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What Child Is This - AZ Mix
#1
So here's my take on this tune. One of my Christmas favorites, actually. Smile

There were some interesting problems in trying to get this, not the least of which was getting enough gain on all the tracks to work with (which made that cymbal roll a little less than well behaved.) I had to shift a few notes here any there to line up an entrance or two and then shift the bass drum forward about 20 ms at a couple of spots to offset it from had syllables in the vocals. Much automation exists on that vocal line and a lot of careful compression. (I'll also say that I spotted Waves promo last week for the Fairchild plugin and decided to jump on it. I think I have found my new Go-To plugin for clean vocals! I love the sound of that thing!)

So this is the results of about 11 hours work over the last three days and me trying to do an above average job because its a tune I especially like. Hopefully you all will like the results. I just finished this mix about 30 minutes ago and, really, should let it settle overnight, but I think what I have is pretty close to what I'd end up with.

I hope you like what you hear!


.mp3    what-child-is-this.mp3 --  (Download: 8.15 MB)


Old West Audio
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#2
Very good mix to my ears, sounds natural to me, as it should be.

I like that delay effect with guitar. Nice idea. But is it too loud effect in the intro when guitar is all alone?

Vox sounds excellent.

One thing that bothers me slightly is the low end panning from 1:30 onwards. When there are those several double basses (or cellos?) panned to left and right from center, if you listen with headphones, it’s little bit restless as also the low end (<100hz) is jumping. My suggestion would be: preserve the panning as it is now, but try make the low end mono in master channel. THis would let the higher frequencies jump freely, but the low end would stay centered. This would feel more natural for listener.
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#3
Thought about the panning as I was working but then there isn't much going on in this mix to give it a decent stereo feel so I felt kinda at a loss for options.

I am also still debating what you said about the guitars. That thought crossed my mind as I was building it up but I decided that what I would rather have is the vocals just come in on top. Still, knocking it back a dB might make all the difference.

My tendancy is to fuss over a mix after I get done with it and tweak the small little details over time so I'll probably post another version here before all is said and done.
Old West Audio
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#4
Okay, after a few more tweaks, this is my final rev of this. Spent time cleaning up the vocals a bit more, narrowed the spread of the basses (didn't realize I had gone so wide), adjusted the compression and parallel mix on the bass drum, and other smaller tweaks.

Merry Christmas, everyone!


.mp3    what-child-is-this.mp3 --  (Download: 8.15 MB)


Old West Audio
Reply