R/E/P Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Mix feedback: new track here  (Read 3794 times)

AdamC

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11
  • Real Full Name: Adam Cotton
Mix feedback: new track here
« on: January 15, 2012, 04:46:04 AM »

Hi, in the advanced stages of this one. Would love feedback on whether or not the mix and balances here work and translate across whatever your listening to this on ok--happy to hear any specific notes things you noticed positive or negative.
Thanks!
Adam

http://soundcloud.com/fireworkbrain/miracle-tip-xxviiii
Logged

Fletcher

  • Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 590
Re: Mix feedback: new track here
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2012, 08:43:19 AM »

This kind of question - while it seems to have come into vogue in the past few years is really pretty irrelevant to anyone but you, and those involved in the production process.  No one listening outside of the production team knows the intention of the song... to them [us?] its like a song on the radio - we hear the song, we hear the singer, if / when something interesting happens with the production we often hear that too... the mix?  not so much.

Nobody has any idea of what the tracks are unless they're involved in the production - we don't know if you left something out, we don't frankly care if you left something out - balances? - we have no idea what you were going for.  We don't know if something is too loud as we have no idea if there is something else that could have been in the place of the sound... same with too low.

That said, I have one question for you which is more of a production question [and BTW - I quite liked the song!!]... you have that kind of cool "bwoop" sound that happens on the 2... was it due to the crap speakers in my apartment that I wasn't feeling something driving the song on the 1... or was that intentional?

I liked the atmospheric nature of the song... I liked the way it built... but after about :45 to a minute I was kind of anticipating that there would be something coming down on the 1 to drive the song a bit more?

As I just typed that I fully realized that I had no business wondering that... and that if the song came on the car radio [I listen to mostly "public" radio and college stations so its not out of the realm of possibility] I would probably have turned it up.  Thing is you asked us to listen to the "mix" - which turned on a bit of "engineer" - "producer" mode... which is dead on wrong for me to listen to it that way [unless I was trying to dissect it in order to steal an idea from you]... but that is the derivation of my "driving the 1" question.

Peace
Logged
CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

Noah Cole

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12
Re: Mix feedback: new track here
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2012, 12:37:25 PM »

This kind of question - while it seems to have come into vogue in the past few years is really pretty irrelevant to anyone but you, and those involved in the production process.  No one listening outside of the production team knows the intention of the song... to them [us?] its like a song on the radio - we hear the song, we hear the singer, if / when something interesting happens with the production we often hear that too... the mix?  not so much.

Nobody has any idea of what the tracks are unless they're involved in the production - we don't know if you left something out, we don't frankly care if you left something out - balances? - we have no idea what you were going for.  We don't know if something is too loud as we have no idea if there is something else that could have been in the place of the sound... same with too low.

Fletcher, this is kind of a sidestep, but do you think there is ANY place for constructive criticism? Could a subjective view be beneficial? Only in certain situations?
Logged

AdamC

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11
  • Real Full Name: Adam Cotton
Re: Mix feedback: new track here
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2012, 04:13:15 PM »

This kind of question - while it seems to have come into vogue in the past few years is really pretty irrelevant to anyone but you, and those involved in the production process.  No one listening outside of the production team knows the intention of the song... to them [us?] its like a song on the radio - we hear the song, we hear the singer, if / when something interesting happens with the production we often hear that too... the mix?  not so much.

Nobody has any idea of what the tracks are unless they're involved in the production - we don't know if you left something out, we don't frankly care if you left something out - balances? - we have no idea what you were going for.  We don't know if something is too loud as we have no idea if there is something else that could have been in the place of the sound... same with too low.

That said, I have one question for you which is more of a production question [and BTW - I quite liked the song!!]... you have that kind of cool "bwoop" sound that happens on the 2... was it due to the crap speakers in my apartment that I wasn't feeling something driving the song on the 1... or was that intentional?

I liked the atmospheric nature of the song... I liked the way it built... but after about :45 to a minute I was kind of anticipating that there would be something coming down on the 1 to drive the song a bit more?

As I just typed that I fully realized that I had no business wondering that... and that if the song came on the car radio [I listen to mostly "public" radio and college stations so its not out of the realm of possibility] I would probably have turned it up.  Thing is you asked us to listen to the "mix" - which turned on a bit of "engineer" - "producer" mode... which is dead on wrong for me to listen to it that way [unless I was trying to dissect it in order to steal an idea from you]... but that is the derivation of my "driving the 1" question.

Peace

Hey Fletcher, thank you very much for your thoughts here. Your comment about the rhythm is actually exactly the kind of thing I was curious to hear.  Perhaps I should have said a bit more in my introduction but I wanted people to listen with little information so thoughts like that could happen. 

I don't do this work professionally, I do it for my friends and myself, I'm self taught, and although your friends will tell you something sounds great till the cows come home, I was really curious for some outside opinions.  Am trying hard to push my mixes to the point where they are, if not in the "ballpark", at least in the same "town" as the "ballpark" of mixes on the radio.  I realize of course, especially with a song/mix like this, there are a lot of artistic decisions that a seasoned engineer may question or what not.  At the end of the day, given the fact that any engineer would do something different with this mix if it were given to them, I'm just kinda surveying to see if this is enjoyable and somewhat professional sounding, or if there are any sore thumbs, like the rhythm thing you mentioned, which is totally a fair and helpful thing to comment on, which now that you've said it I can totally see where that could help!  I've been "in there" so long with this one that those kinds of details may elude me at this point. 

Thanks again and sorry for the initial vagueness!
Logged

Fletcher

  • Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 590
Re: Mix feedback: new track here
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2012, 09:15:52 AM »

Fletcher, this is kind of a sidestep, but do you think there is ANY place for constructive criticism? Could a subjective view be beneficial? Only in certain situations?

I really wish it were a side step -- I really wish there was a way to be able to criticize a mix - there isn't.  Each is its own work of art, and belongs to the production team.  There may be a thing here and there that might stick out production wise -- but those comments would be personal to my reality and may have less than nothing to do with the production aesthetic the artist / production team was going for.

I mean there can be some glaringly wrong stuff... like an 80's monster snare drum slamming down like a meteor in the middle of a light jazz piece that was played with brushes... but chances are the production team would have straightened out any of that nonsense before someone like you or me heard it.

I have a dear friend who is a teacher at a well established music college... we were talking one night and he mentioned how nearly impossible it is to grade "mixes" that his kids submit -- and frankly, I've heard some of the "famous mix dudes" get near my stuff and thought it was abso-lutely-fucking terrible... but then again, at that point I was part of the production team, part of creating how the song was going to be presented so I had perspective... I mean the other stuff I'd heard them do I thought sounded fine - over compressed - but fine.  It wasn't until I had a relative basis of understanding of the song that I came to realize just how shitty I thought their work was.

I hope this makes sense

Peace
Logged
CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm

Noah Cole

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12
Re: Mix feedback: new track here
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2012, 11:26:38 PM »

I mean there can be some glaringly wrong stuff... like an 80's monster snare drum slamming down like a meteor in the middle of a light jazz piece that was played with brushes... but chances are the production team would have straightened out any of that nonsense before someone like you or me heard it.

Yeah, I didn't mean to critique minutia and I didn't mean to critique the glaringly wrong stuff. I guess I've been thinking about where the line is between the glaringly wrong and the stuff that isn't able to be criticized. It seems like it's heavily lopsided towards the stuff that falls within the realm of convention - and I mean that loosely.

I hope THAT makes sense!
Logged

Fletcher

  • Moderator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 590
Re: Mix feedback: new track here
« Reply #6 on: January 17, 2012, 11:59:14 AM »

If it makes any difference to you... there is stuff I've done that even 10 years later I say to myself - "damn I wish I had done ____ differently"... and its usually a good 5 years before I can listen to anything I've recorded and not hear what I consider to be the "warts".  Nobody but me [and maybe a band member or two] will ever hear the shit I hear or ever think to them self "gee - I really wish he had done ____ instead of ____" because they have no idea what the first ____ might have been.  I do, I was there - I do, I was involved in the production... but nobody else does.

At the end of the day - if you present the music close to the way you want the audience to hear it - and if you can "live" with the product then its probably a really good representation of what you were hoping to achieve.  A lot of times when I question myself about the way things sound I go back to something I heard when I was working with Michael Wagner on a King's X project.

Michael had synced the original "quad mix" of Dark Side of the Moon with the "5.1" release of the same album in his DAW - you could switch seamlessly between mixes and "A/B" them.  The "5.1" mix is some really beautiful audio... it flows, its audiophile, its beautiful to listen to.  The Alan Parsons "quad mix" is edgy, aggressive, and very [VERY - VERY] angry.  In short, it kills the 5.1 mix.  If you really listen to the words on that album, they're pretty pissed off... if you listen to the 5.1 mix you won't feel that supported by the audio of the album... but the quad mix not only supports the statement - it shoves it your face and makes it a 'no brainer' to understand.  Parsons, who was part of the original production team understood the artist's intent and it shows... whoever did the 5.1 mix missed the memo.

Peace
Logged
CN Fletcher

mwagener wrote on Sat, 11 September 2004 14:33
We are selling emotions, there are no emotions in a grid


"Recording engineers are an arrogant bunch
If you've spent most of your life with a few thousand dollars worth of musicians in the studio, making a decision every second and a half... and you and  they are going to have to live with it for the rest of your lives, you'll get pretty arrogant too.  It takes a certain amount of balls to do that... something around three"
Malcolm Chisholm
Pages: [1]   Go Up
 



Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.048 seconds with 22 queries.