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First mix, first post
#1
I just read Mix Secrets - great book Mike! I'm still working on my monitoring environment. The low end in my existing space is a train wreck. I didn't want to wait until everything was perfect though so I used a variety of speakers and headphones to try and compensate. Here are my notes:

Mix Prep: I did a bunch of multing on the guitar, vocals, and percussion tracks. I separated the guitar and vocals by verse/chorus. I separated the percussion track by instrument. I also removed the empty spaces where there was no singing and playing on these tracks.

Vocals: The amount of bleed from other instruments was disconcerting. At first I thought about using an expander to reduce the bleed but stylistically, I feel like the vocals need a lot of breath and grit which calls for compression. In the end, I decided I'd rather intensify the vocal performance and deal with the increased bleed so I ran the vocals through two compressors and tried to be careful about phase issues and such as I added the rest of the instruments.

Bass: I don't have a noise reduction plugin so I used a spectrum analyzer and multiple EQ plugins to do absolutely unforgivable things to the bass sound and notch out as much of the noise as possible.

Stereo Image: In the end, I had a mix that sounded pretty balanced to me but was effectively mono so I used a stereo delay on the guitar and a stereo chorus effect on the vocals to enhance the stereo image. I also did a little panning on the drums and percussion.

Percussion: The vibraslap and chimes cut through really well but I didn't really manage to give the bongos any presence.

Feedback appreciated!


.mp3    Fragile Thoughts.mp3 --  (Download: 5.99 MB)


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#2
The balance is good.

Voice feels a little boxy.
Please comment on others mixes, this site is all about feedback.
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#3
So, it's been over four years since my first post and I'm about to make my second - time flies! I haven't been participating in these forums but I HAVE been recording and mixing and reading and taking classes. I think I've read Mike's book about 4 times and I'm about to start a fifth pass. I thought it would be fun to come back and (quickly) remix the same song to see if I've progressed in 4 years.

Mix Prep: I ended up doing mostly the same thing but much quicker this time around.

Vocals: I didn't worry about the bleed so much this time around. I used many more sources of distortion and saturation on the vocals. UAD Distressor Emulation, SoundToys Little Radiator, SoundToys Decapitator on the Chorus, I even used a Tube Screamer emulation as a parallel compressor on the vocals.

Bass: I own iZotope RX now so i used that to remove the noise. I used the UAD SVT3 Emulation followed by an LA-2A and a little EQ to tamp down a frequency that was jumping out.

Stereo Image: I did a ton more processing to make the mono tracks stereo (SoundToys Microshift, Waves PS Spread)

Drums and Percussion: I slammed them harder and used a pinch of SoundToys Devil Loc. It created a couple of weird artifacts here and there but I decided to live with them.

Gain Staging: I have many more layers of compression on the tracks, groups of tracks, and the master bus.

I actually haven't listened to my old version yet - I'm about to as soon as I post this. I'm assuming I beat it though. It will be embarrassing if I didn't Smile

Feedback appreciated!


.mp3    Fragile Thoughts Part Deux.mp3 --  (Download: 7.37 MB)


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#4
Not to beat a dead horse but I had a little down time tonight so I took a listen and quickly tweaked a few things that were bothering me.


.mp3    2018-09-20-fragile-thoughts-rx-tjh.mp3 --  (Download: 7.37 MB)


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#5
I discovered that Mike covered my mix on the October podcast while I was catching up over the holidays. Thanks Mike! I think his feedback was spot on though I will say that in my opinion sample mix is *overly* bass heavy based on my references. Then again, most of my references are from the late 90's, early 00's though so maybe I need to go out and find some new rock to listen to!

I've updated my mix to incorporate most of Mike's feedback. Since my last mix, I've acquired Addictive Trigger (which is quite a lovely plugin) and I used it to layer in snare and kick samples underneath the existing drums. The kick sample I liked the best was a bit beater heavy so I used a transient designer to pull out a bit of the attack and soften it.

I agree that the low end was light in the 40-50Hz range. I was already cranking the EQ on the kick at 50Hz so I focused on the bass instead. I boosted a bit near the fundamental frequency of the low G (roughly 1 octave). I also rebalanced the kick and bass a bit volume-wise.

On the vocals, I was surprised at how far I could pull it back, particularly on the chorus. I took out about 4.5dB without any negative effects at all, only positive. I suspect I had become a bit fixated on the vocals while getting all of the delay throws, distortion, and parallel processing set up. I probably lost my ability to see the forest for the trees as a result.

On the electric guitar, I switched from microshift to a simpler doubling plugin which does seem to leave more of an edge in the sound while still giving me the stereo width I was looking for.

I think that covers most of the changes. I didn't spend time getting into additional automation as I'm working on another mix at the moment, and I'm quite comfortable with automation.


.mp3    2019-01-13-fragile-thoughts-tjh.mp3 --  (Download: 7.37 MB)


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