Blue: Updated

[ptalbot]

Yes, I know I did narrow the vibra and rhodes width, perhaps not enough...
But I'm often using Cubase balance panner on virtual instruments to narrow their width.
I don't think I did thin out the guitar though, since the track was printed with a stereo delay on it (Direct from the Kemper Profiling Amplifier FYI).

For the tonal changes on the vocal. I think there are mainly 2 or 3 places where it is a bit painful. And I think I've automated an extra EQ which was muted on all the other parts and engaged on the few phrases that were really sticking out.
I think I have used Voxengo CurveEQ to get a matching EQ, I'm no longer in front of my DAW (getting late!) but I will check this tomorrow and confirm.
If you have an EQ that has matching capabilities (some Voxengo EQs can do that, and Ozone 5 EQ as well, FabFilter Pro-Q, I think some Melda ones as well, I don't know of any others, but I'm sure there are others) then I would try that, this should get you in the ballpark.

I agree about the value of that kind of discussion. I know this is helping me tons, giving me a different perspective and I would like to be helpful as well.

[pauli]

Here's an updated mix. Maybe could use a few small refinements but this is pretty to close to what I'm going for.

[ptalbot]

I like your little pad trick. Subtle but effective!

It did help the highs and added some clarity, leaving the vibras/rhodes act more like instruments rather than pads. Cool!
I find the kick in this version to be 2/3 db too loud though. Toms as well, probably, although they are less constant, so it's less disturbing. But the kick is really pounding too much IMHO. (Even my daughter noticed it - unprompted!)

Nice clarity overall and great ambience.
But I'm disappointed that you didn't unleash your creative irresponsibility in the end!

BTW, I verified about the vocal tonal changes, and although I thought I had used CurveEQ, I didn't... I used EQ automation and level automation. Pushing by 1/1.5db and adding a high shelf around 7.5k with 4db of gain. It sounded ok, not perfect and if I had to get back to this mix (which I might now that I've heard all the great mixes here!) I would try to use EQ matching and see if I cannot get closer.

[pauli]

Thanks Patrick. I wondered about the kick drum being a bit loud, but wasn't really sure... I "fixed" my sub (poked a hole in the dust cap to undent it) but it's still a bit compromised.

The toms, however... I didn't use any of the tom tracks at all, they're completely muted. All of that tom craziness is in the overheads... I'm not familiar with Superior Drummer, but I wonder if it lets you adjust the simulated mic position? EZDrummer has that functionality... You might be able to move them around and re-balance the tom and cymbal levels relative to the kit in the overheads and it'll probably make mixing your drum renders a lot easier with less processing.

The only ambience I added was a plate and delay on the vocals and a plate on the guitars... everything else was either already there in your original tracks or is a pad selfishly masquerading as a reverb. Mike Senior wrote a great article about using pads for various mixing tasks... I'll try to find it for you.

For the vocals I used IQ4 dynamic EQ with upward compression to pin the regions surrounding 300 Hz and 1300 Hz very firmly in place... it's not perfect, but automating the EQ just wasn't working for me at all.

Thanks again for sharing, it's a great song. One of these days I'll try and make some of my stuff available here for your creative abuse as well.

[ptalbot]

Yes in Superior Drummer, you can adjust the amount of each instruments via the bleed functions.

So all the various room mics, ambience and chamber, all have a bleed fader where you can select the kit pieces you want in and how much of them. TBH I didn't touch these at all.
I usually take a preset in SD that sounds close to what I like then get a balance in level in the build in mixer and add compression/EQ in it as well. Most of the time, I use a stereo out from SD + snare and kick separately as well and that's about it. Makes my main mix feel less complex and cluttered. The build-in mixer is pretty comprehensive already, you have up to 16 extra buses and build-in effects/etc.

I will remember your advice when I revisit the mix and lower the tom bleed levels in the OHs.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked the song.
As I said, next month there should be 3 more, hopefully less challenging but still fun.
I think you'll like them as well.

And I look forward to hear your stuff. Any place where I could have a listen?

[The_Metallurgist]

hi Pauli,

some nice discussion going on here chaps.

in your v2, there's a gtr note that really jumps out @0:06 around the 500Hz zone. actually, i found the levels on the guitar to be a little on the intrusive side on occasions? perhaps the reverb is helping to exaggerate this somewhat. it's very dynamic, perhaps excessively so, as i'm almost losing it while auditioning at the comfort level with the cans. on the subject of reverb generally, i think you might be overdoing it, cos there's times when the accumulative effects are stacking up against you and there's some "ambiance collision" going on, especially around the mids (400-1000Hz) and up in the HF zone - the cymbals for example seem to be adding "tape hiss", a sign of too much reflection, hard surfaces and/or extended decays in your emu - not a cozy ambiance. with extended listening levels, this won't be user-friendly because of the equal loudness contours.

sibilance is a [major] problem. i've read the discussion already about mike choice for the vocal....another sad day. i wish there was a law against using sm57/58's for tracking vocals - they are totally dangerous weapons (in 99.9 percent of cases). did i mention the mike used on the Speak Softly Like Horses vox? ......an sm57!! no surprise. the mike is causing other issues too, one is the proximity which then makes it difficult to place in the mix depth-wise, the other is the tonal variations and balance, again because of proximity variance during performance. it doesn't need much of a change in distance/side axis for the vocal to drop right off and change tone along with it - many dynamic mikes are problematic in this regard. this song is all about the vocal.....but the wrong mike choice makes this technically unmixable which i think is a real shame. i like Patrick's vocal character, it deserves a far better mike Personally, from a Producer's perspective, i'd like to have some double-tracking to work with, i think this would add some synergy to the song. i don't know if Patrick used headphones during tracking, but i'd recommend a review of strategy, because it might be contributing to his challenge remaining in key - it's a problem for many vocalists, even the pros! if cans have to be employed (some will use a monitor instead to good effect), try experimenting with the reverb return...often helps. so does a few lessons...and a good vocal warm up session first. a vocal can tire very quickly (eg Loud and Clear multi'), so the best take will happen in the first 3 attempts depending on the song's demands and it's length. i thought this song was too long, by the way. i'd try and edit it down to 3:45 max.

loved the way you got the toy piano working in the mix.

not sure why you were running a 10Hz test tone.....this is seriously outside the box's working/design specification. i'm surprised the woofer didn't jump out and go for a jog down the road. feeding it an out-of-spec wave can risk permanently damaging the driver by exceeding it's mechanical limits, so go easy. the upright bass is quite lumpy, a character we're unaccustomed to hearing in your mixes.

looking forward to getting the old Pauli back.......

[ptalbot]

sibilance is a [major] problem. i've read the discussion already about mike choice for the vocal....another sad day. i wish there was a law against using sm57/58's for tracking vocals - they are totally dangerous weapons (in 99.9 percent of cases). did i mention the mike used on the Speak Softly Like Horses vox? ......an sm57!! no surprise. the mike is causing other issues too, one is the proximity which then makes it difficult to place in the mix depth-wise, the other is the tonal variations and balance, again because of proximity variance during performance. it doesn't need much of a change in distance/side axis for the vocal to drop right off and change tone along with it - many dynamic mikes are problematic in this regard. this song is all about the vocal.....but the wrong mike choice makes this technically unmixable which i think is a real shame. i like Patrick's vocal character, it deserves a far better mike Personally, from a Producer's perspective, i'd like to have some double-tracking to work with, i think this would add some synergy to the song. i don't know if Patrick used headphones during tracking, but i'd recommend a review of strategy, because it might be contributing to his challenge remaining in key - it's a problem for many vocalists, even the pros! if cans have to be employed (some will use a monitor instead to good effect), try experimenting with the reverb return...often helps. so does a few lessons...and a good vocal warm up session first. a vocal can tire very quickly (eg Loud and Clear multi'), so the best take will happen in the first 3 attempts depending on the song's demands and it's length. i thought this song was too long, by the way. i'd try and edit it down to 3:45 max.

Thanks for the tips The_Mettalurgist!

I did track with headphones. And the sm57 seemed to give me a warmer voice than my usual ADK Hamburg (LDC).
But I recognize easily that in the end it was a very bad decision.

I've read lately about tracking facing your monitors, then recording another take without vocals and using polarity flip to cancel some of the monitor's bleed.
I need to experiment with that another time, because yeah, I do hate headphones, but honestly I'm not a singer either, so...

The way I'm usually tracking with headphones to avoid feeling too isolated and freaked out by my voice is to set the level of the pre-recorded track I sing on to a rather low level, enough for me to hear more of my voice in the room than in the cans... I don't know if this is a good strategy but I feel a bit more comfortable like this. I need to try adding some reverb to my vocal return and see if that helps. Thanks for the tip!

I avoided doubling the vocals on this one, because each time I did it (on other songs) it gave a cool effect but a bit unnatural (which can work) which is not what I wanted for this one.

And I agree about the length. As I said this one came vocal first, which is very unusual for me, and I worked from there. I didn't even included a solo section (which I usually do) because I thought it was rather long already.

BTW I like your posts, they are always very detailed and informative.

[pauli]

Thanks as always for your review, Dave. This is a very challenging mix. A very, VERY challenging mix. Tracking difficulties aside, this is always a tough genre to work on, since it tends toward midrange heavy arrangements, lots of dynamics, etc etc.

in your v2, there's a gtr note that really jumps out @0:06 around the 500Hz zone. actually, i found the levels on the guitar to be a little on the intrusive side on occasions? perhaps the reverb is helping to exaggerate this somewhat. it's very dynamic, perhaps excessively so, as i'm almost losing it while auditioning at the comfort level with the cans.

Agreed... while the lack of "air" in the raw multitracks was the primary challenge I focused on solving, much as with Like Horses, the guitar was the other thorny issue for me, mainly due to the 500 hZ zone. As with most electric guitar recordings, the body of the tone here is centered on 500 hZ, but its also very dynamic in this range, so straightforward surgical EQ goes back and forth between doing too much and not enough. There's a multiband compressor at play, but even that sort of processing power falls a bit short. I'd personally prefer to reduce the guitar's contribution, but since we have Patrick here to explain his vision, I did my best to work with his intentions in mind

on the subject of reverb generally, i think you might be overdoing it, cos there's times when the accumulative effects are stacking up against you and there's some "ambiance collision" going on, especially around the mids (400-1000Hz) and up in the HF zone - the cymbals for example seem to be adding "tape hiss", a sign of too much reflection, hard surfaces and/or extended decays in your emu - not a cozy ambiance. with extended listening levels, this won't be user-friendly because of the equal loudness contours.

I didn't add much reverb at all... just a teeny bit of plate on the guitars and vocals, but it's barely there at all. Most of what you're hearing is printed on ambience with the drums and rhodes/vibes... not intending on remixing this because I've already spent way too much time one it, but in retrospect, it makes more sense to mute the room tracks and narrow the vibes/rhodes until there's very little to no ambience to help control it. There's the airy pad I added which might be contributing to the tape hiss sort of effect, but once again, it's barely there at all in terms of relative level... I thought it helped liven up the mix, but I can post a version with it muted if you guys are interested.

sibilance is a [major] problem.

There's pretty hardcore de-essing going on, too :/ 8 to 10 dB of gain reduction. Not much that can be done, there.

i've read the discussion already about mike choice for the vocal....another sad day. i wish there was a law against using sm57/58's for tracking vocals

According to U2's recording engineer (pre-fix: I'm not a fan), Bono has been tracking his voice on an sm58 exclusively since The Joshua Tree. He says in its raw state it sounds awful but after mixing it's the only mic that "sounds like Bono." Lenny Kravitz (again, not a fan) is also said to track his voice mainly with an sm58.

IMHO, dynamics are good vocal mics in a situation where the singer is really wailing into the microphone (punk rock or something like that) or if the singer needs to hold the mic to capture the same energy of their live performances. They're also a consideration if your tracking room is really bad... and a 57/58 is the best mic many can afford (though we'd all love a U47), and as such the 57 is the best selling mic in the world. You can also throw them at a brick wall at least twice without breaking them, and this I know from experience (LOL).

In this case though, I'd have preferred a condenser. Warmth can be good, but as Bob Katz once said, "warmth is just another word for mud."

loved the way you got the toy piano working in the mix.

Thanks, that was the easy part

not sure why you were running a 10Hz test tone.....this is seriously outside the box's working/design specification. i'm surprised the woofer didn't jump out and go for a jog down the road. feeding it an out-of-spec wave can risk permanently damaging the driver by exceeding it's mechanical limits, so go easy. the upright bass is quite lumpy, a character we're unaccustomed to hearing in your mixes.

It was just a sweep, -12 dB with the volume turned down most of the way. Wouldn't ordinarily do something like this (why bother?), but my son turned the sub's dust cap into button... had to poke a hole in it to pull it out and get any mixing done at all, so it's basically ruined anyway. The fact that I was hearing anything at all at 10 hZ told me all I needed to know: time for a new sub.

Lumpy bass is indeed something about which I try to be very vigilant, and uprights are always tricky in this regard, and this was programmed a bit out of time, too, which is also tricky. I layered a triangle wave sub-synth using the provided midi data and compressed the low end of the combination to help this a little, but obviously my monitoring is a bit compromised. Glad you flagged it up though, because I was thinking along the same lines but couldn't be sure.

looking forward to getting the old Pauli back.......

Yes, Pauli's been deliberately choosing difficult multis to mix lately. I'm learning a lot though, and the provided midi data here was a great chance to explore/experiment without spending hours programming it myself that should be spent walking the dog

[The_Metallurgist]

Bono and Kravitz contribute to the 0.1 percent and are often quoted in forums when discussing dynamics. it's horses for courses though....my choice of dynamic would be the EV20 with a lot of horses, especially suited for bad rooms and the off axis isn't such a killer with a vocalist that fidgets a lot. yeah, condensers....but none of them are equal, which is a good thing in some ways....but not if it doesn't suit the vocal and they often need a very good room. the cheap ones can sound really brittle and abrasive. bit of a mine-field really, eh? while mentioning dynamics, not many people talk about the preamps these things can benefit from being plugged into (i wonder why? studio secrets perhaps?)......this can make a massive difference.

fully agree on your replies though...and having PT here is a bonus. great that he's about and a really willing participant in the forum too!! i also think he was a good sport in supplying the MIDI too, i've only known one other to do that so far (but my sample size is limited!)

down-firing subs have an advantage, but it's wise to check the gain dial before powering up - it can save on window repairs too

laters dude..

[ptalbot]

I feel a bit unequipped to comment on a lot of mixes I've heard unfortunately, not being such an experienced mixer myself (an understatement ), which is why I mostly commented on mixes of my songs, or where I thought I could have an interesting input or offer a kind of 'candid' music-lover perspective.
But my goal with sharing these tracks is also to learn in the process and have fun hearing other visions, and that wouldn't make sense if I didn't participate.
Truly, I'm quite passionate about it, but this is a hobby, I already have a(n unrelated) full time job and no intention to become a mixer, and am being too old to have any illusion of becoming a professional musician either.
But If I can learn a few things here to make my own music sound better, then I'm all for it, and I'm prepared to give at least as much as I can take.