Hey folks, this is my first ever attempt at mixing some stems.
I didn't have any reference speakers available so the mix was done with headphones, with occasional checks on some Yamaha hi-fi speakers. It's hard to mix what you can't hear though.
Discussion on this tune seems to have slowed down a bit, so I might post what I did to the recording and see how it compares to what everyone else did.
I did everything in Reason 8, and most of the work was done using the SSL Mixer channel strip.
Bass
I took roughly equal volumes of mic and DI, and phase inverted the DI channel after listening both ways. Added some light compression (just a couple of db gain reduction) and rolled off the EQ below about 50Hz. Kit
Some hefty EQ on the bass drum to boost the lows and cut the resonant mids. Also experimented with layering a kick drum sample as the beater sound in the intro was a bit overpowering.
The hats have a HPF at about 950Hz, and the toms have HPF at 90Hz with a bump at about 1.4KHz to brighten the attack. The snare has a sugical cut at 515Hz to reduce the ring sound, and a wide cut around 600Hz to take away more of the pitched nature of the drum. I found the pitch of the drum quite distracting, and it sat better in the mix with the mids lowered a bit.
I gated the snare and toms to reduce the spill from hats and snare and tighten up the overall kit sound.
The kit was put into a bus and I applied some aggressive compression in a parallel channel, but I didn't end up adding a lot of signal from the compressed channel. Guitar and Keys
I didn't do much to either of these, just some HPF on the guitar channel. Backing Vox
There's a lot of spill in these channels, so each one is aggressively gated. I think I even clip muted all the parts where the Bone mic isn't singing.
I applied fairly aggressive pitch correct to each channel, and then added some chorus to the BV bus to thicken the sound. Lead Vox
First step here was to cut the whole vocal track into clips and adjust the gain of each little phrase to try and even out the level. It took a little while, but I think it worked well.
No pitch correction on the Lead Vox - she doesn't need it, amazing! I did add a de-esser though.
Lead Vox is also parallel processed with some aggressive compression, but there's not of the compressed sound added. Sends
First send is a plate reverb, which gives some depth to lead vox, BVs and more subtly the drum kit (excluding kick).
Second is a room reverb, which helps tie the individual drum kit channels together. The piano gets some of this too, as it was sounding a bit isolated.
Next is a delay effect set to 3 semiquavers of the song tempo. It's only used on the lead vocals, as I found she still sounded a bit isolated with the plate reverb. It helps move her back into the mix without sounding like she's in a bathroom. It was a bit too much in the odd bar where she sings by herself, so I use automation to lower the send volume for those bars.
Last is a special effect delay, set to 2 beats of the song tempo and then routed through a distortion effect. I automate the send level to only act on the occasional 'slow down' song lyric. Mastering
I just used the default mastering suite in Reason, and tried not to squash it too much. The main bus compressor is giving 2-4dB of gain reduction.
Thanks for reading, hope this either helps others who had a listen or encourages some discussion!
Hi, the mix is nice, all balanced but... sound is too narrow and close. The bass and drum are muddy and in general need more bright. Good work with choir!
(13-02-2015, 09:46 PM)fabiozerbetto Wrote: Hi, the mix is nice, all balanced but... sound is too narrow and close. The bass and drum are muddy and in general need more bright. Good work with choir!
Thanks for the feedback! When you say narrow & close, that could be fixed with a bit more stereo spread and some more ambience?
I could brighten up the mix with mix bus EQ, but how would you fix the muddyness? A bit of EQ, or something different?
(14-02-2015, 11:16 AM)gavinhodge Wrote: Thanks for the feedback! When you say narrow & close, that could be fixed with a bit more stereo spread and some more ambience?
I could brighten up the mix with mix bus EQ, but how would you fix the muddyness? A bit of EQ, or something different?
With "narrow and close" i mean exactly the stereo spread. Also the mix is too dry, maybe you have to use more ambience effects, expecially with the lead vox, choirs and guitar.
The drum sound nice dry.
The muddy sound become from mid-bass region of the entire mix. Sounds need to be more bright, from drum to lead voice. I think you need do bright up all single instrument, not only the entire mix.
(16-02-2015, 11:04 AM)fabiozerbetto Wrote: With "narrow and close" i mean exactly the stereo spread. Also the mix is too dry, maybe you have to use more ambience effects, expecially with the lead vox, choirs and guitar.
The drum sound nice dry.
The muddy sound become from mid-bass region of the entire mix. Sounds need to be more bright, from drum to lead voice. I think you need do bright up all single instrument, not only the entire mix.
Thanks so much for your feedback! It's hard to get considered opinions from people, so I appreciate your time.
