Adam Miller wrote on Tue, 16 October 2007 06:50 |
I have a feeling that i'm missing a cowbell and cymbal track... they only show up as fragments of files in the .rar |
Adam Miller wrote on Mon, 15 October 2007 22:50 |
I have a feeling that i'm missing a cowbell and cymbal track... they only show up as fragments of files in the .rar |
Greg Dixon wrote on Wed, 17 October 2007 07:05 |
Thanks Stefan, I can only claim credit for the engineering though. I had very little to do with the song arrangement. I did think you'd all enjoy this one though. I know I did. |
SingSing wrote on Wed, 17 October 2007 16:11 |
Now, what to do with that sax..... |
M Carter wrote on Wed, 17 October 2007 10:14 |
Saxophone will always be the hardest instrument in the world for me to take seriously. |
M Carter wrote on Thu, 18 October 2007 17:49 |
I just personally despise the saxophone. As an instrument. |
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The sax track is essential to this tune. |
ATOR wrote on Sun, 21 October 2007 16:15 | ||
Well the sax wasn't essential to my mix, it just didn't fit the tune the way I heard it. Neither did the hammond I had to force myself to leave some in. |
M Carter wrote on Sun, 21 October 2007 10:06 |
Environmental Terrorism? |
slash5969 wrote on Mon, 22 October 2007 10:07 |
I didn't have to waste time and energy getting anything to "sound right", and that made it very enjoyable to work with. |
typek wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 05:29 |
When I compressed the bass, I did get a loud noise floor sort of hiss so I spent a lot of time editing that out- Can anyone suggest a different approach to this? I don't think that would fly in a professional setting (spending an hour editing out hiss in the silent parts of the track), or would it?. Also, if i may ask what was the bumping sound that the lead hammond track had? a pedal of some sort? |
slash5969 wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 01:07 |
Thanks for the great tracks, Greg. I didn't have to waste time and energy getting anything to "sound right", and that made it very enjoyable to work with. |
j.hall wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 02:44 |
my mix is printing now. thanks greg, sounds were great! |
Audio~Geek wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 12:04 |
Hey Greg, whats the name of the Band and tune? |
osumosan wrote on Mon, 22 October 2007 23:17 |
JasonTompson Needs bottom. Vox is waaay hard. The EQ is so extreme I expected it to be a telephone EQ. I agree that there was a lot of bottom on the track, maybe you over HP'd it. I can't hear a lot of stuff under it. The instrumental underneath is nice and airy though. |
osumosan wrote on Mon, 22 October 2007 23:17 |
Jhall This has got the bottom. And the mix is close and intimate. Floor tom is clipping? Vox? Organ? Bass? Maybe the mix is clipping. The floor is the one track that seems to be disconnected. Are there gates on the toms. Is the release to quick? |
J-Texas wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 11:22 |
Dirty vox and drums (like pollution) and the light airy stuff under it (pretty green stuff). |
osumosan wrote on Mon, 22 October 2007 23:17 |
M Carter Avoiding the sax, eh? It's a bit too off in the corner even though I agree that it's accompaniment. Best use of the room sound/OH. The high organ sits right in that same room and the snare is snappy and natural. |
j.hall wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 11:38 |
although, noticing something like that is much more an engineer thing. sometimes i just don't care as i realize that that vast majority of listeners won't ever notice that nor care. something i learned for an andy wallace mixed record that i love. the snare is gated so hard that every time it hits it sounds like a crash cymbals is hit too. something we all would call "wrong" but somethng andy knew didn't matter. |
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 01:22 |
It seemed like he was talking about global warming or something. I got the that one plant was dying and one was growing green. Jason |
maxim wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 19:14 |
i buried the sax totally, but listening to some mixes, i wish i had kept at least a few sections upfront... |
slash5969 wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 22:18 |
My notes and comments - keep in mind that I'm new to this whole process, and that I'm here trying to learn. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and just because I liked or disliked something doesn't make it good or bad - it just makes it my rather un-learn-ed opinion. With that being said - here we go. Audio geek: Nice high end, lots of air. Bass again a bit heavy for me, but it's the way it's done apparently. Interesting use of the sax track, much more predominant than I heard it, but it works. Ending a bit busy - less is more sometimes, eh? |
M Carter wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 00:12 |
garret - I like the rearrangement of the intro, it's way more subtle this way. However - where's the kick drum? The edits in the guitars are nice. Ballsy to just throw one guitar naked in the left channel like that. I just wish I had more out of the drums, they feel like they're in a different room. |
osumosan wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 14:17 |
Greg Dixon Great overall balance. Snare a bit muffly. Sax here is a bit disembodied. I don't hear it as a solo instrument, so that colors my comment. |
slash5969 wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 13:18 |
Greg: You had an unfair advantage - you're obviously much more familiar with the song than the rest of us are. Sax much more up front than I heard it, but man does it work! Nice balance - this mix captures the vibe of the tune perfectly, although I still wanted those "ethereal" vocals. Excellent job - probably my favorite mix of this tune. |
garret wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 14:05 |
Greg Dixon/ nicely balanced… dynamics are under control but not lifeless… vox is natural and sitting nicely on top of the bed…. Achieves that epic quality that the best mixes get in the last chorus… |
M Carter wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 14:12 |
Greg Dixon - Another one with the drums way back in the mix. For me the song didn't move enough harmonically/emotionally for the rhythm section to be so underplayed. I like the snare sound a lot, I just wish I had more of it. Nice sax treatment, you really did a great job of making it matter in the context of the song. |
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Osumosan Hey Kettle! Pot here sayin' too much compression on the drums. And they overpower the other instruments. The long reverb tail effect is cool and I'd love to hear more of it and more consistency of where it is applied, sticking with one or two sonic spaces. I would notch down the vox, too. Garret Muscular but still vibey… good work. Guitars sound good and the mix is nicely balanced…. Okay except the kick which I think is overpumped, and the hi hat, which I think gets distracting. Watch the lead vocal… it’s getting dominated at times. |
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M Carter It feels a little bit disjointed in the intro, what did you do on the guitars (I'm just curious, they sound really chorused). Did you only use the acoustic on one side and the nashville on the other? I like that you tried to make the instrumental breaks more interesting with effects. Nice transition into the chorus, but the bass needs some work. |
ATOR wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 05:55 |
Jason Thompson Vox have way too much compression, sibilance and distortion. it hurts my ears. Drums and bass could also do with less compression. Nice fx on ad libs. |
garret wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 23:05 |
Jason thompson/ Ooo, this one’s bright. Lots of 8khz+. Good that you tried for a bright mix, which is hard to pull off (don’t look at me for an example – my stuff is always dark)… to me it depends on the singer.. this guy has a voice that is loaded with nasal buzz, so you have to be careful… |
ATOR wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 20:55 |
Big thanks to Greg for providing great sounding tracks. |
ATOR wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 20:55 |
Greg Dixon The kick/bass combination could use some work, it's tubby. Balance is good. Some more presence and high wouldn't hurt but this could be fixed in mastering. |
M Carter wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 23:12 |
JasonThompson - Dig it. Once again, great snare sound on this. The kick is a little honky feeling though. The vocals are at a great level, but the 10K(?) shelf is killing me. Still though, the snare is rockin, it always feels good when it comes in. |
slash5969 wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 22:18 |
J Texas: Crisp drums - I'm diggin' your snare! Clean mix. I like the way you heard the song. Nice balance to everything - I like the presence in the vocals. You used the sax line well. I would have faded that guitar at the end, but I'm sorta pickin' fly shit outta pepper. Another of my favorite takes on this tune. |
Greg Dixon wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 13:52 | ||
Fair enough, I went for more of a thuddy almost old school reggae sound this time. I rolled quite a bit of high end off the kick mics and added some lows around 60hz. Definitely not the modern rock kick sound. |
osumosan wrote on Mon, 22 October 2007 23:17 |
slash5969 Yay echo. Sometimes builds up too much and the vox are too overpowering. Hihat's (over)ruling sax is buried and in a different song almost. Ditto on the drums. Nice treatment on the ad lib. Vox blown out in places. |
garret wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 23:05 |
Slash5969/ the delay on the vox is too canned and proggy for my tastes. I think you’d get away with it if you just did it once or twice… but so often, yah, not so much. the drums are overpowering the vocals. I like a lot of this mix, but I can't get past the heavy kick drum and the proggy delay. |
M Carter wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 23:12 |
slash5960 - Interesting vocal treatment, but I feel like something with crazy delay only works if more of the mix is going that way. Cool idea with the harmony, but I wish there was more room in the drums. Everything feels a little strange in the upper upper mids. |
ATOR wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 05:55 |
Slash Sounds could use more work. Vocal fx draw too much attention to them. There’s nothing going on in this mix that captures my interest. |
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 07:13 |
Man, do you have tinnitus too? We seem to be the only ones that don't mind that upper frequency. You must hunt too. I knew I should have started wearing earplugs! "I'm sorta pickin' fly shit outta pepper." Now (being from Texas) I thought I'd heard every hillbilly saying ever made. Leave it to one of you Oklahoma boys to come up with a good one! |
slash5969 wrote on Thu, 25 October 2007 00:00 |
Osumosan heard my drums as buried. Garret heard them as overpowering the vocal. M Carter wanted "more room" in them. In all honesty, I wasn't terribly pleased with my overall drum mix - I struggled with the snare (it was trebley and a bit anemic). But the point is that music is subjective, and one man's pleasure is another man's poison. |
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 07:49 | ||
Once I compressed the vox I felt: "Wow, that's different". He is unique. So, I didn't want to try and cover up any of that nasal sound. When I heard the sizzle on the vox at times in the dry run, that's when I decided I would go over the top on the vox. Originally I wanted the vocal to be the "clean" thing. |
Audio~Geek wrote on Mon, 22 October 2007 21:04 |
Hey Typek for editing out quiet parts you can use strip silence or just use a gate, shouldn't take you an hour. |
osumosan wrote on Mon, 22 October 2007 23:17 |
Jhall This has got the bottom. And the mix is close and intimate. Floor tom is clipping? Vox? Organ? Bass? Maybe the mix is clipping. The floor is the one track that seems to be disconnected. Are there gates on the toms. Is the release to quick? |
garret wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 09:50 |
I was overly harsh about it... it's a damn fine mix if you roll off the 10k shelf, and drop some 4khz (harsh vocal presence.). |
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 17:54 | ||
Wow! Whenever I get ripped by any other crits... I'll just read this one again! LOL |
M Carter wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 09:26 |
make for more level comparisons. I know J.'s world is different, but I'm personally unaware of a situation in mine where the engineer is 100% unfamiliar with the client. Maybe the New York scene is just different in that way. |
slash5969 wrote on Tue, 23 October 2007 23:18 |
The early fade disappointed - I wanted to hear how you handled that end passage |
garret wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 00:05 |
The volume balance is erratic in this one... get that right.. it's the most important thing you can do. |
M Carter wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 00:12 |
The balance between the band and vocal is a little off to me. The kick is the loudest drum in the set, and the interplay between it and the bass feels a little like a drum machine to me. I usually like your mixes, or at least the attitude behind them, but this one is a little confusing to me. |
slash5969 wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 10:00 |
I learned from every opinion offered. I got to mix a song that I would have never been exposed to in a million years if not for this forum. |
typek wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 12:23 |
- i cant hear where the floor tom is clipping.. can you point me in the right spot ? |
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 23:00 |
osumosan - Kick is weird. Replaced or really compressed and eq'd? |
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 23:00 |
I like the evenness of the bass, but loosen that attack. It has no dynamics. |
mac wrote on Thu, 25 October 2007 01:10 |
if i was gonna do a fadeout, i'd want to be out before they start the outro. |
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 22:00 |
Sounds like you relied heavily on the room for the snare and then eq'd that. |
mac wrote on Thu, 25 October 2007 00:10 |
slash 5969 - i think the delay works in some places, not so well in others. hi hat stands out a bit too much, especially compared to the snare. i liked getting it down to sax and organ at the end. |
Doug_H wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 19:49 |
slash5969 Cool vocal effects that suited the mix. It's kind of all drums and vocal. |
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 24 October 2007 22:00 |
slash5969 - I like the establishment. I think the delay would be awesome if you used it more sparingly. Cool idea. If it just crept in at the end of the phrases or something? That's a lot of compression on the drums man. Especially the kick and the hats. Maybe if the snare was up more you wouldn't have used that much?? I love the ending man. Cool FX on the adlib vocal. Sax seems to me a few dB too low. I like that track in the background but not to strain. |
Greg Dixon wrote on Fri, 26 October 2007 04:25 |
I like the slight delay on the cross stick. Is that just the room mic panned to the opposite side? |
garret wrote on Sat, 27 October 2007 09:46 |
I liked the blend, and figured you must have kept two two tracks for a reason (inside/outside, or two mics with different tone). -G |
Greg Dixon wrote on Fri, 26 October 2007 20:35 |
That's right in and out and for the tonal differences. A D112 inside the hole and a Audix D6 outside. I started recording them on a stereo track, as I like having them on the one fader and it's easy to change the balance or mute one if needed. |
Greg Dixon wrote on Fri, 26 October 2007 03:25 |
Jason Thompson. Bright and very compressed. Voice could work as is, if it was brought down a bit. Not much in there besides drums, bass and vocals. Could use more level on the kick to fit with the bass and snare. Another one where the sax either needs to be louder or not there at all. The whole track sounds a bit dirty, but otherwise is a pretty good mix, just not much going on harmonically. |
J-Texas wrote on Thu, 25 October 2007 04:00 |
teleric - Bright. I like it already. Fat kick. Vox a little low for me. Oops. Actually... all over the place. This mix could use a little compression on the vox. I love the drums man. Bass is a little strong. A lot strong I guess. Distracting. Sax doesn't sit for me stuck way out there to the right. It's odd enough without accentuating it by drawing that much attention to it. So dissonant that lead organ, huh? I guess you liked it. Did you mean to leave the ending not cleaned up? |
teleric wrote on Sun, 28 October 2007 05:35 |
Also, after reading the mind-blowing threads about recording lower and mixing lower, i've turned down to OdB the master fader, peaking once at -2,9, and staying most of the time @-10dBFS. As greg said it, i also noted an improvement in sound quality in this session. It was a lot easier to fix problems and the plugins were a lot more satisfying. I guess the wind's turning and it's for the best this time. |
J-Texas wrote on Sat, 27 October 2007 12:12 |
Very cool track. Great sound. I like the other track you did on the Guava myspace page as well. Thanks goes to the band. All of you as well. |
j.hall wrote on Wed, 31 October 2007 09:36 |
J-Texas hello compression?..which of course I?m a huge fan of, it would just be nice to have the bottom octave present and accounted for. Man that vocal is bright. do you have some monitoring issues on this mix? I don?t recall your other IMP entries being this thin. I like the finesse of this mix. It sounds like you spent some time really working the levels. |
j.hall wrote on Thu, 01 November 2007 01:36 [b |
Greg Dixon[/b] I assume this is the client approved mix. First off, nicely done on the tracking. You got great sounds. I?d like to hear your rhythm section pound more, but that?s a taste thing, and for all I know, the band just wanted it chill and told you to do so. I like how you are using the sax. I didn?t push mine that hard. Treated it more as a background texture thing. I like it driving the mix. It?s good to shift perspective away from the lead vocal sometimes. This is a great tune to do it in. |
j.hall wrote on Thu, 01 November 2007 13:44 |
I think your rhythm section balances are off. IMO (which it?s just my opinion?..) the bass and kick drum should be balanced in lowend and level. I think your vocal is a touch quiet. Acoustic guitars sound great. The mix feels a little soft for what I typically like. But I also think it serves the song well. Not sure how to describe it. The mix works, there?s just things I?d change. Might just be an EQ thing in the upper mids and top end. |
osumosan wrote on Fri, 02 November 2007 19:38 |
By soft, of course you don't mean quiet, right? |
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Does anyone agree or think that I need to bring that back into my mixes?l |
mdifazio wrote on Sun, 18 November 2007 23:10 |
First post, don't really know the rules, but I really like the song. See what you think. http://www.prosoundweb.com/imp/files/IMP_mdifazio.mp3 Thanks, Matt. |