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Clinic A
#1
Here are the main things I did:
To hear everything at once I needed to get down to 96 tracks, the upper limit for Pro Tools 9. I started by bouncing 05_Snare, 06 & 07 to one stereo track. Then I created views, mix/edit groups and color coding for vocals, synths, basses, drums, effects and orchestra.

For edits, I made a breakdown at 3:17 with just orchestra and 59_SFX01 (vinyl noise). Except for the breakdown I deleted the rest of track 59 (vinyl noise). I also altered the timing on LeadVox2 around 1:30 and 1:36 and added a stutter edit at 1:17.

To set the balance I switched between moving grouped and individual track faders. All tracks got a high-pass filter at various cut-off points. I put telephone voice with an eighth note delay on the second lead vocal around 1:23 (“rock and roll”). I lowered EQ on some of the synths in the 2K vocal range. I also put moderately heavy compression on all the vocal tracks and added more attack to the acoustic guitar with Bittersweet. I put a mono to stereo delay on LeadVox3. I bounced the chorus vocals (93 – 97) to one stereo track to free up space for reverbs and then tried to tie all the tracks together with a short reverb. The orchestra was the only thing that got long reverb.


.mp3    ClinicA.mp3 --  (Download: 5.46 MB)


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#2
I like a lot of the effects you have used during your mix, they really help to carry the song along but I think maybe some of the reverb, especially the orchestral reverb muddies it up a bit.

I can see you used short reverbs to try and avoid this and the orchestral part does sound big and really helps the chorus but it sounds a little muddied up to me.
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#3
Thanks for the comments, Sano. It's been a while since I mixed this. The main things I initially remembered were the very high track count and my wife's alternate lyrics. She didn't like the song and would sing "we failed third grade" instead of "we've got hand grenades". I assured her the folks that generated this many tracks weren't dummies but that didn't stop her.

Anyway, after listening again it does seem like the long reverb muddies things. It's Waves Renaissance reverb with a slight high-end roll-off using the little built-in EQ. EQ and multi-band compression seem to be the main recommendations in Mike Senior's book for this kind of thing. Maybe a real EQ after the reverb would help clear the mud while maintaining the larger sound. What approach would you take?
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#4
Using delays instead of reverb helps create a sense of space while keeping things clearer.

Or try rolling off the lowend of the reverb and maybe reduce some of the lower mids to try and let the high end come though. I don't think there is much room or need for the rest in a busy mix.
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#5
It was interesting revisiting this mix. I first tried Pro Tools 11 for these experiments but the AAX versions of Bittersweet and Waves Renaissance Reverb both had trouble with a session this large (memory dumps, no plugin display, etc). I switched to PT 10 & made three versions; no long reverb, delay instead of long reverb and a full EQ after the original long reverb. They don’t sound that much different to me.


.mp3    ClinicA-1.mp3 --  (Download: 5.59 MB)


.mp3    ClinicA-2.mp3 --  (Download: 5.6 MB)


.mp3    ClinicA-3.mp3 --  (Download: 5.6 MB)


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#6
I think the vocal sound on this track is awesome. I also like the added guitar riffage. For me the drums seem a little too far in the back for a hip hop tune, but I'm a drummer! Nice job.
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