13-10-2014, 10:17 PM
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
and the groove/jive suffers on nice systems...
The love how irresponsibly rude the lyrics are... the ones I can understand at least
. 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
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
and the groove/jive suffers on nice systems...The love how irresponsibly rude the lyrics are... the ones I can understand at least
. 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
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!