April/May Mix Competition - VOTING COMPLETE!

[Twigman]

Anyone got any reggae stems?
I fancy doing something a bit dub.....

[ironside1966]

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1369998556' post='2095331']
I think that is a fair assessment.
I didn't really think I'd over verbed the vocal....I did however try to get it it right to the front of the mix.
I agree on the lack of DB tone....I found eqing this tricky - I really wanted to get the upright vibe but found the bass difficult to get loud enough in my mix - bizarre
Yes I knew as soon as I listened back to the mix after it was uploaded that I had taken too much bottom out of the snare. My snare was heavily processed with a transient shaper to try and put some thwack into it - I felt the original had no life.In the process I obviously concentrated on the highs too much and this thinned the snare. Another problem with the snare I found was that there was a lot of snare rattle (I think) on the sidestick in the intro - I ended up cutting this to a different track and gating and eqing it totally differently.


[/quote]


I found that cutting the lower frequencies to even out the tone worked best for me. There is always a temptation to boost the fundamental or the lower part of a bass sound or kick, try boosting around the second and third harmonic this can bring the sound forward without swamping the low end., Put simply try boosting around the second to third octave, it is important judge the EQ changers as part of a mix and not in isolation.

Edited May 31, 2013 by ironside1966

[Twigman]

[quote name='ironside1966' timestamp='1370031817' post='2095909']
I found that cutting the lower frequencies to even out the tone worked best for me. There is always a temptation to boost the fundamental of the sound but boosting around the second and third harmonic can give better results, put simply try boosting around the second to third octave, it is important judge the EQ changers as part of a mix and not in isolation.
[/quote]
I hardly ever (never?) boost - always cut....when I said I focussed on the highs I meant I cut all the lows.....

[triviul]

Well done Moonbass and Ironside! Glad to see everyone's been getting into the spirit with this competition. As promised, I'll be posting critiques of those two mixes, as well as some comments on the other entries, soon. I'm away for the coming week, but will hope to get something posted pretty quickly after I get back on 10th June.

Mike S.

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1369999109' post='2095338']
A marktree?
[/quote]

Yup, if that's what they're called. I'd have guessed 'chimes', but what would I know..? I'm only a drummer..! I suppose they sound 'chimy'..?

[Skol303]

[quote name='triviul' timestamp='1370067420' post='2096138']Well done Moonbass and Ironside! Glad to see everyone's been getting into the spirit with this competition. As promised, I'll be posting critiques of those two mixes, as well as some comments on the other entries, soon.[/quote]

Thanks again Mike! Very kind of you.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback

Paul

[51m0n]

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1370086554' post='2096314']


Thanks again Mike! Very kind of you.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback

Paul
[/quote]

Huge +1 from me too

Thanks for taking the time out to give your thoughts on the mixes!

[ironside1966]

[quote name='triviul' timestamp='1370067420' post='2096138']
Well done Moonbass and Ironside! Glad to see everyone's been getting into the spirit with this competition. As promised, I'll be posting critiques of those two mixes, as well as some comments on the other entries, soon. I'm away for the coming week, but will hope to get something posted pretty quickly after I get back on 10th June.

Mike S.
[/quote]

Thank you, looking forward to it

[moonbass]

Ooh, what a nice surprise to get on returning sunburned from a friends stag weekend. As I mentioned when I submitted my mix, country isn't my favourite genre, and it did drive me mad, but I have finally come to like this song (a bit!)
I really liked most of the entries this month, and I think that the small total number of votes means it's not very sensible to draw too many conclusions from what is essentially a subjective choice (and it was of course very close).
Some thoughts on my mix:[list]
[*]I tried to find and work towards a peak in the song. For me this was the fiddle at around 2.35, and I used a lot of automation to bring this out, and also try to bring out the little instrumental twiddles throughout the song. (Although I made the slide dobro breaks at the beginning quieter as I thought they were naff!)
[*]I struggled to get the bass to sound strong and still like an upright and ended up using some drastic eq and enveloper and exciter plugins... not sure I'm entirely happy with the result!
[*]I think I got the drums to sound as natural as I could (although I have yet again over compressed them I think, especially the snare)
[*]I decided to get rid of most of the stereo instrument tracks (except the strummy acoustic) and use them in mono, which made it more focussed
[*]I think someone was referring to mine when they said it sounded muffled, and I entirely agree. I've bought some AE22 monitors this week, so hope next month I will be able to better judge the high end (I've been using HiFi speakers up until now!)
[/list]
Thanks again Si for taking the time to arrange this. So what's next? I'd quite like to try a dance/house track as I've never had a chance to do one, and I presume it's quite a different set of problems.
Andy

[cheddatom]

ouch, 3 hours of listening to country music and 0 votes Nevermind, I didn't like my mix on re-listening. Well done to the winners! I'll try harder this month.

[MiltyG565]

[quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1370257023' post='2098085']
ouch, 3 hours of listening to country music and 0 votes Nevermind, I didn't like my mix on re-listening. Well done to the winners! I'll try harder this month.
[/quote]

Exactly the same for me, except I beat you (second last, somehow ). I only realised when I had the other tracks to measure against how unclear my vocals were, and how up-front my guitars were, among other things. Oh well, i'm looking forward to the next one!

[MiltyG565]

When's the next one starting? I need something to do!

[51m0n]

OK, so here is my mix notes from as they came in, plus a round up of what the heck I did to make mine sound like it did. I hope it helps, if its abrupt in places I apologise, I like towrite what I hear as i hear it, and it may seem a tad harsh, sorry, but I can only type so fast!


[b]Mix A[/b]
That harsh reedy quality to the 'twang' instruments is there in abundance, the banjo sounds rather 'boxy' too, the reverb on the vocal is a bit too obvious, and the vocal is rather quiet. Nicely mixed in with the bv though.

[b]Mix B[/b]
Bass sounds nice, but its very very loud in the mix, BV is rather loud too I think. You struggled with the drums, they arent in a space at all, very very dry indeed, not much evidence of the OH and room mics, which is a shame. Not so twangy and harsh as A though.

[b]Mix C[/b]
This is mine, and I still think its my favourite mix here by a fair way.

The band is in a space together (very careful reverb selection, and subtle delay set up, as usual, I love 'spaces' in recordings), the vocal is absolutely the main focus, but I've really worked on pulling all the hooks out as well. The bass is not over powering anything. More importantly the extreme twang has been tamed, and the harsh reedy nature in a lot of the mixes here isnt evident, thats careful eqing.

I really think the fact that this was a Telefunken promo, which meant that the same set of LDC and SDC mics were used on everything really damaged the tracking on this one. Those SDCs are clearly super bright, and they really dont gel with the sources for me, stack a lot of them up in a mix and you get an intolerable amount of extreme high end that sounds really fizzy and nasty to my ears. Not good, and not nice. SOme ribbon mics on some of those harshest sources (looking at the fiddle and maybe mandolin) would have been good, or even some nice dynamics (RE20, or Senn 421s) would have probably tamed the sources very nicely.

I liked the hooks, and I liked the acoustic guitars, but for me you couldnt have both all the time, because if you do then there are no dynamic highs and lows, it just chugs all the way through at the same dynamic level. At the same time the banjo is rgeat, but its dynamically static, for all that its a reasonably busy line, and that meant the song was dynamically static whenever it was playing.

So I took out the acoustic guitars for a verse or chorus, cant remember exactly, it sounded better for it to me though. I really liked the banjo, but its very busy, and it masks a lot of the subtleties in the hooks played by the fiddle, mandolin, dobro and AC3, and we must remember, its all about the hooks!

EQing was interesting, the bass is a bit 'one notey', by which I mean Mr Bass may be playing a bunch of notes, but there is a resonant frequency coming through on all of them really quite heavily, whether its in the room or the bass, which masks what he is doing in the mix. Hard to hear this unless you know what you are listening for I'm afraid. I spent a good while trying to find this, and ended up just hacking a chunk out somewhere near 80 Hz to get rid of it and actually start hearing the bass noters moving around about. Surgical? Kinda. Brutal? Very.

The toms are pretty nasty too, I ended up gating them to get rid of alot of the ringing, but that actually didn't come out that well I think, there is a transient spike on acouple of tom hits that I never got around to sorting out, its buggiong me now!

The snare was 'interesting' for me. Its been processed to hell and back (La3a compressor according to the trackiong notes - and not set to flatter either IMO). I chose to embrace the splat rather than trying to force a clear transient out of it, its a nasty snare but we must remember that sometimes sh*tty is pretty. I knew it wasnt going to win any awards (or admirers) but I still kind of like it. Believe me I tamed it right back, it was set to "Phil Collins" at one point

The vocal was a fantastic performance, and pretty nicely captured, it does get a bit sibilant and splatty though, so I de-essed it, and then used some tuned saturation to bring it right forward, rather than an EQ, it didnt need to be brighter, it just needed to sound more forward. Bootsy's Variety of Sound VSTs are superb for this kind of thing, highly recommended!

With regard to the L and R mics on everything, I treated them all as mono, mixed the two different sources to get the best timbre from them I could, then EQ'ed the result where necessary to get a sound that sat in the mix right. Lots and lots of refinement went on with the EQing of the twanggy stuff.

I think a lot of people have been caught out by everything being twangy, you simply have to decide what is going to go where in the frequency spectrum, and then carve gobs of stuf fout to make space for everything. This is really hard, I found the banjo sounded best without all its top end, more middly, but a lot of the other mixes have everything fighting each other in the top end, and then nothing wins IMO.

In order to ride levels quickly and simply through the track I had two different compressors on the master buss, which is unusual fo rme, Bootsy's Density MkII which was in M</S mode so I could lift the side a bit and get more widht, and Tokyo Dawn Records' new Feedback compressor which is sublime at very transparent levelling between sections. Love that compressor, you would not know it was there until I turned it off, awesome!

Annoyingly catchy song though, I havent posted this before because I spent days with it going around in my head, and was fearing for my sanity there for a while


[b]Mix D[/b]
Somehow this feels a bit conjested for me, maybe some wider stereo, The vocal blend is good though. There is nothing stand out nasty in this one at all, its a bit bright, and everything seems to be fighting up top, but the drums sound great, especially the snare. The cymbals may be a tad harsh if I'm super critical. I liked this.

[b]Mix E[/b]
Why is the vocalist in a little tiny box? Very odd reverb choice to my ear.

Its pretty dark this, which is better than twangy I must say

Dont like the snare at all, its kind of lost in tubland looking for Poh...

The twang is in full effect hear, that reedy quality is back on everything a bit.

Other than the snare it doesnt sound over processed though, would have liked more bv level (just a tad), his is a great vocal too.

[b]Mix F[/b]
Quite middy on the fiddle, and banjo, good effort to seperate the twang contenders IMO, but with the clickiest rockiest kick so far, kind of incongrous that one .

Fiddle does get a bit intrusive for me, and its dead center which doesnt help IMO. Its fighting the vocals, which is not a great choice I think.

The snare suffers like mine did, embrace the splat sir, nice (in a very nasty way)

[b]Mix G[/b]
Wiiiiiidddddeeeee
Oh nice forward vocal, good job!

Bit of compression release around that kick though, its breathing a bit this. The snare has some bight though, although its a little thin?

Mr BV is blended in beautifully too I think.

This one has gone a long way to deal with the build up in that reedy quality, but its there still, I can hear a lot of the twang gang individually though, its not quite 'hurting' which is nice!

Good mix this one, I like it, should do well. But there has been no effort to improve the sense of dynamics, its all just throwh in there throughout rather.

[b]Mix H[/b]
This has that high frequency build up I keep banging in about in spades, its all just a tad grating.

The vocal is in the right spot though, really forawrd.

The drums are thoroughly over egged I think, that snare and the toms, all with an almost gated reverb, I know I stepped this way, but its getting in the way of everything else on this.

It all sounds a little on top of each other, more careful eqing to seperate the instruments is really needed.

Are you hitting some heavyish mix buss compression, or is it just the drum buss? Something is pumping like a bellows in there I think.

Again I didnt find that pleasant to listen to, too aggressive on the drums, and too much top end build up. Sorry...

[b]Mix I[/b]
This isnt helped by coming after G, its sounding rather middly, and rather mono, I like wide sound stages and this isnt one.

Over compressed drums, by gum splattastic snare that, very very bold, sir, brave even. I didnt dare go that hard at it in the end and woosed out a lot in comparison to this

A lot of top end fighting going on here too. Its not a very pleasant listen this, its very aggressive indeed, and for me the song isnt at all aggressive!

[b]Mix J[/b]
AC guitars are really nice and smooth.

Is that a long early reflection or a slapback delay on the lead vocal? Sounds a little odd in the context of a country song to me, slap back is great on rock and roll though. Like the BV a lot, he's quite ethereal on this one, nie job.

Drums sound about as natural as they can on this track, nice one, I would have added some more reverb on the snare though

The hooks are very very quiet though, these are the earworms, the bits people hum, you cant bury them all all the time behind the strummy rhythm guitars, it defeats the object I think.

[b]Mix K[/b]
Err I dont think you got the K metering right, thats mega quiet. Never mind!

The vocal is awfully dull, and very quiet, the bass is massive, its all balanced very strangely. I think your monitoring is probably a ittle out of whack?

Again its very mono too, did you spread everythin hard L and R and then raise all the faders? Everything is on top of everything else, there is no soundstage at all, apart from Mr BV being left a little.

[b]Mix L[/b]
Thats another odd reverb choice, small hall or chamer, and buckets of it.

Reverb is a weird thing, if you can hear it (on a lead vocal) then its too much. If you cant hear it until you turn it off and then realise what you are missing, then you are about right IME.

A good reverb is hard to hear until its gone I think. Then you wonder how you lived without it.

Also the BV should be a small step behind the lead, to do this a little more reverb, and a little less top end matched to a lightly lower level will do this fiune, but if your lead vocal is swamped in reverb, then there is no behind him to place the BV.

Good drums though, if a little loud perhaps?



Well done all of you though, some really good efforts, and a lot of people are getting not a million m,iles away from each other.

In all honesty though, I cant understand for a moment why E got that many votes. Sorry Moonbass, but I really didnt like yours, but clearly I know absolutely pants all about it

[MiltyG565]

I did spread everything left and right, but maybe they were all a little too close together? (Mix K BTW). K-metering wasn't right at all I don't have any good monitoring equipment either, just some treble heavy/bass lacking headphones.

[51m0n]

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1370603859' post='2103272']
I did spread everything left and right, but maybe they were all a little too close together? (Mix K BTW). K-metering wasn't right at all I don't have any good monitoring equipment either, just some treble heavy/bass lacking headphones.
[/quote]

I meant put AC1 L hard left and AC1 R hard right, and carry on through the mix, or did you go AC1L and AC1R are pretty much a point source I will put them both over there on the left mixed to taste in terms of timbre.

[MiltyG565]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1370604696' post='2103295']
I meant put AC1 L hard left and AC1 R hard right, and carry on through the mix, or did you go AC1L and AC1R are pretty much a point source I will put them both over there on the left mixed to taste in terms of timbre.
[/quote]

As I remember, they were either spread both in one direction (although not hard one way or the other) or spread opposite directions, still not hard though.

[51m0n]

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1370605010' post='2103303']
As I remember, they were either spread both in one direction (although not hard one way or the other) or spread opposite directions, still not hard though.
[/quote]

Yeah the spreading them either side is a big error on anything that is normally heard as a point source in a band IME. It really really doesnt help get a wide sound stage, quite the opposite in fact you end up with a virtually mono soundstage with each speaker being slightly differently eq'ed in effect. Not good

[Skol303]

^ Some very useful and insightful feedback above, Si - cheers mate!

Reminds me that I need to post my own mix notes ASAP... will do so tonight.

[51m0n]

No worries.

oh yeah I did something a bit differtn with Mr BV too.

I took his track, paaned him right, fed that to a track panned left (not hard panned BTW).

The left channel version of Mr BV went through a pitch shifter with a 4 semitone down formant shift (NOT a pitch shift at all). Just to thicken him up in a different way from an EQ or whatever. Mr BV left never got to the stereo buss. He was only there to feed the delay line some heavily affected (either phased or flanged) signal to add something 'chewy' - then on the the reverb.

Mr BV right also got fed to the delay on the RHS, but without the modulation. I kept this in there, but its incredibly subtle. If I turned it all off you would notice he sounded rather less interesting, and flatter, but you would struggle to say why or how.

Thats about it. But I have to enjoy experimenting with a bit of madness on all these mixes or its a bit tried and tested, and where is the fun in that!

[lurksalot]

[QUOTE]
[b]Mix B[/b]
Bass sounds nice, but its very very loud in the mix, BV is rather loud too I think. You struggled with the drums, they arent in a space at all, very very dry indeed, not much evidence of the OH and room mics, which is a shame. Not so twangy and harsh as A though.
[/QUOTE]

Cheers Si , I'll take that , though the bass does sound a touch louder on the cloud version than on my own wav on my computer , I too on reflection thought the BV a touch too much, but I didn't realise I had a problem with the drums .

It will take a while to digest your mix notes , but will try and apply some of the ideas into mine when I get the chance . I have bought some monitor speakers now, so I will have to get a feel for them , I should then have enough to really lose my way .
Are mix notes an intrinsic part of the process ? I made a few comments about each mix as I heard them , but I didn't make comprehensive notes about mine , I should probably make an effort to write it down as I do it I guess

[MiltyG565]

Oh yeah, thanks Simon for giving a critical overview of our mixes. I may have sounded a bit upset, but i'm just moody in general I still can't wait for the next one, despite my lack of decent equipment, knowledge and ability, but it all helps

[Myke]

I'd like to try the next one, is it coming out soon?

[Dad3353]

Mix 'A' here, and I can easily explain the comments from Si: I'm deaf..! At 63 (in a couple of months...), I know very well that my upper frequencies are all down to tinnitus. Not that I'm proud, or boasting; still less excusing myself. I would doubtless heartily agree with the critique offered, if only I could hear those frequencies..!
This will probably be a regular trait of any mixes presented; apologies in advance.
I really must download a flac of your mix, Si, and give it a fair listen compared to my Reaper mix as, to me (remember, I'm deaf..!) it seems very like a few others. All of these excellent subtle touches are, unfortunately, wasted on me. This also explains how I can mix in my armchair in 2 evenings, and you have spent many hours. Hats off, sir (and y'all, come to that...). My eyesight ain't that good either; should I steer clear of the photo comp..?
Thanks for the very informative comments; will be trying next time (very trying... )

[MiltyG565]

[quote name='Myke' timestamp='1370635553' post='2103894']
I'd like to try the next one, is it coming out soon?
[/quote]

I got an internet connection especially for it, and I'm going home tomorrow and it's still not up

I know it's all done on a voluntary/spare time basis, but it's been too long since the last one finished! I appreciate all the work you are putting in that, Simon

[MiltyG565]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1370635981' post='2103903']
Mix 'A' here, and I can easily explain the comments from Si: I'm deaf..! At 63 (in a couple of months...), I know very well that my upper frequencies are all down to tinnitus. Not that I'm proud, or boasting; still less excusing myself. I would doubtless heartily agree with the critique offered, if only I could hear those frequencies..!
This will probably be a regular trait of any mixes presented; apologies in advance.
I really must download a flac of your mix, Si, and give it a fair listen compared to my Reaper mix as, to me (remember, I'm deaf..!) it seems very like a few others. All of these excellent subtle touches are, unfortunately, wasted on me. This also explains how I can mix in my armchair in 2 evenings, and you have spent many hours. Hats off, sir (and y'all, come to that...). My eyesight ain't that good either; should I steer clear of the photo comp..?
Thanks for the very informative comments; will be trying next time (very trying... )
[/quote]

I thought older people were more likely to overcompensate for their loss of hearing by making a mix incredibly trebly. I remember being told by a theory teacher last year that Van Morrison had ruined one of his latest albums with his pig-headedness by overcompensating for his loss of hearing (Because Van is a nightmare to work with, I hear).