Howlin

[jeffd42]

A pleasure to mix this.

My thanks to the artist and producer for making these multi-tracks available to us through puremix.

MP3 attached. 44.1k/16 and stream also at: https://soundcloud.com/jeffd42/howlin-mastered

[pauli]

Hey Jeff, nice to meet you.

In my opinion you should take this one back to gain staging and better develop how you'd like the parts to sit with one another. The vocals are really up front and there's noticeable bloat in the mids from most instruments in small amounts, though the piano and drum loop are more obvious offenders. Consequently the mix is a bit boxy and I feel like you might be pushing the treble instruments like the lead synth a bit too hard to compensate.

A boxy mix is about the easiest mixing trap to fall in, and the temptation can be to try EQing everything to swiss cheese to get things sitting at their current static level, but most of the time that'll just give you an overprocessed mix that doesn't translate very well. From what I'm hearing, some of your mix elements are at odds with eachother purely in terms of level, but large level adjustments will probably invalidate a lot of your processing moves, so I'd recommend taking it from the top.

It's taken me a long while to learn this, but it's best to do 90 percent of your mixing with your faders, pan pots, and high pass filters. If you can get a decent sound with those three tools, odds are you'll get a good mix. Cool trick I use: after you get a rough balance with just level, panning and low cuts, bounce the mix and put it on a muted track in the same project. Every now and then, solo the rough balance against your mix to make sure that your additional processing is making an improvement, especially if you're tempted to fiddle with the faders or pan pots after you've started processing. The technique doesn't stop being useful there, either... before you apply automation, bounce down your processed static balance and use that as a reference to validate your automation. This is a very disciplined way of working and it's really hard to leave the faders alone after you've settled on a rough static balance, but it always works if you're diligent about setting your levels in the very beginning.

[jeffd42]

Hi Pauli, likewise very nice to meet you and thank you for your comments.

The main challenge I found on this track was translation onto smaller systems. The verse/chorus transition is represented primarily through the Moog baseline and extra kick samples (and one cannot rely on level differences making it through to the eventual listener). Yes, definitely some compromises on how I handled the low-mids for translation that, as a side effect, may make the mix slightly "boxy" on full range systems. As you noticed on the piano and synth arp, I've also taken the liberty of moving some of the instruments around to slightly unorthodox places in the mix (I figure I can get away with that in an EDM themed mix, less so in something like rock). This was all in aid of finding options to convey the dynamics of the song clearly, even where its going to be compressed later.

Lyrics are key to this song. I took it to be a new artist looking to make an strong impression on first listen, so the lyrics need to be clear even in compromised environments (i.e. as background music in a restaurant). Within the genre there's maybe a 2db difference in vocal levels between mixes. I would agree I'm towards the top end of that range (i.e. a vocal-up mix), but its a deliberate decision to focus attention on that element of the mix.

You are also correct that the high end is quite hot. I personally find it hard to listen to a top 40 playlist for long as it's so fatiguing, but it's the standard expectation for mixes in this genre. Again, a fine line on whether I've pushed it to far, but the objective was to match the references I used. In my case I take the mix, slot it into a playlist of 3-4 other songs from the same genre in Spotify, then listen (focusing on typical listening environments for the genre, so earbuds, ipads, my car stereo, as well as studio monitors.)

You commented "It's best to do 90 percent of your mixing with your faders, pan pots, and high pass filters." Perhaps in some genres -- and assuming things are very well tracked -- but IMHO that would be hard to achieve on a commercial mix in the Pop or EDM genres! But your point is well made about getting the basics right in a mix first.

Cheers, Jeff

[jeffd42]

Reposted with a few level tweaks; bass up 0.5db, drums up 1db, vocals down .5db, and vocal effects down 1.0db... for a slightly better overall balance.

[pauli]

All good points, but I'd personally caution against mixing strictly toward industry expectations, mainly because the industry is performing very poorly and its getting worse every year. If people aren't willing to pay for music that sacrifices everything for the sake of really clear lyrics, maybe we shouldn't be mixing to that standard.. Music first, mate. That's what REALLY sells records.

You can still apply my suggestion of doing most of the mixing with the most basic tools in this genre or any other, but of course you'd have to do some coarse automation and print it before you start processing. That's just my philosophy, though, and it's not the only one that works. Many ways to skin a cat... But applied properly (with suitable tracking, like you said) it ALWAYS works, so that's why I preach it. Assuming I've settled on levels for the important bits, kick/snare, bass, vocal etc. if I can't rough a track in with simple level, pan and HPF, that's usually a strong warning sign to me that the track in question might not support the music and these days I'd rather mute it than start fighting that early in the mix, since on the forum I haven't got a producer breathing down my neck. In the real world though, you're right, the artist, producer and possibly recording engineer may have left you with a multitrack that needs a little bit more treatment before you can properly stage gains.

[takka360]

Fair bit of mud in this mix

[jeffd42]

Many thanks for the comments. Attached is an updated mix with a little more tidying up of the low-end. In particularly some transient shaping on the drums, and the bass hopefully sits better. I did take the advice to move some of the HPFs up on other instruments also.