get away with it - exploit it where you can! and you did. personally, and i'm talking about headphones now, such a large amount of bass present in the ears can get a bit fatiguing, at least from my perspective. in tbe days of vinyl (some say it's coming back....i'm not sold on that idea yet - everything has a niche), this mix wouldn't have worked. the CD format has enabled more leeway and stretching of goal posts, but quite often this can be overly exploited, not least by the novice. with the loudness war now taking it's final breath(?) studios are looking for new ways to wow an audience......bring it on!

i had to take it in the studio to understand the sub element, so consider yourself honoured....i don't normally mess around with mp3's in there Wink Just running the sub (nearfields off) suggested the kick was weak and there were times the low end of the electronic material was winning here instead. given that one of this genre's emphasis is in the sub, especially with a big fat kick right up front of the mix, it had to bang but it didn't quite make it. there were moments where it wasn't really present in my ear..and not at all present on my chest. i fully understand many people's constraints in managing the lows, so i'm sympathetic here and can't be critical, but it's important to flag it up nevertheless: if this genre is going to be mixed well, it's imperative to know what's going on in the beef section otherwise there's going to be a lot of disappointed customers out there.

while i was in there, i took the opportunity to put it through my downmixed mono grott box, which doesn't take too kindly to beef and will fall to it's knees weeping and whimpering mercifully at the slightest whiff of overabundance. it didn't. well done!

the other main element in the mix was the vocals, yeah? there's a lot of stuff going on in the arrangement and i can imagine it's difficult working out what to do with it all. i got a bit dizzy trying to keep up with them, so you must have had your hands full? what i did like was the quality and the consistency of balance in their timbre. i've no idea how the tracking was, but with this kind of material, it can be tricky getting consistent tracking - microphones change position, proximity isn't carefully controlled, etc. etc. I think you did ok with keeping their balance representative in the mix in accordance with the illusion of their placement.

another one outside of your comfort zone neatly bagged, despite it's inherent challenges in the sub.
Beware...........Cognitive Dissonance!
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#4
Hey Dave, thanks for your comments and feedback. I think feedback on this one was long in coming because I haven't been very active on the board lately... lots of outside mixing/recording with butt-tonnes of midi programming-- sorry about the delayed response, by the way. This genre is also a bit under represented on the forum, although it seems like most of the budding engineers here prefer to work on more mainstream pop/rock arrangements anyway, so there's probably little interest.

At any rate, much of what you have to say is very appreciated given that you've locked into what I felt were the principal mix difficulties myself...the tracking is really pretty good, especially compared to the other ANiMAL tune "Rock Show" which I gave up on when I realized I'd spent 4 hours editing the timing. The spectral balance felt pretty well thought out during tracking for me, because much of the tone I wanted to hear in the final mix came together just during the rough balance (don't you LOVE it when that happens?) but the stereo field was a different beast altogether.

There are several tracks I've encountered in the archive that don't seem to have enough material from a stereo perspective to really dig in the way I want to. Either the majority of the tracks are presented in stereo (and I know too well how quickly panning elements like that can get out of hand... remember Siren?), there aren't enough to spread them out widely without leaving holes in the field, or the things I'd like to spread out have too much in the low mid crucial to their sound to spread out without throwing the needle, so to speak.... I'm wondering what your strategy is in those cases? I'm always afraid to spread anything out any more than 50% if I can't fill the entire field from 80 to 80 as I'd like? Glad you feel like I handled it well in this mix though... it was the real struggle for me here. In your opinion... when I'm having a hard time filling the field, am I better off with a narrower overall image, or maybe some widening verbs on individual tracks?

Agree on the sub... I doubt there's any way I could manage the sort of bass trapping I'd need to really dial that in while still passing "the wife test," especially in a undersized mixing room with gypsum board walls. One of my mastering processes I seem to come back to somewhat regularly in bass heavy genres is a couple dB of compression in the sub just to make sure anything I can't trust my ears on is at least glued together a bit. Unfortunately the dynamic range takes a bit of a hit Undecided and the groove/jive suffers on nice systems...

The love how irresponsibly rude the lyrics are... the ones I can understand at least Tongue. Some more automation probably is the ticket there, but the accents are really thick to my american ears, so I don't really even know where to begin. After spending several hours programming a clarinet and a trumpet, I'm a little worried a few things have been deleted from my memory... but it seems to me the tonal balance of the vocals was a bit of a trick. At this speed of delivery, even MCs as talented as these guys are never gonna be able to "work the mic" a la Michael Jackson, and the double tracks had inconsistent dynamics and tonality between them. If I'm recalling, I had to compress a couple single elements in the double tracks for a consistent level, then glued them together by compressing a dedicated group channel, EQing each individually with the group compression working until I could spread them out a bit more symmetrically. To me, a lot of mic-proximity issues could be avoided with diligent gating followed by compression during tracking... that's how I do it, anyway... especially on vocals and guitars.

Thanks again, Dave... very encouraging comments.

BTW, I think the return of the vinyl days (you see quite a bit of it where I live) is partially rooted in this persistent myth that vinyl is in some way higher fidelity and with better tone than a CD, which empirical analysis and a bit of common sense is obviously not 100% accurate... there's generally less compression and more balanced EQ, which of course isn't due to the quality of the format so much as the constraints and the lack of radio play. But then on top of it, there's the whole "analog is better" myth stemming from bad dithering on the first analog to digital conversions... I could go on all day Big Grin
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#5
Its a bold mix, I like the control and some minute into song great effect in havin synths louder than anything, but still drum and bas are clear. Well done. I dont know the raw tracks but my ears say you di an excellent job of makin this balanced, and even were inspired to try unexpected things.
Yah !
Old ears, old gear, little boy inside love music and sounds and my wife, not necessarily in that order
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#6
Hey, thanks for your input Niells. This mix was really fun for me.... I think a commercial mix would probably focus a good deal more on making the lyrics intelligible, but I couldn't understand half of what they were saying anyway, so I emphasized the groove and intensity. Maybe went a bit overboard with it, though... some of those wibbly wobblies and bloopity bloops are pretty loud.

I wonder about maybe compressing the sides channel a little?
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#7
Thats a possibility if you want it more in your face. I like it as it is.
Forgot to give you credit for the delay/verb on snare. Its excellent !
Old ears, old gear, little boy inside love music and sounds and my wife, not necessarily in that order
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#8
Big Grin it's a free plugin... Voxengo's OldSkool Verb, I use that on snares a lot. I think I tweaked one of the plate presets.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#9
Voxengo make excellent stuff. I have an old lexicon verb I love the plate preset abd use it a lot
Also got a small room excellent for snare. Its cheap if you can find it. Lexicon LXP 1.
Fit in any studio half rack unit. Be aware to have the plug from power supply in the unit. I burned one years ago because I didnt know ...
Old ears, old gear, little boy inside love music and sounds and my wife, not necessarily in that order
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#10
Pretty cool version nice use of effects and good balance Big Grin !

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