ChrisJ (me)- Boy, that kick drum pokes out a lot. It's all about the vocal- everything that isn't boring or the vocal is ultra-subtle.
Henchman- Sort of glossy, like looking down through the surface of a clear pool on a sunny day. I can see the light show, but there aren't any spotlights on the singer. There's no star, it's a concert experience.
iCombs- The rhythm section are boring. Singer is the star- kinda. I like how the singer's the focal point here, but some of the other stuff isn't clicking- like, the heavy guitars in the choruses seem PODlike. I'm fighting to come up with good stuff when the band (I agree with J here) isn't carrying its weight. Things feel natural, and honest. Honest isn't proving to be that exciting here. Oh- with this you can pick up on the small shifts in energy level like towards the end, but it only illustrates how the energy is mostly not very high...
ATOR- Startlement! Here we're using the RAT bass, probably because it's another unusual element. It seems like the singer is being cut off perhaps from his stash of psychedelic drugs, maybe. I think this is a good psychedelic mix. It knows when to get out of the way, it's got the vibe, the treatment fits the song and the presentation. I keep warming to the sheer over-the-topness of this. You get the Hunter S Memorial White Rabbit At Dawn At 120 DB award
Rankus- Hey, an AC-DC mix! Or at least the band and the drums are pure hard rock. It's a nice trick to make the drums hit this hard. It leaves the vocal not carrying its weight, the vox is weak compared to the drive of this rhythm section mix. I actually had to scoot the vocal forward in time to put it in front of the band. The band is _flattening_ the poor bastard this way.
SingSing- Big thumping thing, all hihat and kickdrum rumble. The annoying guitar riff keeps popping up but it's neat when it shuts back off and changes the whole texture of the song that way- manufacturing arrangement in mix. You get the Mute Button Dancer award
Spoon- Pretty straight here. I think it helps having the RAT bass reinforce the guitars, and I like where the vocal sits. He seems a little distant and weak, but there's still a space for him, I can believe that I'm supposed to be listening to him. I like the spaciousness.
Adam Miller- This comes from the hard rock direction. The color of the lead vocalist's voice is being more important than his actual performance, which is a bit dangerous- like relegating him to being just another instrument, just another color. Okay, don't kill me for this- I'm thinking Def Leppard here, a bit. Something about how neatly everything is laid out. Some people puke over Def Leppard, but it IS Mutt Lange after all.
Grant Richard- The poor vocalist, he's really being squished between the guitars and things, it sounds like it hurts
I think the main thing to remember here is that if we heard this level of compression confined to just certain elements like the snare drum it would kick ass! Got to address the individual tracks more, that's all. I've recently found that it works much better if there is always a BIT more volume available for new instruments coming in, no matter what. This is totally the opposite, the full band is constantly squishing down to be quieter than, say, a stray hi-hat beat, and it's all buss compression. Do that with the individual tracks, not on the buss so much.
Greg Dixon- Yikes LOUD. Is this buss compression done entirely as peak limiting? There's a weird spaciousness here in a boxey way. It reminds me a little of the way some good records (Hotel California, say) had weirdly overspacious, peak-expanded mixes that could be practically unnatural. In this one, the dynamic throb is expanded so much that I can't hear it anymore. It's spectacular, but sort of distracting. It's not making me want to listen to this, even though I can hear any detail I like, effortlessly. Nothing appeals very much. That has to be the expandeyness working, nothing else is so wrong with it.
jdier- Everything's there- sort of distant- extra reverb producing a big space more from added verb than from tricks like compressing individual drums. I don't think any of the performances really carry this style of mixing. If it was The Who, lots of stuff would be popping out of the mix just because it was played that way, but this sort of sits there. This is why sometimes more aggressive mixing techniques have their merits. Compare with ATOR's weirdathon and notice the way brightness, compression and the aggressive presentation of bizarre elements keep the song from just sitting there.
Nick T- I'm liking the energy on this one- I feel the intensity of the lead vocal in this context. I'm finding the hihats and cymbals pretty distracting, but it's right on the edge of what I can keep listening to. I like that I'm able to believe it's an interesting song.
redtape- Very straight. Very nonjudgemental mix- not being very opinionated about what things need to take the focus. Can't be doing that when the song is trudging along like this
You get the Steve Albini Truthfulness award
now, if the band were setting the studio on fire you'd have something here. But, nice echo vocal arrangement trick assuming it's right for the song to have the fellow singing 'love a losing fight' and NOT pausing while the chord breaks... I do actually like him pausing there. Rats, I'm doing badly on the merry-sunshine crap
Scott Oliphant- Drums: a raging bull Oliphant
Damn, that is some impressive pounding drum sounds. Dominates the song, it does. It's a good thing the vocalist is mixed to be able to compete with the loudness of it- though he does NOT quite have the personality presence to compete, and that's what's not clicking. I want to hear a superclose, frayed-nerves hear-every-spittle vocal in front of a backdrop this dramatic, especially the way the buss compression is causing it to roar and surge. The guy can't be sitting in the middle of it, he drowns even if he's very clear. He drowns in the synesthetic overload of rock mayhem. Gotta be a super-present, Bowie-like self-indulgent spotlighting to balance out the sheer overload of the backing music... or the backing music has to tone down to not drown the poor guy.
Look at me talking like I know things. Hee.
ignore the man behind this curtain. Moving right along...
Will F- Very solid, very dense. Something's resonating, VERY MUCH, what the heck is it, will it stop? I gotta see if it will stop. It's a treatment on that three-note guitar riff. The resonatingness went away, oh now it's back. In mono it gets reduced to a fairly ordinary loudish guitar. In stereo, it hurts my head surprisingly much. Too wide, too steady-state with everything... The rhythm and variances in energy levels have to be made MORE, not flattened out.
Anonymous- Pretty straight... another one where it doesn't seem very opinionated, like it's important to balance each player fairly and equally so nothing really stomps all over anything else. I just don't think this material survives that type of treatment, because too much of it is, as J says, boring. You'd have to have a better song and the band really putting in an effort for this to work. It only conveys their disinterest.
Fantomas- Pretty straight here too. More attention for the vocalist, which helps. I think I'm hearing reverb on him- part of the reason I didn't put any verb on him was just to try and get him as much upfront as I could, but it's also because I'm more interested in the little frayed edges of his performance than in the richness of his vocal tone, which isn't that special on this song. I didn't think the song was carried by the singer-ly-ness of the fellow, but by whatever wonky stuff I could scrape up. Here it's like the song is carried by the guy as a crooner, and he's not being passionate enough to sell that idea. If you crank him until the little asides jump out and he's distorty on the loud notes, it at least sounds like he's emoting all over the performance.
J Hall- This time, primo compression amounts
it produces an effect like the track is a big surging wave but any given element can burst out as the white-cap on the wave. The voice rides the wave very well. I'm less fond of the verb on the vocal, but since I tried to do something very different of course it strikes me that way. It changes drastically from verse to chorus- I like the idea of building the interesting-mix-stuff off the lead vocal, specifically, and the way the weird stuff is selected. Sounds like a rock video with lots of distracting imagery
Nizzle- Well, I did not expect those noises!
Then, suddenly, we're a metal song. Actually, it's pretty convincing. Kinda squashed on the 2-buss, like Greg Dixon's. I wonder if it's simply that peak-limitey factor that makes me find that, and this, sort of unappealing to hear. It's like everything is smashed so loud that the point of the attack disappears completely. Some of these mixes just make me want to duck, or perhaps cringe back from the intensity of the sound coming out. I like bringing stuff out with dynamics processing and distortion so it becomes upfront, but some mixes go SO in your face it just hurts your head. Please less of that k? I can't headbang and wince at the same time.
3'6"- Oh, MAN! Sorry dude. *click* Only guy so far where I just gave up. I thought Nizzle was loud but yours REALLY hurts. Less plz k?
M Carter- Back in the land of the living, we are enjoying spaciousness and reverb. Very deep and big. The vocal's clear enough, I just keep wanting him to be standing well in front of the band. Doing reverb stuff with him makes him not stand in front, unless you use really big predelays. Also, here we have experimental confirmation of a Charles Dye theory! You get the Verb On The Snare Defines The Size Of The Mix award
Maxim- Hmm, strange dissonances. Fairly straight other than that, but it was pretty cool how the dissonances set up an expectation of a frazzled sort of song- that's what I thought it wanted to be, too. Also, the arrangement changes are highlighted, I hear stuff being taken out in some places to exaggerate the way the arrangement density shifts. This one doesn't hit me very hard but I'm finding a lot that I think are good ideas, good judgement calls. Makes me want to keep hearing Maxim-mixin.
Tom C- Sort of big trashy feel. Reminds me a bit of Steve Albini, except the vocal is the anti-steve. With backing tracks this visceral, I want the vocal dry and nose-to-nose with me. Other than that I like it- another bass fan I see, very heavy bass-end on this one.
Whew! Hope I hung on to some of the positivity I wanted to bring. I had a lot of fun with the track, and look forward to the next one