51m0n

As for my mix, it went something like this.... Listen to the tracks up at a unity gain to see what we are dealing with. Go through them individually to check for the biggest offenders, try and foresee issues - in this case the kick and hihats were always going to be [i]really [/i]tricky to get right (really stinky bit of drum tracking as it goes!), the bass had nothing above the low mids, and so couldnt possible work on a lappie, the backing vocals were a cheeky cut and paste job and not doubled, the guitar was charming (really useable tone that fits the song really well, the keys were great, the vocal was OK but needed to be pulled into a sapce with the band, eq'ed and compressed to pop in the mix etc. Set out the tracks and group them all into sensible and useful groups and subgroups, I ended up with:- FX group - Plate reverb - Ambience reverb - Delay Rhythm Section Group - Drum kit group - - Parallel Compressor - - kick - - Snare Group - - - - Snare top - - - - Snare bottom - - hi hat - Percussion group - - loop shaker - - djembe - Bass group - - bass mids (more on this later) - - bass track - Guitar group - - Guitar 1 - - Guitar 2 Vocal Group - - lead - - bv - - bv (treated) - - bv dub delay Keys Group - - Keys 1 - - Keys 2 Which enabled mixing of sub groups (and sub sub groups) and control over sections to be maintained nice and easily. I decided right at the start to make this a very quick mix by my standards, so I limited myself to just a couple of reverbs and a delay (I've used as many as three reverbs on a lead vocal alone before now), and to try and keep things as simple as possible. Having said that I just checked and I used 20 different VSTs in the mix, thats not 20 instances thats 20 different fx, way more than 20 instances! I used Reacomp, Reagate and ReEq all over this mix, nearly every channel (and group) has a Reacomp and a ReaEq on it unless it has something a little more exotic to help eq or compress it. EQ out the nasty stuff - that turned out to be almost the entire hihat as it goes, the kick had a huge amount of eq on it too EQ the tracks to fit together - Thats some deep bass isnt it, better not compete there with the kick drum then, so I went for a slappy kick and deep bass, this is how the whole thing goes, listen to sounds competing in the same frequency range and hack chunks out of one area of one for the other and vice versa (hack may be a strong would, lets say carve). This is done with both/all tracks up to allow me to hear when the competing tracks sit nicely together. Its generally done in mono too, I want them to overlay so I can clear them up and still hear the 'essence' of what makes each sound the timbre that it is. Sort out the transients and levels to fit together with comrpession - somethings have to have a big transient spikee to have the impact they need (snare drum for instance), is there another instrument in the same area of the frequency rang that might compete with that instrument's transietn (bv's maybe) if so consider the use of very fast attack on the compressor on the competing instrument to keep it out of the way when the more important transient htis. This is hard to do, to be honest it takes a lot of mucking around with mixing to hear the music like this, and a good understanding of comrpessors to be able to think in terms of seperation in those tiny durations that we can get compressors to help prevent a build up in, or accentuate a transient spike in. I then panned the entire mix to work together nicely, being very careful to seperate elements that were competing for space to opposite sides of the stereo field. I opted for a very hard panned sound, its not quite LCR but it is very close, that seperation in the stereo makes the space for the lead vocal and so on that a radio friendly mix really needs. I then got the ambience close to right - the reverbs and delays that the whole track sat in, which involved choosing a couple of good convolution reverbs, a Plate (mainly for the vox) and a good convolution IR for the ambience (A small bright ambience from Samplicity a set of free Bricasti IRs). The filtering of the reverbs is the key to making them sound real. The delay I used was NastyDLA from Bootsy, it just lets you do lovely things to saturate the repeats and sounds gorgeous, I used a dotted 8th on the LHS and a dotted quarter on the RHS with a cross feedback type of ping pong to get plenty of delay movement going on, but filtered out all but the mid range to keep the delay from overpowering the mix, careful feedback setting is a must for this to work out ok. I think it was about now that I parallel compressed the drum kit for more punch (using the Molot compressor I smashed the hell out of it the snare and kick then mixed that back in with the original to get some more punch) and then went around adding some saturation with a mix of either FerricTDS and/or TesslaPro (mainly on groups) to various tracks to make them pop out of the mix a bit more. I used a feedback compressor (TDR feedback compressor) on the entire rhythm section to help ride the levels throughout the track a little, its a really really nice vst that very very transparent gain riding tool. I ended up liking the drums so much that I put them a bit louder in the mix than I normally would. At about this point I realised the bass wasnt going to cut it on anything but big speakers, so I took a send to another channel, heavily filteredit to include only the upper mid range that was there then ran that through a guitar combo amp & cab emulator called California Sun (from Auratone) and blended that back in with the original bass track to add a load of upper mid harmonics to the bass track itself. This was very tricky to balance but meant there was something from the bass to hear (albeit overdriven) on small laptop speakers - something I know RedStriper has tried to get right before. After that i concentrated on the vocals, using Spitfish to de-ess the lead, and reacomp to control both lead and bvs. Then it was time to find a bit of secret sauce to help pull the mix along. This was quite tricky, I wanted to double the bvs and pan them left and right, I even tried to copy a bv from a different section to get some double tracking, but alas the BVs were one shot copied and pasted so that didnt work. Finally I decided to take the one BV channel I had, copy it, effect it very heavily, and send it to a really tasty dub delay fx called TAL DUB II which allows for repeats to be filtered and overdriven very spectacularly (its one of my favourite delay fx). Then by carefull automating the send to the delay and the level from the delay through the duration of the song I could use that effect as the 'earworm' pulling the listener through the arrangement. and ended up using it for the last gasp of the outro. I hope that gives a bit of an insight. I spent about 4 or 5 hours on the mix, which is tiny by my standards. In a 'real world' scenario at this point I may have spent another couple of hours refining balances, and automating some levels (that opening snare, which has a timbre shift from intro to first verse, the lead vocal etc etc) before presenting the mix to the client for review and a round of mix tweaks. Again for me, this is rushing things along, but I only have so much time to spend on this competition I'm afraid.... Butlerk02 has sent me his album - which is a excellent. I think we are going to have a completely different set of problems mixing it though. I'm going to listen to it for a couple of days before picking a favourite track for us all to have a crack at...

OK here's my set of 'mix notes' from my sitting down and listening to everyone elses mixes. They are written as I listened throug, so they are pretty abrupt, simply because there isnt time to write an essay as the mix unfolds. Hope I dont offend anyone with any of the comments.... [b]redstriper: [url="https://soundcloud.com/redstriper-mix-stems/no-2nd-chance-un-mastered-mix"]https://soundcloud.c...un-mastered-mix[/url][/b] Panning: everything is on top of each other - no room for lead vocal Reverb on vocals: sounds rather fake, and everything else is pretty dry compared to the vox Very static mix: its left entirely to the song/arrangement to keep the listener interested [b]butlerk02: [url="https://soundcloud.com/butlerk02/2nd-chance"]https://soundcloud.c...rk02/2nd-chance[/url] [/b] Panning; too conservative still - ok on phones, less seperation on a hifi than might be best as a result Reverb on vocals: almost sounds like a small room reverb, its nearly a doubling effect rather than a reverb - maybe thats a delay doing that, in which case that delay output could do with some filtering to make it a bit less in your face and distracting? Mix helps the arrangement unfold really nicely though - percussion and rhythm guitar treatment are really nice! [b]OldG: [url="https://soundcloud.com/lucy-hastings/bc-mix-final"]https://soundcloud.c...gs/bc-mix-final[/url][/b] Theres a very odd and distracting delay on the snare in the intro and outro that makes it sound like the drummer may have been at the sherry! The guitarists are swinging around everywhere which is really distracting in headphones. I cant talk, there is a glitch on the snare in the intro on my mix too! Note to self, check the final render more carefully before uploading! Panning: other than the mad boogeying guitarist(s) its all a bit on top of each other in the center competing with our dear lead vocalist The mix is quite static again though, this song definitely can be helped a little to unfold IMO, without doing something too gimicky [b]RockfordStone: [url="https://soundcloud.com/robslusarmusic/no-2nd-chance"]https://soundcloud.c...c/no-2nd-chance[/url][/b] Panning: again pretty conservative headphone mix panning, although the panning choices are good they arent as hard as they could be Vocal reverb: another pretty fake sounding reverb/doubling thing going on, its a bit more subtle than the others though, which helps it along a lot There is something going on (a delay maybe) right on the beat which is a bit annoying and sounds very fake indeed, I think its off the vocal? Very static mix: its left entirely to the song/arrangement to keep the listener interested [b]Skol303: [url="http://soundcloud.com/skol-mixes/second-chance-by-tacsi"]http://soundcloud.co...chance-by-tacsi[/url] [/b] OK now this is very very 'clean' sounding, considering the effort thats gone in to saturate everything, pretty sure the gates are in use in full on this to achieve that kind of clean but super processed sound. The downside may be that it is almost sounding like a selection of samples put together in a DAW rather than a live performance? Really nice hammond, some compression on there somewhere to get it to 'pop' like that I would think, maybe a re-amping as well? Huge reberb length on the vocal, really well done, good bit of filtering to keep it under control Not at all sure about the eq on that hi hat though, I know its a really tough and nasty sounding hi hat in the first place, but I think more needed to be done to get this under control The re-amping of the guitiars and subsequent filtering is very very clever, but maybe too much for the song? Great re-arrangement to add more interest with the big drop in the midddle though. Very very well done (re)mix, if this were more conservative (ie a little more Tacsi, a little less Skol) I think this could have beaten mine hands down.... [b]lurksalot: [url="https://soundcloud.com/lurksalot/no-second-chance-again"]https://soundcloud.c...nd-chance-again[/url][/b] Snare-ring-tastic is that done with a lot of compression, or with eq? OK, this is clearly a mix newbie, there are some real classic mix issues in here that everyone makes when they are starting out (really pleased you entered this - thanks!). You need to achieve far better seperation between instruments, this is done with EQ and Panning in the first instance, and after thats right then compression and ducking techniques play a role too. Have a good read of the Recording101 blog on eqing and have another go at eqing this, then, when its all eq'ed as nicely as you can try a stupidly simple LCR pannign approach (everything is only allowed to be Left, Centre or Right in the mix, hard panned. The seperation will be far greater making the track easier to hear, without the build up of competing frequencies. And we havent even got on to the compression side yet Its a decent early effort though, a bit of perseverance with the basics and it will improve massively [b]charic: [url="https://soundcloud.com/thebrokensky/no-second-chance-bc-mix-comp"]https://soundcloud.c...nce-bc-mix-comp[/url][/b] That hihat that still has way too much of the 'nasty' about it IMO, you need to be vicious when you get a sound tha tis tracked that badly, only leave the good bits (however little that may be) The reverb is completely overpowering the vocal, and everything else too a bit, you're forgiven, if oinly because you didnt live through the 80's Panning is a little conservative Mix is pretty static once it gets started, although I do like the vox fade on the outro, thats a neat way to end it, nice! EQing could help "de-muddify" the result some more.... Sorry if thats all a bit abrupt!

Skytfaoooooooooolllllll.... Yup its uncanny!

[quote name='mcgraham' timestamp='1359030998' post='1948664'] I'd also agree with Charic. It's a bit like bootleg recordings of a great band. You hear the quality of the sound source even through the poor recording. [/quote] I dont so much - but thats my problem

Fair enough, thats all about eq and transient control, saturation and panning, and ambience - damn that everything! I put it down to being a cheapskate and never buying any VSTs then, just using the free stuff I cant think of anything that you can put on the 2Buss that magically makes it all 'polished' sounding really. Not without getting the mix polished first. All those mastering things just make a bad job worse IME, unless you are an expert with mastering... I think Skols was at least as polished sounding (but his hihats were still a bit too 'skanky' if I'm harsh) , although I think he strayed from the intent of the original piece further (too far maybe) with his reamping of the guitars and filtering trickiness (as ace as it was, maybe it changed the track to the point of it almost being in a different genre?).

[quote name='bob_pickard' timestamp='1359028309' post='1948607'] Good Voice; Good Equipment = [s]Happy Bass Players[/s] beyond miraculous with 51m0n's voice.... [/quote]

Cheers! OK so I guess the results are in - unless we were to get a sudden an unexpected rush of votes today the results are as follows:-[list=1] [*]redstriper: https://soundcloud.com/redstriper-mix-stems/no-2nd-chance-un-mastered-mix (2 votes [9.09%]) [*]butlerk02: https://soundcloud.com/butlerk02/2nd-chance (3 votes [13.64%]) [*]51m0n: https://soundcloud.com/51m0n-1/no-2nd-chance/s-6Tbvx (8 votes [36.36%]) [*]OldG: https://soundcloud.com/lucy-hastings/bc-mix-final (2 votes [9.09%]) [*]RockfordStone: https://soundcloud.com/robslusarmusic/no-2nd-chance (1 votes [4.55%]) [*]Skol303: http://soundcloud.com/skol-mixes/second-chance-by-tacsi (4 votes [18.18%]) [*]lurksalot: https://soundcloud.com/lurksalot/no-second-chance-again (0 votes [0.00%]) [*]charic: https://soundcloud.com/thebrokensky/no-second-chance-bc-mix-comp (2 votes [9.09%]) [/list] I'll post my review and so on tonight (its on the home machine, not here) Is there anything anyone really wants me to focus on about the mix I did? I want to know exactly what Skol303 was doing with the guitar filtering in his mix, thought that was really interesting!

Never forget the old adage "poo in, poo out", if the PA is the best ever invented, then if the singer cant sing well or has a voice that sounds like poo tonally, then all that the best PA in the world ever invented will do is output poo really loudly and accurately. A less good(garbage) PA would output a poorer representation of the voice (poo), but it will always be pooey garbage, remember the equation:- (poo + garbage) != fabulous_darling And you wont go far wrong. In my limited (thankfully) experience of attempting (misguidedly) to use my voice in a musical fashion, it soon became apparent that no amount of training would make the apallingly flawed instrument I have available to me remotely forgivable in that context (its very good for shouting though). Similarly no amount of money spent on PA or recording facilities could in any way make anyone believe that it was secretly a fabulous voice and that it was mererly duisguised by the naff PA. Thank goodness you can trade up basses though, the first one I had was worse than my voice!

BTW if anyone wants a true upwards compressor download the free pack from here:- http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/ Red Phatt (included in the bundle) is a very fully featured compressor that includes the ability to turn up signal below the threshold (rather than turning down signal above the threshold which is normal downwards compression - the diff is that downwards compression changes the transients, as does parallel compression).

Cant do it myself, I sound so tragically crap to myself that I cant bear it.....

Last day of voting people......

Last day of voting people.....

Keeping a lid on the overall volume is an absolute must, I agree, I have left pubs when the band has started up becaus ethey are too loud. Its not big, nor clever to hurt your audience....

Back on topic, I've been into slapping for almost as long as I've played bass, I do it my way now, which is a mixture of loads of different ways of doing it and has elements of all sorts of far better players than me that I've begged borrowed and stolen to get where I am. I can do what I need to to play what I want to, if there was a stylistic sub-genre of slap that I enjoy the most and therefore tend towards, its the Larry Graham to Meshel Ndegeocello groove orientated rather than flash for the sake of it thing (I can double thump really badly, so I dont really ever do it - ignore it for a year or two of slapping yourself at least!). I think you can get the basics down in a few weeks, work on keeping the first joint of your thumb (where it joins your hand) loose (even though the thumb is 'cocked'), and slapping by rotating your forearm rather than your wrist. If you put your hand in the shape that Kenny Everret's preacher hand is (the pointy index finger ting) but really relaxed, if you rotate your hand so that the index finger is in the middle of an arc described by the movement of your thumb, then thats the right action. In order to sound the note though your thumb must bounce of the string, having struck the string with the hard bit of bone in the last knuckle joint. Think of a piano hammer struck cleanly, it flies straight back off the string. You dont need to strike the string hard at all, this isnt anywhere near the physically monstrous activity that some players make it out to be, and again if you want to be able to swap between fingerstyle and slapping with impunity its necessary to get the slap to have the same volume and a good fat tone without mucking around with any electronics, its in the action of your hand more than anything else (took me years to get this right by the way, Alain Caron is [i]the[/i] man for making this work). Keep relaxed and just play 8th notes and go up and down the strings just trying to get an even slap note going. It will take about a week of nightly 10 or 15 minutes practices to get that really even and relaxed I reckon. Once you have this try slap, left hand hammer on; slap left hand hammer on etc. Keep it even, and work at a smooth relaxed action. Popping I do with index or middle finger, again its remarkably relaxed, there is no real sense of pulling at the string, as my popping finger gets into positon the action of cocking my thumb for the next slap (that rotating wrist again) pulls the popping finger up through the string, which lifts up just enough to hit the frets when it releases, any more than that and there will be a volume difference between slaps and pops. Learn to pop all the strings, eventually it should be easy to thump and pop the same string (work up to that though!) Like everything it will just take time and a little perseverance to get there, but it will come...

I play funk - what is this "chord sequence" of which you speak???

No, they are there, it sounds good because of well crafted arrangements and good FOH mixing. Simple as that. Have another listen to the Kit Richardson EP (see sig), in particular listen to Russian Dolls, there are strings (quite a lot of strings tracks, at least 4, maybe 8 cant remember for sure now), guitar, piano (2 tracks of piano I think), lead vocal, bass synth, and more than 50 backing vocal tracks, you are hearing everything mixed, if I took anything away it would sound different (more or less subtly but it would be different), yet it isnt cluttered, even with 50+ Kits singing together they arent building up mud or cluttered in any way, and that is because of the eq-ing techniques (and the compression/limiting used too). The whole EP hasthat kind of sound, lots and lots going on. The same principles are used in a big live show, you just have less time to build the mix.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1358770780' post='1944600'] Even more simplistically, I'd have thought that bassists should have an advantage when it comes to being heard because they've almost got their very own sonic space to work within. Yes, a kick drum will overlap our main frequency region, but singers won't and nor will guitarists usually. [/quote] If you concede that you need some mids (something somewhere between 200 and 800Hz lets say) to convey pitch and transient attack then the following instruments could easily be in your way:- Floor tom Low tom Kick drum Snare body Baritone male vox (go down to 80Hz fo rthe really deep chaps) Rhythm guitar Lead Guitar Hammond Clavichord Piano Strings Congas Djembe Didge Female contralto (seriously!) Baritone Sax Tenor Sax (in a section especially!) Tuba But the main contenders are the bottom of the guitar, lower toms, kick, snare (esp a big rock snare), and lower octaves of the keyboard, and the deeper horns depending on the arrangement obviously.

[quote name='Doddy' timestamp='1358813016' post='1945660'] I never change anything other than the technique. [/quote] +1 My Roscoe through my rig with my technique sounds absolutely immense either slapped or fingerstyle, I have no need to change anything either. Its brilliant too, because it means I can mix the two techniques really nicely in a single bass line. [quote name='wal4string' timestamp='1358813806' post='1945669'] Your slap sound must be really naff then. [/quote] No you're wrong, whats really naff is either your kit, your technique, your ability to make them sound good together, or your ability to switch from one to the other quickly if you rely on some form of eq, gain or preamp change to go from one to the other (IME)

I dont think that is a case of everyone wanting to cut through, its a case of everyone wwanting only to hear themselves, at the expense of everything else. Cutting through suggests an incision to me, I like the idea of keyhole surgery, thats where it works best, rather thanout and out butchery.

[quote name='Lamont' timestamp='1358796518' post='1945246'] From my understanding 'cutting through the mix' relates to perception that a bass that sounds nice and loud (and clear!) on it's own, can completely disappear when you add a band into the room. If I'm right I think this is normally due to problem frequencies at around 400-600Hz. Most band members have a presence in this region (guitars, snare/toms, vocals etc.) and in a room these soundwaves will naturally interact with one another. 99% of the time, physics is cruel and these signals will be 'out of phase' with one another, effectively cancelling them out. If you have this problem scoop your EQ a little (just 3dB may be enough) and you'll often find you can 'hear' yourself again. The other option is play nice and quietly, with everyones amps arranged sensibly so they don't interfere with one another & most players can monitor themselves quite happily N.B. this might be complete bollocks if it is, sorry! [/quote] This is an oversimplification. It could be any or all frequencies turning to mush. that depends on the sounds in the band and very much on the acoustics in the room. You cannot narrow it down to 400-600Hz. Also cutting there on bass could be exactly the wrong place fo rthat bass and player's sound, you have to think of all the sounds in the band, if the kick is really deep then the bass doesnt want to be so deep, if the guitar is middly the bass can sit under it etc etc. The art (as a band live, or with the sound engineer) is to carve out the crud from each sound that competes with a part of another instruments sound that is 'signature' to that instrument in the mix. Good arrangement is the icing on the cake. Cutting through is such an aggressive way of putting it, its also known as frequency mixing. The more instruments in the mix the more careful you have to be to make space for them all. What the musicians hear on stage is one mix, by being closer to their respective monitors/amps they get a mix that favours them rather than the rest of the band for themselves to listen to. It is perfectly possible to create a mix that works in the context of the band on stage and in FOH, again the more the band accepts they need to work together to creat the sound of the band as a whole, the better the sound on stage and off will be.. This is personal opinion, there may really be some people who use extreme eq/compression/overdrive (who knows what else) to try and force their way to the front of a mix, but if its detrimental to the overall sound then it would seem to be damn stupid behaviour?

[quote name='bassman7755' timestamp='1358807784' post='1945563'] It means "I dont want a sound that is pleasant to listen to and which blends in with the band, rather I want a sound that is like a sonic poke in the eye with a pencil - it may be horrible but at least people can hear it". [/quote] Completely disagree with this....

Right you are then

[quote name='butlerk02' timestamp='1358773353' post='1944671'] Ok fellas. Are we putting a closing date on this? I reckon we let it run up until the 24th so it leaves a week for comments and ideas to be posted. It also gives me a week to post the CD out to the winner. [/quote] Agreed 24th as the last day of voting - although I dont know how I can stop people voting after then, other than to put the results up to that point into the OP?

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1358785485' post='1944944'] Hey Paul - I know you like your remix comps, this might interest you [and maybe others]............................... [url="http://www.puremix.net/zelab/"]http://www.puremix.net/zelab/[/url] Garry [/quote] Thats a lovely track isnt it!