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[jthoen]

Hey Brad/any and all,


the current band im working with really likes the sound of the new get up kids cd.  Ok so I listen to it and compared it to the roughs of the record we are working on.  Get up kids are bright as hell, our mixes dull city.  Which leads me to this question, how bright are the mixes coming in that you recieve?  It seems to me that the mixes that Im working on are balanced well enough but are pretty dull when compared to pro stuff.  And yes im still pretty amateur however, im working on getting better and willing to spend the time and money to get better.

I realize that they only way to get there is work on this all the time, mixing, tracking, recording ect... however I would like to know if im in the ball park of what to shoot for.  For the record I have decent gear, crane song, manley, great river, aea, etc.. still young and have no tracking room but working on that.  My mixing room is my bedroom, I moved my bed into the closet to make room for this, I  have bass trapping and am working on the acoustics of the room.

The other odd thing is that one would assume that while mixing my ears would become sensitive to the highs the longer I listen and the tracks would become dull causing me to increase the highs.  However, I believe I keep bringing the highs down.  Am I doing it different than others or is this pretty standard?

So based on the "get up" test I ran a rough mix through the new board (yam. pm1000) and bounced it adding quite a bit more high end. It sounded a great deal better, however still not as bright.  Ran it through again adding more high end and some bass causing it to be closer.   Due to this would it be a wise move to add some eq to the 2 buss to add the highs or is it a bad move relating to bad acoustics and room problems?  Or could I add the highs as one mix and a second mix have flat, send both to the m.e. and have them decide what is better.

Here are some of the last mixes I have worked on: the first was tracked  in 5 hours wtih a bit of  mixing later, 150$ project.
http://www.purevolume.com/thefraid

the second was a high school band that needed a bit of work but were fun to deal with.  I learned a bunch on this.  Drums were recorded in a huge dance hall which was fun but might have been to much.  It was master by daveG @ magento mastering.  600$ totall for three songs.
http://www.purevolume.com/scholarsdispute
the first two songs.

Im just trying to give a ball park as to were Im at.

sorry about the long/many question post.  Just trying to get an idea where and how my mixes hold up.


thanks again
joe

[Level]

I listened to them, Going to comment on the first ones (fraid)

Got an email address you care to PM to me? I did some things to see what you think. I noticed that above 9K was rolling off pretty quick and the punch in the kick could have a shade more space around it. Even though it is MP3, I got a good idea of what you are feeling..I just want you to hear something real quick and make certain we are on the same page. Mix is not bad at all..plenty of high frequency instrumentation there...just the extreme shimmer of the cymbals seem veiled a tad.

Sort of like a cloth between me and the sound or a drape.

Not much though.

[bblackwood]

jthoen, how bright the mixes are that come in vary drastically. Some mixes have you using several bands on top to add energy, others have you looking for ways to reduce it. As I just posted in another thread, always try to make the mix sound as good as you can before sending it to mastering. If that means you're trying to emulate something, then reference it keeping in mind that it is mastered and therefore probably much hotter in level (which will accentuate the apparent top end).

Get it sounding as close as you can (minus the level) to what you 'hear in your head' then tell the mastering engineer where you want it to go...