Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Blue - FAQ by the author
#1
Hey there fellow mixers!

Here are a few info about the song "Blue" that you might find useful when attempting to mix it:

General

To me this is a dreamy one, it's very much lyrics-oriented (probably one of the most lyrics-oriented that I've ever done), and the lyrics themselves are painting a dreamy figure in a not so real world... It's about my daughter, or rather fond memories of my daughter when she was little and how she was, now that she is very much a teenager, it would be a different story Wink

So I suppose the vocal (however bad it is) should be king and the vibe dreamy and soft.

Recording

Recording in an untreated room, using a portable vocal booth that I use as a gobo to shield from computer noises, a sofa and a mattress and a SE Electronics Reflection filter for vocals.
For the vocals I've used a SM75 pretty close because I liked what the proximity effect was doing to my voice that my condenser wasn't really doing, it was tracked direct into the preamps of my RME Fireface UCX.
Turns out this was a really bad decision that created more issues than solved any. You will likely have to process the vocal for extra sibilance, tone changes and general extra dose of low-end Smile
The drums are Superior Drummer, with the Roots Brushes SDX, it provides lots of room/ambiance mics, up to you to use what you feel useful (don't feel forced to use them all!).
The bass is Spectrasonics Trillian VST, one of the the upright models
The keys are AAS Lounge lizard (Rhodes) and the Toy piano are samples from Kontakt.
The guitar(s) are done with a Variax JTV (a hollow body model) and my Kemper Profiling Amplifer, recorded direct into my RME interface.

Pay attention to

The drums shouldn't really be too compressed, it's a jazz ballad after all, so they should sound natural and not processed.
Still the kick is quite boomy and this is of course the nature of the beast, but it could give you some headaches especially if you're used to boosting 1/2khz to enhance the beater of a metal kick!
The vocal have tone issues and sibilance a-plenty, so a good deal of clean-up, compression and automation will be required.
The guitars and keys are all stereo, but you should make sure that each live in their own space and don't occupy too much of the stereo field.
The bass is an upright so it has quite a lot of transient noises, it's part of the charm but can be pretty disruptive of the dreamy mood.
The bgvs are really essential for the mood, they should be pretty soft and dreamy.
The chorus is driven by the bass and the vocals (including bgvs), but the guitar is pretty important in that it provides the main melody counterpoint, don't bury it, it's an important part!

What I would expect

As usual, very much up to you to follow or not, as long as your mix is coherent and express a vision that enhances the song and make it's message and mood pass through, you're on the right tracks...

This is a light song, so light touches are expected.
I'd like a mix that is quite ambient and I think you can push the reverb a bit on this one, it's a slow tune, and the dreamy vibe will match lush reverbs and delays...
I've said it, but will say it again, the drums are not metal ones, and the compression and limiting overall should be as transparent as possible.

Happy mixing! Smile
"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa

Some air moved here
Reply
#2
(10-03-2015, 11:38 PM)ptalbot Wrote: ...the kick is quite boomy and this is of course the nature of the beast, but it could give you some headaches especially if you're used to boosting 1/2khz to enhance the beater of a metal kick!

all the supplied kick samples suggest they've been EQ'd to lose their natural harmonics; the skewed frequency response associated with the resultant material, might suggest this? could you confirm, just to satisfy my curiosity?

Quote:The vocal have tone issues and sibilance a-plenty, so a good deal of clean-up, compression and automation will be required.

i'm tending to disagree with the need for compression. the mike is already contributing a good deal to the compressive nature on the vocal owing to the mike's inherent attributes which don't serve the purpose of recording vocals - the air has no freedom to escape from the capsule which also makes for a "percussive" effect on some word structures as well as tending to cause an abundance of nasal character in the voice which cannot be fixed in the mix. the slight changes in mike address also results in tonal and indeed balance issues generally which sadly has consequences which further detracts from quality. if compression is applied under these conditions, the outcome will further compromise the vocal, to my mind. additionally, i suspect the compression applied during tracking might not have helped things, but i'm speculating owing to the problems the SM57 creates with vocals anyway. after some experimentation, i found dynamic EQ with some quite radical static EQ worked marvels in the circumstances with a slight touch of compression to tame the balance (transparently). my approach, if this helps, was to think of the mike's frequency response coupled with the characteristics of proximity, then dialled in the EQ to fight it. i had to get pretty radical, so think out of the box and see what it brings you....dial in whatever it takes and ignore the parameters you end up with - they won't be pretty because of the extent of the problem.

still on the subject of vocals, the BV's were similarly tracked with the same approach as the LV. placing BV's with proximity inherently contained in the signature of the tracking makes placement behind the LV exceedingly difficult, but not impossible. perhaps backing away from any microphone for BV's would make mixing them less of a hack. even changing the mike can be a valid strategy...if it's the right mike, of course.

the best compressor is the natural one - air. proximity in the LV can be achieved via mixing strategies (playing around with spectral balance with EQ can change the psychoacoustic illusion between proximity and depth), so i wouldn't personally aim for proximity at the time of tracking, per se...and especially not with anything like an SM57/58 etc. for studio tracking use a studio grade mike...or the song will suffer, especially if the song, like this one, depends so much on the vocal's quality if it is to communicate the desired emotion. the trouble is, EVERYONE has an SM57, so it tends to get used'n abused. there's a similar song in the library....Speak Softly Like Horses which has similar attributes (there are others...but this one reduced me to tears!). it's one of the fastest ways to lose an audience!

hope this helps, folks.

a sincere thanks Patrick for your time and contributions, not only in this Thread but in the forum generally...totally awesome.
Dave

PS regarding the stereo material: only the effects applied to the instruments are stereo. by mixing down to mono one can lose a good part of the applied effects which gives far more options and creative freedom in the mix, if this is a vision one would rather pursue, of course. the danger with having an effect running all the way through a song, especially one lasting 4:30, is that it can lose appeal by becoming overly monotonous. something to watch out for, perhaps.
Beware...........Cognitive Dissonance!
Reply
#3
Hey Dave, thanks for the additional notes!

I will have to check the Superior Drummer's build-in mixer to see if processing was done in there, I know I've disabled any processing done in Cubase prior to the export. But I think that as usual I've started out from one of the presets in the Roots SDX...
I don't remember having disabled any of that when I exported.

Great tips about Dynamic EQ to overcome the recording issues on the vocals, I have no doubt that radical processing is what is required here. I learned from this error and shall not do it again, I assure you! Smile

"Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something." - Frank Zappa

Some air moved here
Reply