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R/E/P => R/E/P Archives => j. hall => Topic started by: j.hall on November 22, 2006, 02:54:53 PM

Title: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on November 22, 2006, 02:54:53 PM
have at it.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: UnderTow on November 22, 2006, 04:39:35 PM

All I can say so far is nice one Pieter! I like the vibe.  Smile

On the other hand, someone complaining about 192 Kbps MP3s managed to make the piano mono. Talk about missing the big picture. Rolling Eyes

Alistair
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: garret on November 22, 2006, 05:03:58 PM
Haven't listened to all your mixes much yet, so I'll hold off on commenting for now...

But some notes about my mix:

- Mixed in Cakewalk Sonar, with just a few plugins: Voxengo Tape Bus, Wavearts Trackplug, and Voxengo Impulse.

- I thought everything (well, all four tracks!) was very well recorded.  Helped to remind me again how important it is to start with a good source -- great instruments, a great space, a great performance, and a good song...  mixing this was a pleasure, and much easier than working on my own stuff.

- I put a low shelf on the piano L & R to bring the bottom up a bit.  Then I combined em and ran through tapebus to get some saturation/warmth and compress things a bit.

-- I used the room mix as is, and automated it through the mix for variety... I loved the vibe of the room at the start... the feeling I get is hearing someone playing far off in another room, liking what you're hearing, and wandering closer...

-- Vox also went through tapebus for some saturation/compression, then trackplug for eq and compression.  I kept the tonal balance pretty close to the source... just a high pass filter and a little dip at 8khz or so (I think it's my ears, but vocals with a lot of that always drive me nuts).    Judging from some of the other mixes (J's for example), perhaps my vox treatment is too dark... I like it though.   The vox went out to a plate impulse reverb, with a long predelay (160ms), and mixed wetter than usual for me.   Something about this track to me just called out for that heavy rich reverb.  Lots of automation on the vocal, to bury the pops and get the piano to vox balance right.   I also (gasp) autotuned about three notes with melodyne uno... maybe I should have left em alone, but I had a new toy and wanted to try it out.

-Garret
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: TheViking on November 22, 2006, 05:07:33 PM
tigeba, what effects did you use on the vocals?   I really like what you did...   just crank that up a little more.   It's like hiding there hinting at how awesome it could be.   Seriously, nice effects.   Don't fear the vibe!
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on November 22, 2006, 06:35:59 PM
crazy how different just 4 tracks can get assembled isn't it?

this IMP has a specific purpose.  i'll wait till submissions are done and i'll dive in.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on November 22, 2006, 06:42:57 PM
I'm slammed for time so I'm diving in now- hope I don't trip over too many late submissions. I'm interested to know what the secret purpose was Smile

The Viking- Lush vox. Lush in general, in your lap (esp. piano)

J. Hall- Wow, lotsa polish on the vox. Piano sounds very nice, rounded. This time it's vox in your lap. Perhaps some sort of glare on the vox. That piano is big. Cool effect, you can feel the sustain pedal going.

Me (ChrisJ)- Discovered new reverb plugins, have we? Can we say NOT in your lap? Hmm. I do think I got decent textures, though.

Rankus- I'm liking how uncolored the voice sounds. Piano is big, big, big. Things feel a bit pushed- compression, I guess?

Tigeba- Yikes, that's a brite vocal. I'd say it's too bright, really. Piano is real sustainy because of heavy compression. Lots of compression on everything, hmm.

Matt Russell- Pretty natural, some kind of subdued spotlighting on the voice revealing the upper mids more. Piano feels sort of compressed but definitely big- I know I relied heavily on verbs to get this effect.

Garret- Relaxed. Hello, vox reverb. This is very gentle, which is how I approached the track. soul brother! Very Happy I like how human it feels, and there's some kind of delayed verb thing on the voice that is an interesting color.

Cerberus- Another natural-sounding take on it. I actually like how dry the vocal feels, if I'd thought of that (or didn't have new verbs) I shoulda tried that myself. It feels like something has been done but it's not getting in the way.... I think this one worked quite well.

TPolce- Hey, loud. Very upfront. There's not going to be any dynamics here, it sounds like it's on the radio already. It does sound balanced in a 'studio recording' sort of way.

ATOR- What the hell is that? Very Happy I'm not sure that's QUITE in the spirit of no overdubs. *hehehe* hilarious! I think I get the idea Smile My wife would like this as she didn't like the actual song Smile

Liam- Hmm. I thought I was gonna be the most distant perspective. Cavernous. That's very ambient of you Smile

Gatino- Hey, more reverb fans! People seem to like a lot of pre-delay, which might be good to remember. That's one massive piano. Stuff is a little bit split up into different effects, like piano-vox-voice edge-resonant voice tones-predelay etc etc. It's not real cohesive, it's all in different places.

Max- Whee! Echo and pre-echo FX. Not only that, pitch shift echo FX. Too bad it doesn't harmonize with the song... I'd like to hear this treatment on a solo piano/vox tune by Robyn Hitchcock. This performer is too sincere and it's like it's mocking him, so it doesn't work that well. Mind-bender of an effect, though Smile and handled well, too.

Undertow- Solid clanging reverbs on the piano- I had a plate effect that was doing that, though I buried it. Nice solid processed vox- good if you're not shooting for uber natural, because it's bringing out all the right stuff. This one feels extra-solid, like sound has been packed into all the crevices to stop it sounding too relaxed and empty. I think maybe it's OK for it to be sort of empty, but a more commercial approach has its merits. Also I think maybe I hear more harmonizer in there- hmmm.

Stragglers:

iCombs- Nice and upfront on the piano. Intimate quality on the vocal- interesting move, doing whisper echoes like that. I'm liking the simplicity of your main vocal better than the echo FX- to my mind, this would stand without the echoes, no question. Possibly the piano gets a bit loud relative to the vox.

Scotch- Very dry piano somehow, something about it is really lean and spare. I like the way the vocal dominates the piano when it comes in, that being the main focus of attention for the song even though it's not as continuous. Vox sounds a little bright and airy, verging on being over-bright and barely avoiding it- definitely more on the breathy side rather than chesty. Piano gets very chimey when the guy digs into it hard.

Fantomas- some kind of funny boost WAY up there. I stopped several times trying to sort out whether I was hearing bits of background noise higher than I can usually hear anything... sure enough there's a lot of very high stuff, though it's handled well- it just gives a sort of tense feeling. Anytime ffff feels as trebly as ssss, you could say the super highs are too much. If vvvv starts to hint at sibilance too, watch out Smile remember that stuff won't translate to most playback systems, and confuses lossy encoding terribly! I can't imagine what the master WAV/AIFF was like if this much super-high survived the mp3 process Smile

Starscream2010- Another studio-sound one, with more brightness than the original track had, but it's not anywhere near as narrow a boost as Fantomas' track- I can hear the edge, but it applies to loud notes and keeps S loudest, next F, next V like it should. I think maybe it's still a little fatiguing. Also, we have compression, as the vocal dynamics are a bit inverted- when the guy goes loud, the sound obviously clamps and makes it seem quieter than the soft parts. That's not too good- I'd rather hear quite a bit less compression. In the last bit he does manage to overpower the compression and stay loud but it's a lot of compression to fight through.

OK, I think that's everybody...
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: gatino on November 22, 2006, 08:00:12 PM
chrisj wrote on Wed, 22 November 2006 17:42


Stuff is a little bit split up into different effects, like piano-vox-voice edge-resonant voice tones-predelay etc etc. It's not real cohesive, it's all in different places.


hey y'all, i'm not fit to tie laces around here let alone comment on all these cool mixes, of which mine is the least. maybe after a few more imps i'll have something to say worth listening to. Smile

i have nothing but Qs. i'd really like to understand this comment above better. if chrisj or anyone would elaorate i'd be appreciative, esp. "piano-vox-voice edge-resonant voice tones." i know i have a lot to learn.

one thing, i thought i'd be tying the vox to the piano more by giving it some spatial treatment somewhat like the piano track has. i guess i took "very large old church" to heart.

chrisj: thx for taking the time to listen and comment!
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on November 22, 2006, 08:28:09 PM
I'm sorry for being confusing- too informal in the old remarks there.

All I meant was, everything was separating out. You had the piano, and you had the voice, and various reverb. Sometimes it would feel like the reverb returns were hard L and R and in front of the piano source. Even more so for the vocal reverb- the voice would come in and you'd get a big bloom off the roundness of the voice, but the breathiness would be sort of separating from it a bit- little sounds like breaths would feel like a separate track, and then there would be big pre-delayed reverb washes, more warm than bright, coming in very much hard left and hard right and feeling really stereo, plus they wouldn't actually feel very distant exactly, they would feel like objects panned hard L/R.

I guess what I'm saying is, to get wide stereo you really have to have elements that can be panned that way- I'm not hearing it work that well making wide stereo out of reverb returns. It seems to just peel off the verb and leave it hanging in the air.

I seem to have erred just as much in the opposite direction- I have probably as much verb as you, but rather than separating out and being super-wide, it's blending in so much and being so unwide that you can hardly hear it at all. In mine you can hear the bright vocal ambience, sort of, but the plate and hall stuff is absolutely vanishing, which is disconcerting. Well- first time working with these verbs and you learn something new every day...

I'd be very interested to know how many people prefer each style. I put a lot of effort into making verbs felt and not heard, but the risk of that is that it can sound just sort of distant and low in presence. Maybe I should have done much bigger pre-delays Smile
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: gatino on November 22, 2006, 11:37:19 PM
thank you! i see what you mean now. spreading the voice was poorly done and even ill conceived. no verb on the piano, left as is. you probably heard the bleed on the vocal track.

i was using very short delays left and right inserted on vocal track. that went to aux verb and the 2 mixed. maybe  works better if the delay is also on an aux like the verb so that they were separate and then mix the 3. convoluted experiment i guess.

i'd like to know how undertow got that big beautiful vocal.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on November 23, 2006, 01:40:32 AM
Added the last four entries Smile

Please, other people go through all the entries and make comments, observations, criticisms, arTiculaTe anNouncemenTs, etc...
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: cerberus on November 23, 2006, 04:30:26 AM
UnderTow wrote on Wed, 22 November 2006 16:39


On the other hand, someone complaining about 192 Kbps MP3s managed to make the piano mono. Talk about missing the big picture. Rolling Eyes
i do deserve this kind of abuse... i sent an apology to j.hall, and  i'll stay on topic from now on.

so you think it's mono? i know you don't "hear" what you expect, the piano is not crawling off the walls, ok....but do you feel the song?   ears are just an entry point for me on this.    the soundboard of the piano spread out to fill the whole room was not part of the vibe for me.  maybe that works for elton john, but i took this differently.  i left the white sequined jacket and the hair plugs out. the protagonist here does not afford a 100 foot wide piano for a stadium, it is a stark scene to paint here, not a carnival ride, imo.

the piano micing's suggestively exagerated proportions focusing on  the innards of the piano.... you miss that?  it held no meaning to me in this context. i felt the instrument should be solid and true sounding...and cut straight to the heart...one singer, one piano (contained in a large wooden enclosure, open the lid to taste...but the listener sits or stands outside, right?)  and of course there was the room. physically much larger than the piano.    

so i mixed it "honestly", meaning i  tried to keep the purity of the message unadulterated by gratuitous ear candy. this song is at a place for me that everyone has been at or will be at some time in life...  it could have been acapella and still be the same song for me... it happens that the piano is superb, really superb playing and i am touched by it,  the player's sense of rhythm and dynamics really make the instrument sing like a full orchestra...

but it is still just in a supporting role for the message, imo. so it needed to fit that way for me, not ever to compete with the vocal for the listener's attention.  when the singer is silent, i want the listener  to think about what he said, not get so "entertained" as to lose the message as it's being delivered.

but mono?  like i am some kind of old fart?  ok hit me again please. tell me it sounds like an old table radio; at least i would know i have evoked some feeling with it.

----
alistair... i listened to yours on an ibook this afternoon... you are good, i liked it; but what is with showing off the reverbs ?  now that i hear it on real speakers, that is a very nice reverb i hear,  it makes me wonder if your empty warehouse is made of metal or brick?  fantastic sound, but for me, the song is hiding behind your stadium-sized vision.

----
chrisj,..   i feel it, but it seems you got stricken with "new toy" syndrome again.(balderdash, ballyhoo..) alistair may have the better reverb, and a more dynamic piano.  but you have captured tons of the vibe. even through all that reverb, i feel the singer's ennui. the piano does not overwhelm, but it is interesting that you tried to remove some of the room to help make the two parts meet in the center, imo, an interesting strategy. the sound is a bit evocative of some classic records... not the most modern dynamics, more like classic elton john, in a good way, i think. do i hear the space designer?   try the "thunderstruck" i.r. sometime; it's wicked! (small talk, talk that trash...)

----
icombs...  surfing the reverbs and delays... cool!  great tones, lots of pleasure. only flaw other than reverbs which draw my attention to you and not the song is the piano seems to be pressing on a limiter in it's louder and denser moments toward the middle of the song, but you do deliver the ending in a breathtaking way... i wish but i didn't have to wade through so much wetness to get there.

----
scotch...   i feel this mix, nice blend of the ambiences, very natural, but also quite polished sounding. no flaws here for me... although i would prefer slightly less reverb lingering past  the tail ends of phrases.  i think the piano could have been a touch softer, but this seems a very modern and current sounding mix that could even perhaps succeed in the pop radio market, lots of good energy here. and way to keep distortion out of the vocal... beautiful ending;  i am very moved.

----
gatino-daverome...  i am having problems because your reverb sounds like a very rectangular shaped room... and not at all the same room as the piano... i do like that you got some nice growl out of the piano, but as a mix, it is very schizophrenic feeling to me.

----
liam...  this is very sad sounding, but the vocal is much too crudely filtered, i hear no articulation so it is a struggle to follow the story... a lot is gone here, and that is sad too. dynamics lack too.
----

mattrussel... i feel the singer is slightly too in my face, but thankfully you have totally removed the proximity artifacts, not just the plosions, but the low end feels totally under control, very deft... but i think the top end of the vocal is less well controlled, could have used de-essing perhaps.. also i find the piano is too full, there is a lot of midrange in this mix.... and  is relatively lacking in bottom.   the middle starts to feel  really overcrowded at the end.
----

ATOR... been looking forward to this one. hehehe.. it's making me laugh.. the "little bullhorn" repeat delay.... some is very cool... some i just wish you'd learn to be subtle, it definately competes with the song everything is a distraction, but you are so fun.. the funnest!    kind of a sports audience going on now...or something back there... hung jury perhaps?  you are gonna have to justify all this stuff musically... i guess the little mini-me bullorn delay is working better once i get used to it... now we come to the ending:  was this supposed to have been recorded on the starship enterprise or perhaps inside a centrifuge? what kinda drugs dude?  i want some!  beam me up, scotty!
----

hi garett, how's the new kid doing?    ok this is filtered.. lemme turn it up.. real thick.. is vibey.. but.. somewhat hollow, sounding i mean....  is very thick, but the dynamics are not sitting in it quite right for me. when the singer holds a long note, it sounds kinda electronic... also some plosions pop though.. seems you panned the piano a bit to the right and singer to the left? i think when it solos you should have moved it back if that is the case. overall too overproduced, a bit too much of everything that engineers do.. the room, for example is very minimal, which would be ok, but it doesn't sound quite like a studio recording situation either.
---

TPolce... it is mastered sounding... and very harshly, so i think it was not worth doing the mastering at the same time. the vibe cannot be here for me because the dynamics of the piano are wild and not natural, it's pounding too hard smashing into distortion on the more percussive notes.  your vocals are nice, but i can hardly hear them, except for the plosions and proximity artifacts you didn't fix.. top is nice i assume, but is hard to tell it's so far back there, but i think you have a good vocal track in there.

==========
i'm doing these reviews in alphabetical order of file names...but it's almost turkey time ..more to follow later..
==========

just reading through chris' reviews after i wrote mine. i agree with his advice to gatino, you guys really broke it down.  

with pre-delay, i find it is not "more" or "less" that one ever needs for the future, but the precise amount that makes a seamless blend with whatever is already on the track. unless it was recorded in an anechoic chamber, it will always be something. i used 2 reverbs on the vocal, but i wonder if you would have guessed that?  i hope not.  

jeff dinces
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: UnderTow on November 23, 2006, 07:02:08 AM
Post updated with more reviews.

Cerberus: Some artefacts in sound. (clicks/pops and some weirdness in piano?). Could just be that it isn't buried in ear candy like other mixes but it is distracting me. Serious lack of stereo field which isn't to my taste. Piano sounds as though it isn't quite in the same space as the vox. Yes Jeff, I like things big. Smile So your mix decisions arn't quite my cup of tea.

Matt Russell: Nice full intimate vocal and nice large Piano. The Piano is big but never overpowers the vocal. I like it. Smile

Chris J: Could use more predelay on the verbs which would make the piano and vocals closer to the listener. (Predelay determines the time for the first reflections from the walls compared to the direct sound from the source. If you have no predelay, it makes things sound as though they are right up against the back walls of a room/hall. With longer predelays, the sense of space is kept but the source is closer to the listener. You might allready know this but maybe someone finds this info usefull). The tone, balance and dynamcis are ok but the distance is distracting me too much. There is a slight (EQ?) sharpness to the vocal that could be tamed. Also I would have controlled the sibilance more.

IMP8 - Homesick (Author unknown. Get your ID3 tags right!): Quite upfront vocal with enough weight. Could have used a touch more control on the plosives/pops. A bit too much of an EQ edge on the vocals. I find the reverb a touch bright on the vocal. (Could have EQed the reverb send a bit). Vocal gets a bit too much compressed down at the end peak of the track when it should fly. Stereo bus compression being triggerd by the piano probably. (It happens in other places too btw). The piano has a nice tone but could use a touch more weight.

Anthony Hoisington: Interesting delay effect on voice although I wouldn't have used throughout the whole song. It is a little bit distracting and pulls the attention to the lef tof the mix. Slightly too much low-mid in vocal for my taste. Actually the whole mix sound a bit too low-midish. Vocal could use more sibilance control.

homesick (Author unknown. Get your ID3 tags right!): Vocals lacks sibilance control and has a bit too much of an EQ edge. Recording artefacts on vocal track not fixed. Piano is ok but lacks a bit of weight. Space is ok but a bit disjointed. (Vox and piano not in same space).

Gatino Daverome: Loads of space. Smile I would have made things closer to the listener. Some vocal track artefacts not fixed. Vocal is in a bigger space than the piano. Things are a bit disjointed and don't quite blend. The vocal delay->reverb seems out wide and is distracting from the actual vocal. Piano could be wider for my taste but it kind of fits the extra distance at which you placed it so it isn't distracting.

Ni Idea: Vocal is a bit dull and sounds closer than the piano. I'm trying to figure out what I'm hearing. My brain is having difficulty wrapping itself arround the space you created. The vocal seems to have some phasing artefacts. Its a bit strange. (What MP3 encoder did you use? Or what SRC?)  Vocal has a bit too much mid frequencies (400Hz - 800Hz I'm guessing).

ATOR: Weeehaaa! Smile I like the FX you added but I'm not really sure it fits this song unless things are even more manipulated and made very poppy. (Addition of drums in the climax, some violins, backing VOX etc). The FX go a touch too far resonance wise and they tear up a bit. Thats a bit too much for this song.  Also, the vocal is too burried in the mix for my taste in this particular song. Actually, if you would lower the FX tracks/busses/auxes/whatever by 6 - 9 dB I think they would just add that nice vibe without taking over. The vocal lacks weight and is a little sharp. Again that EQ edge. The piano is now a kind of backing track that never grabs my attention. A bit of a shame because the playing is very nice.

Garret Gengler: Some vocal track artefacts not fixed. Vocal is a bit distant and sitting behind the piano. Could use more sibilance control. Nice verb sound. Piano takes over. Piano could be a bit brighter.

Ok, I'm running out of steam. I'll write more reviews later on. Smile

A bit later on ...

T Polce: Piano a touch bright. Nice upfront vocal but so very slightly ... phased I think. Still I like it. Weird effect at 2:52 and 3:01 on the vocal. Sounds like a weird panned flange effect. MP3 codec artefact, limiter/clipper or effect? 3:08-3:09 compression gets audible on the vocal. Vocal gets compressed by piano from 4 mins onwards. Still overall a good mix.

Fantomas: You can hear the MP3 encoding artefacts so I'll try and listen through them. Smile Vocal a touch veiled. Could use a tiny bit more presence. Some nice restrained use of delays. Piano could be a little bit more forward in the mix. A bit closer to the vocal. Hard to give a real judgement at 128Kbps.

imp8 (Author unknown. Get your ID3 tags right!): Another 128 Kbps version with codec artefacts. Weird effect on piano at the beginning. (Or very bad codec). Strange panned delay effects on vocals that distracts. A bit distracting. Not enough plosive control. Out of tune effect not nice. It gives a very angsty feel that really doesn't fit the music. (Pitched delays?).

Rankus: Clean vocal but could use a little more plosive control. Big piano. Might be a touch big compared to the vocal as it sounds bigger in physical size or the singer got a bit shrinked Smile . Nice delicate delay effect.

Tigeba: Some EQ (?) phasing on vocal. Makes it very "eF-y" (sounds like the singer has a lisp or I should say a lifp Smile ). It could be due to the delay effect. At least it seems like the first echo is real short. Could be wrong. Not sure really. Otherwise nice balance in mix.

Homesick (Author unknown. Get your ID3 tags right!): Vocal quite dry. Could be made a bit bigger and enhanced a bit. Again a mix with the piano sounding bigger than the vocal. Delay is quite nice but maybe a bit overused. Slight clang in upper mids of piano. The vocal _just_ doesn't get burried in the piano but that is because it is so dry making it up front. So I would like a slightly more processed vocal to balance out the piano.

Scotch: Nice upfront vocal. A few recording artefacts that could have been fixed. Slight EQ edge on vocal. Could have a bit more sibiliance/F's control. Good relative balance. Slight pumping ov vox on climax during piano notes. (Or my ears are getting tired). Overall nice mix.

I think I have to explain this EQ edge thing: I'm not sure exactly what causes it but I often hear a tone/frequency that is slightly detached from the actual vocal like the EQ is phasing the freqeuncies causing an "edge" to the sound. Like a seperate layer closely matched to the vocal. I know the Waves Q series eqs cause this. Also some multiband treatment can cause the same problem. There are probably other things causing it too. Alot of sequenctial processing can often do it. (I hear it ALOT on TV).


Alistair
PS: Oh I forgot the usual disclaimers about my home listening environement. Not the most expensive monitors and not the best acoustics.

I also forgot to add the usual disclaimers about taste, nitpicking etc. All comments are done in one listening pass unless something caught my attention and needed more carefull checking. Smile
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ATOR on November 23, 2006, 12:15:24 PM
Looks like some of you noticed my subtle use of FX  Very Happy

This is what I did:
- took the letter 'o' from a 'know' word and turned it into a padlike sound.
- manually added some delayed vocals in the chorus
- doubled the vocals in the 2nd and 3rd chorus with the vocals from the previous chorus
- went totally beserk with the UAD RE-201 tapedelay.

I did some listening and was amazed by how different the mixes sounded from each other. I also made another mix without FX to be able to compare what I did with the other mixes.

I'll post my notes in a few days.


Happy Thanksgiving!

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: UnderTow on November 23, 2006, 12:33:51 PM
cerberus wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 10:30

 i do deserve this kind of abuse... i sent an apology to j.hall, and  i'll stay on topic from now on.



Fair enough.  Smile

Quote:


so you think it's mono? i know you don't "hear" what you expect, the piano is not crawling off the walls, ok....but do you feel the song?   ears are just an entry point for me on this.    the soundboard of the piano spread out to fill the whole room was not part of the vibe for me.  maybe that works for elton john, but i took this differently.  i left the white sequined jacket and the hair plugs out. the protagonist here does not afford a 100 foot wide piano for a stadium, it is a stark scene to paint here, not a carnival ride, imo.



Well mono might be an exageration but it is certainly very narrow. My girlfriend's comment, who doesn't have a clue about stereo/mono or any of the wizardry we do, without any prompting from me, was "It sounds as though part of the music is missing." That can't have been you intention, right?

One way of looking at it is not as making the piano or singer larger but getting in closer to them. Sitting on the singer's lap if you will. Close and intimate.

Quote:


the piano micing's suggestively exagerated proportions focusing on  the innards of the piano.... you miss that?  it held no meaning to me in this context. i felt the instrument should be solid and true sounding...and cut straight to the heart...one singer, one piano (contained in a large wooden enclosure, open the lid to taste...but the listener sits or stands outside, right?)  and of course there was the room. physically much larger than the piano.    



Yes but I don't get a sense of a large room from your mix. I get a sense of a quite small room with the listener sitting of in a (open) corridor a bit further down. This description is exagerated but it is to give you a mental picture of what I mean. I don't feel it is intimate enough.

Btw, I feel that one way to cut straight to the heart is by making things slitghly larger than life. I guess it is a question of different strokes ...

Quote:


so i mixed it "honestly", meaning i  tried to keep the purity of the message unadulterated by gratuitous ear candy. this song is at a place for me that everyone has been at or will be at some time in life...
it could have been acapella and still be the same song for me...  



Could be. I didn't listen to the lyrics. Smile As I've said before, I listen to the emotional content, the melodies and, in this case, the piano playing. Oh ... and I like ear candy. Smile

Quote:


it happens that the piano is superb, really superb playing and i am touched by it,  the player's sense of rhythm and dynamics really make the instrument sing like a full orchestra...



The piano playing is very nice, yes. Smile

Quote:


but it is still just in a supporting role for the message, imo.



Oh I don't know. If the message isn't in the music, it isn't music for me. It is poetry. Different thing.

Quote:


so it needed to fit that way for me, not ever to compete with the vocal for the listener's attention.  when the singer is silent, i want the listener  to think about what he said, not get so "entertained" as to lose the message as it's being delivered.



I don't think my mix distracts from the music. There is very little in the way of effects. (Just a tine little momentary touch of delay on part of one word because I couldn't resist Very Happy ). I don't feel like making things bigger or closer distracts. On the contrary. I think it pulls you in and melts any potential resistance. Smile

Also, I don't think anyone but audio engineers will actually listen to the reverbs. Casual listeners might not even notice them. They will just get a feel from the whole.

Quote:


but mono?  like i am some kind of old fart?  ok hit me again please. tell me it sounds like an old table radio; at least i would know i have evoked some feeling with it.



*whack* *whack*.  Laughing Like I said above, a bit of an exageration but I was a bit annoyed with your MP3 comments.

Quote:


alistair... i listened to yours on an ibook this afternoon... you are good, i liked it; but what is with showing off the reverbs ?  now that i hear it on real speakers, that is a very nice reverb i hear,  it makes me wonder if your empty warehouse is made of metal or brick?  fantastic sound, but for me, the song is hiding behind your stadium-sized vision.



Actually, like most (european) churches or cathedrals, the walls are made of brick/rock. Smile

*Camera on crane starts at top of the central neve. Flys in, down and pans slowly sideways. The glass in lead windows are lit from behind to cause coloured light rays through the slightly hazey/smokey air. The cathedral has about 7000 candles all over the place lighting everything up. Camera zooms in to a shot of the singer, wearing a black cape and alot of make-up, behind his black Steinway grand sitting under the apex just as the first vocal starts. We have the setting. The camera does some nice surround panoramic fly bys during musical climaxes and we see closer shots of the singer during more intimate phrases.
At the point that the singer sings. "You've got it all in your eyes" you have a shot of a girl sitting in the back row of the piews with a budgeoning tear in her eye. (The singer doesn't know she is there). (ok ok, you made me listen to the lyrics!). When the singer finishes his last phrase, she stands up and walks out of the church. This has to be timed with the "In me"  for maximum dramatic effect and leave the viewer/listener with a nice yearning melancholia (lets keep this a bit melodramatic).*

I think these cliches will go well with the reverb treatment.  Very Happy

Alistair
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: iCombs on November 23, 2006, 12:39:45 PM
I'm working on my listening portions right now...just listened to 4 tracks front to back...will be putting together a large and fairly detailed post, so it's going to take a while.  Since I'm taking an ear break right now, anyways, I figured I'd take a sec and go through my mix.

First and foremost...the tracking on this IMP was GREAT.  The raw sounds that we had to work with could pretty much just get pushed up and called a pretty good mix.  The performance was really good, too, which makes mixing that much easier.  I didn't feel like I had to cover anything up, but rather I felt like I had to make sure that everything was revealed correctly.

For whatever reason, the first thing I thought when I heard this was "Counting Crows," along the lines of "Long December," but without the band.  The tracked piano and vocal felt a little too big for me, though.  It's like all the information was way up at the top and way down at the bottom and I wanted to hear a little more old-school sort of midrange focus.  So I started with the Vocal.  I bounced it out through one of my TAB/Funkenwerks V78's and into my Drawmer 1968 for some compression.  I'm slowly learning that that 1968 is an amazing compressor for solo vocals, as it will level them out nicely without making them sound crushed.  When I brought it back into the computer, it got a touch of REQ 2-band...a highpass filter to take care of the now fairly-well-noted plosive issue (and again, to fit the vocal into a somewhat smaller frequency range), and a bit of a very wide bell 6K boost (2.5 dB) to focus the vocal.  

I tackled the room next.  I knew I didn't want to use artifical verb when I had this honest-to-god big room to use, so I bussed that out through my Toft EC-1 for some pretty extreme compression and some EQ.  I compressed it pretty heavily so I could make the room ring a little longer and use it where someone might use a plate or something of the sort...just to make the room "hang" a little more.  I also EQ'ed using the Toft...pushed up the highs a little bit and I want to say I cut some around 5 or 6 hundred to keep it from sounding too boxy and to keep it out of the way of the piano.

The piano got bounced out through the Drawmer and got some compression, but I also beat the shit out of the output on the Drawmer to get the tubes and transformers into it a little more...just to kinda round the piano off at the top (both in terms of frequency and amplitude).  Then in the computer, I carved out a wide bell at 875...I pulled 4 dB out to keep the piano form fighting the vocal, as he was singing in the same range he was playing.  I also boosted 6.5K by about 4.5 dB, so i could hear the hammers some more.

Then I set up a buss with a Super Tap, EQ, and R Comp.  The delay return got a highpass at 400, and a lowpass at just belw 5K, and saw about 10 dB of compression at 4:1.  Then I automated the send to that buss and used it to emphasize ends of lines, or words I thought seemed to carry a lot of weight.  Obviously that seems to be the controversial element of my mix, but after the last IMP where J admonished me to "sell the mix" some more, I figured I'd do something a little out of the box for me.  I was incredibly tempted to leave the mix as just a simple mix that didn't have anything really crazy on it, but then I remembered that I love delay.  And it seemed like a good way to highlight the lyrics.  So I did it.  I rather like it.

At the end, I summed ITB, but in that live pass I ran the full mix through the Drawmer one more time, for the tiniest bit of compression (1 dB at the second slowest attack and release setting this box has), and again I slammed the outputs to add some more glass and iron treatment.  

It will probably take me another day or two to get through all the mixes (17 by my current count), and I'll probably only go an hour or so at a shot so I can listen with fresh ears and give quality feedback.  Stay tuned!

*EDIT*  It appears as though this is also my hundredth post on PSW!  I think I'll celebrate by eating more turkey today than I probably should!  Happy Thanksgiving!
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: gatino on November 23, 2006, 12:49:50 PM
undertow: can you tell about your process with the vocal. thx!
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: UnderTow on November 23, 2006, 12:52:41 PM
gatino wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 18:49

undertow: can you tell about your process with the vocal. thx!


Sure but I thought we would have a different thread to discuss the actual techniques used. Anyway, I'll be writting up everything I did a bit later on.

Alistair
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ScotcH on November 23, 2006, 01:30:20 PM
Thanks for all the comments so far, guys ... keep them coming!  I'll post my impressions this weekend after I get a chance to listen to all the submissions.

ChrisJ:  You mention the dry piano.  I inverted the phase on the room mic ... it sounded better to me that way.  maybe this had the effect of drying it up a bit?  This was also my first time using a convolution reverb (the free SIR plug) ... very cool, but also not much time to play with different impulses (since I don't have a library, I had to net hunt!).  The main L-R piano tracks are completely dry!  Thanks for the feedback!

Jeff (cerberus):  Thanks!  I used Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan as references (all I had on CD), which are obviously very poppy sounding, hence the brightness perhaps?

Alistair (UnderTow):  When you get a minute, can you elaborate on the "artefacts" you mention?  Do you mean the bench thumps, etc or other noises?  If so, what techniques can be used to fix these?  The sibilance control is just the Cubase/SPL deEsser.  Given more time, I guess a more active approach would have been better Smile

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: UnderTow on November 23, 2006, 02:32:44 PM
ScotcH wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 19:30



Alistair (UnderTow):  When you get a minute, can you elaborate on the "artefacts" you mention?



There are some clicks in the recording which I don't feel belong there. Like at 0:56 in your mp3 (for timing reference). I used the smooth function in SoundForge to remove them.

Alistair
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: rankus on November 23, 2006, 04:37:05 PM

Happy Thanksgiving American buddies!

IMP 8 Comments:

In general I don’t think there is a “bad” mix here in IMP8 … Everybody has stepped it up a notch due to the ongoing efforts of J Hall and the others that help to make this happen… I thank you all for the kick in the pants… this is a VERY valuable exercise IMO.  



Ator:   I like the added “choir effect” in the intro, but could have used less of it once the Vox kick in.  Neat delay effects as well, but could have used less of that as well…  The affectations tend to distract from the Vocal. Other than that well done.

ChrisJ:   Dark Vocal verb… Kinda works but could back it off a little. (Vox sound detached from the “room”)  Overall good balance in the mix. Could have left some more dynamics…


Garret:    Again dark verb tends to detach the vocal from the piano.  Vox a tad muddy. But this may be my personal bias towards bright verbs.  Good balance.  Could have left some more dynamics…

iCombs:    Best so far (going down the list).  Vocal sounds engaging and sits well with piano… Lots of dynamics YES!  …. Woops, delay starts to become a tad distracting… One or two spots would be OK (keep it subtle)


jHall:   Vocal sits well in the room.    Very organic, I suspect you did very little to this mix ?    Nice.

Max:   Big verb intro…. Harmonizer has trouble with polyphonic piano leakage adding some unpleasant artifacts, but I see where you’re going… I tried to tune the vocal and had similar issues .. (Vox were close anyway)  I always look forward to your submissions… your willing to take chances, although in a “real world  mix for hire” with client expectations you would be doing a re-mix….  (But this you already know)  Cheers mate!

Rattle:  Vox a tad muddy. Could use a touch of upper mid boost?  Dunno. But, nice balance and ambience.

Mat Russell:  Whoa LOUD.  (That’s ok just first impression)  Nice and dry and in your face… a touch of sibilance in the vocal that could be dealt with.  Another favorite!  (Although could have left some more dynamics which I consider to be part of the artists expression.) (personal taste I suppose)

Nizzle:  Another clean and simple one.  Verb a bit distracting in a few places , and could be a bit brighter overall.  But his is just me looking for something to critique…..

Starscream:   Engaging from the first word!  Nice.  Good “vibe” dude.  Could have used some more dynamics though….

Viking:  Are you allowed to compete?  (LOL just kidding)  Delay tends to accent plosives… Piano is best so far….but I take it this was an "artist demo" / "pre-production", rather than final product?  I’m jealous… I'm working on emo and metal right now….

Fantomas:   Engaging, but delay is slightly distracting.  This one has some vibe, but technically I want to comment on vocal EQ .. could be a bit brighter for my taste.

Gatino:   Piano sits nicely , but vocal  verb is too over the top.  Back off on the verb and this mix would be great.

Tigeba:   I like this one .  Good dynamics… I don’t know why so many chose to flatten this track so much… There’s one spot where the delay gets out of hand a little, but otherwise nice one!

Rankus (that’s me):   I took J’s advice and tried to get into the vibe on this one.  I went with big piano to represent the big empty city, and had the vocal up front and kind of drier (ok some delay) …  I felt the singer was coming from a very “lost in a big cold city with no love” kind of vibe, and tried to convey that sonically. (As well as preserve the dynamic of the piece while compressing….)

Scotch:  Another favorite.  Walking a fine line with the vocal compression, but it works for me… Embrace the dynamics more on the piano …..

Under Tow:  A whole different vibe here.  I like it.  Nice job on the Vox.  Piano could have a bit more bottom, but only because I’m looking for something to critique… This is one of the best here!


Let’s do something really heavy next time.


Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: NelsonL on November 23, 2006, 05:10:24 PM
Wow, I'm getting killed here.

Somebody send flowers to my ma.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on November 23, 2006, 06:58:18 PM
rankus wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 15:37



jHall:   Vocal sits well in the room.    Very organic, I suspect you did very little to this mix ?    Nice.




no, for having only 4 tracks, i did a ton of stuff.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: mattrussell on November 23, 2006, 07:29:47 PM
i have a list of comments for each mix as well, just been eating too much turkey to spend the time now...zzzZZZzzz..for now i'll just say that i'm somewhat surprised about the comments i received for my mix.  thanks to those who like it.

so far, i'm digging UnderTow's and Tom Polce's (nizzle) very much.

way to go again to the engineer that tracked it and to the singer/songwriter.  wonderful song to work on.  j, thanks for posting this one.  had fun with it.  this song will be stuck in my head for a while.  






Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: rankus on November 23, 2006, 09:33:56 PM
j.hall wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 15:58



, i did a ton of stuff.


Tastefully
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: Gabriel F on November 23, 2006, 09:53:32 PM
chrisj can you elaborate a little bit about the weird high end you re hearing because i didnt add any hi end only a gentle 2.5db at 6-8 k on the voice.
I hear some artifacts on the mp3 a nasty peak at aprox. 15k this wasnt added by me i believe it was because i was hurry and i encode it the wrong way because i forgot to encode for best quality and instead encode it in fast mode (took less than 3 seconds in wavelab).
Do you think my mix is bright? because i think is on the dark side i did this on purpose but i should have made the voice a touch brighter and back off the 220hz boost i did.

I was really frustrated because i have encoded a 192kbps version that sounds with way less artifacts and couldn find a server for upload it. And i didnt hear the 128kbps mix before uploading it (shame on me Embarassed )

Your mix sounds nice my only complain would be to back off the reverb Razz .
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on November 23, 2006, 10:50:05 PM
Oh, that must have been it. Weird, I've never known lossy coding to do that. Fast encoding at a lower bit rate, huh?
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: maxim on November 23, 2006, 11:01:27 PM
chris wrote:

" ...pitch shift echo FX....This performer is too sincere and it's like it's mocking him, so it doesn't work that well"

there was no intention of mockery, but, i agree, in retrospect, the "drunken munchkin chorus" was a mistake

the intention was, as someone else mentioned, to create "angst"

this is a beautifully written and executed song, but, imo, too "beautiful" for the content of the story

so the intention was to create a sense of disharmony and angst underlying the apparent beauty of the sentiment

i'm only glad that this is NOT "real world"
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: garret on November 24, 2006, 12:56:55 AM
I listened to all tracks several times, listening for a couple things... first, we should do no harm.  It's a good tune, and they're excellent tracks.  So it shouldn't be hard to make a mix that's listenable, start to finish, with nothing obviously wrong jumping out.   Put simply, it just has to work...    Then, I looked for some magic... I liked how J put it a few months back.. does this mix make me want to come back and listen again?  So I'm separating tracks in two piles.. those that work for me, and those that don't.  Happy Thanksgiving to you, and chin up, no matter what pile I put ya in.  

Mixes that work  for me:

VIKING: Very solid, professional mix.  great piano sound...  maybe the vocal is a touch high in the mix for my tastes.

RANKUS:  Oooo, I like this one.   Maybe because it's similar to mine.  Smile  Warm, natural vocal and piano sounds... the low end of the piano is great.

SCOTCH: Vox a touch high to my taste, and the piano sounds rather narrow and midrangy... I'm missing the low end some mixes have.  But overall it's a good mix... nicely balanced and cohesive in its own way.

ATOR: A+ for creativity. I love what you did with the sampled ooooo.  gorgeous pad sounds (I'm stealing that for some of my own tunes). Good call flying in another version of the vocal, heavily eq'd, for some extra vibe... I really like the repeated phrase that's band limited more than the straight doubling... the double sounds odd to me, but the delay repeats are great.     I think this could be my favorite mix if you dial back a few of your most aggressive moves, and fix the primary vocal treatment (the high end sounds way too hyped to me)...  very cool mix thoughThis could be stunningly great with a few more adjustments.  I think I need to call you about mixing some of my tunes when I win the lottery... taking something that's more than a little on the schlocky side and making it seethe and burn, well I need that too sometimes.. Smile

CERBERUS: Dynamics and tonal balance are tightly controlled in this one, but the sense of space is confused. Vocal seems very dry, but all I hear is the room mic for the piano... I miss the studio piano sound... Plosives are also a bit distracting.  But the mix works in its own way.

ICOMBS: Good balanced mix, though the vox could use a bit of fader riding (jumps out of the mix at times).  Nifty little delay effects I can just barely hear... I like em that way.. they don't throw off the overall balance, and there's something to discover during further listening.

MATT RUSSELL: Very nice... deep and rich, and perfectly balanced.  The vox might be a touch high in the mix... but otherwise this is quite good.   Good job with the plosives...  

JHALL: Good balance between vocal and piano... vox is bright, but I like it... it's not distracting like some of the hyped vocals on other mixes..   Okay maybe I'd like it a little wee bit duller. Smile

NICK EVANS: Not too shabby.. under control, dynamic, intimate, and powerful... not much to complain about here... okay maybe a couple plosives got through...


Mixes that don't quite work for me:

LIAM: Lacks dynamics.... vox is a bit quiet and muddy. i can hear the compressor over clamping at times, which is distracting.  Piano seems overly distant.

UNDERTOW: Vox a bit loud, or maybe just too bright for my tastes...  makes for a hard listen start to finish... other than the vox (which might be a matter of taste), I think this is an excellent mix.

CHRISJ: Not sure about this one... something weirdly distant and ringy about the vocals.  Yet for how far away they are set with reverb, the >10khz is still very pronounced (which is kind of unnatural).

TPOLCE: Vox has a lot of top end, overhyped at ~10khz to my ears...   something phasey in there too... at 2:52 for instance. A bit of autotuning there?  Otherwise, a lot of good things going on here.. the piano sounds great, and the overall tonal balance is solid.

TIGEBA: The dynamics in this one are clamped down pretty hard...  vox is bright bright bright, but somehow still sounds fairly natural.   But the track is very narrow... maybe you just used a lot of the room mic?  I miss hearing the hifi/studio piano sound in there.  I think I hear some nifty vocal fx going on, but they're so quiet I can't pick em out.

GATINO: Interesting.. Smile  Don't you hate critiques that start with that word?   Honestly, I'm not sure if I love this, or hate this... Compared to many others, the vocal is odd... very midrangy and distant... but it works somehow.   Okay listening to it a second time, I like it more.  The vox verb predelay is very similar to what I did.   Where I think this track misses the mark is in the piano treatment... I think this song has to work both as a vocal tune and as a piano tune... you should be able to get lost in that quarter note rhythm of the piano, but in this mix, I can't.  Maybe the piano is just too quiet and mono?

MAXIM: Gotta tame those plosives... and the vocal doubling here is interesting, but in a strange way.  it adds some vibe, but also creates harmony that is too out of tune for my ears (like at 1:24 or so).   I hear something reversed at the start, really quiet... cool.   Overall the meat and potatoes here is very well balanced... I just question that out-of-tune effect, and the plosives are very distracting.

FANTOMAS: Something in the vocal chain (a de-essor?) has given the singer a  lisp. Be very careful about that... it's easy to make singers lisp with too much processing in the sibilance area.   Plosives seem untamed...   Good creativity, with the occasional delays and such... Overall, not too shabby... balanced and dynamic.


Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: gatino on November 24, 2006, 01:29:40 AM
garretg wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 23:56


GATINO: Interesting.. Smile  Don't you hate critiques that start with that word?   Honestly, I'm not sure if I love this, or hate this... Compared to many others, the vocal is odd... very midrangy and distant... but it works somehow.   Okay listening to it a second time, I like it more.  The vox verb predelay is very similar to what I did.   Where I think this track misses the mark is in the piano treatment... I think this song has to work both as a vocal tune and as a piano tune... you should be able to get lost in that quarter note rhythm of the piano, but in this mix, I can't.  Maybe the piano is just too quiet and mono?


interesting comment (no, i don't hate critiques that start with that word). the piano tracks were panned 50% left and 50% right (oops). in retrospect i think it should have been hard left/right. i agree the piano performance was about as important as the vocal, but it was much more dynamic than the vocal, so i thought dynamic balance was key. maybe i missed. judging from your post maybe i didn't so much as i thought.

at the outset i said i would use Sarah Mclachlan's "Angel" as my reference. they seemed similar in intent and so the larger verb on vox. however, it was probably too much compared to the piano's space (btw, i didn't feed the piano to verb aux). although, imho other's treatment in this IMP put the vox in a smaller space than the piano. i guess i did the opposite.

thx for your comments!
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: maxim on November 24, 2006, 02:36:00 AM
garret wrote:

"...and the plosives are very distracting"

i knew there was something i forgot to do

normally, these would have been fixed before i got to the mix, so it's not part of the automatic workflow

i think there should be a thread called 'what i learnt from imp8?'

i learnt that not all crazy ideas should be followed up and/or kept in the mix
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: cerberus on November 24, 2006, 05:11:54 AM
ScotcH wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 13:30

Jeff (cerberus):  Thanks!  I used Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan as references (all I had on CD), which are obviously very poppy sounding, hence the brightness perhaps?
it is dynamics i refer to, the modernly aggressive edge... and every note seems to want to sell the next note, sell the record, it's never wimpy.  it never let's up... more of a large studio feel than live, imo. so the opposite of what i was going for, but i'm amazed how you made that idea work.

after reading your tori/sarah reference, i just realized!  i would like to have mixed this into a record that sounds like carol king: "you've got a friend".   it didn't occur to me before now, but that is a prime example of this style for me.  so i am an old fart; a lot of us may be.  your mix highlights it, imo.

---
rankus... missing your review of my mix.  thanks.
---
garretg wrote on Fri, 24 November 2006 00:56

but the sense of space is confused.
ah. that helps me understand alistair's opinion better. i am starting to think i know exactly where i went wrong... i shouldn't have mixed both the piano and vocal into certain stereo effects i thought might unify or even "glue"  (oh gawd no...) the mix... kind of a weak move for me because it's not my regular style to do stuff like that.    thanks guys.

Quote:

I miss the studio piano sound...
i would like to have heard a full symphony, just like [the phil spector mix of] "the long and winding road" has, although the original glynn johns mix with just paul and his piano still works for me.  (old fart again, i just can't help myself... i really love those ancient records!)  so...i just wanted the whole recording studio thing to be out of this picture... to take what is minimalist and re-enforce it's best features, it's starkness, and lack of pretense.
UnderTow wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 12:33

Actually, like most (european) churches or cathedrals, the walls are made of brick/rock.
that's cool... i heard a one-room church made of oak.  so i should listen to yours and forget my own thoughts on the room and just try to take it as if i didn't hear the raw tracks... then i could probably appreciate your mix better. i suppose that doing our reviews so soon after a mix of the same tracks can tend to tinge one's perspective a bit. (but instant feedback is best for learning, imo.)


jeff dinces
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on November 24, 2006, 04:20:18 PM
rankus wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 20:33

j.hall wrote on Thu, 23 November 2006 15:58



, i did a ton of stuff.


Tastefully



thanks!!!!!

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ScotcH on November 25, 2006, 12:49:54 AM
Ok guys, here are my comments.  I wrote them as I listened to each track, so it's kind of a ramble as the song goes on.  In general, I point out what jumped out at me, and in most cases it's the "bad" stuff ... it usually takes a lot longer to notice the brilliant details, so keep that in mind as you read!  I did find that a lot of the mixes were much fuller (low-mid) than mine, which does lead me to think that maybe my room is not showing me the low-mids properly (exagerated) :?

I had a great time on this, doing something unconventional for me!  Great learning experience!  In order of submission:


j.hall - Strange resonant low mid fq in the beginning (and other quiet passages) ... result of some boosting?  Definitly more body in both pinao and vocal than my mix.  Nice reverb on the vocals, but I do hear just a tad of "whistling" on some vocal notes.  This could probably be tweaked with some reverve eq.  Overall a great mix!

tigeba - Pinao shifted to right slightly, which is nice, leaves the vocals for the middle.  Was that deliberate?  Maybe just a tad too wet for my taste (maybe the predelay?), but I can't complain too much ... nice mix.  Just noticed the delay when the vocals come back in for the outro. A bit distracting, but not overly so.

TheViking - Nice full piano, with plenty of dynamics ... love it!  I can really feel the keys being hit!  For me, The vocal is too "tubby"  Just feels too round compared to the pinao, which is nice and open.  Also, the delay (predelay?) seems a bit too pronounced ... it sounds too much like a gymnasium to me.

cerberus - Hmmm ... sounds inverted to me, in that the Piano is narrow, and the vocal is wide.  I'm not sure it works for me.  The plosives are a bit too untamed as well.  I do like the tone of the vocal (maybe a touch heavy on the bottom), and the dynamics of the piano!  Sounds a bit dry though ... like a very small room instead of a big open church

garretg - Vocal levels are a bit too uneven ... not sure if that's compression or too much fader riding.  piano starts distant, then seems to come forward, but very subtly.  I like the effect, but maybe it's too subtle almost?  Vocals are a bit too muffled for me (not enough sparkle)

mattrussell - bright full piano, nice.  Vocals very up front and dry (similar to my mix), but fuller sounding ... maybe a bit TOO close?  Vocal has a bit of a harsh edge after listening for a while, though nothing major.

TPolce - I like this one ... The vocal sounds full (I'm starting to think my room is accentuating the mid lows!). 2:50 ... some weird phasing on the vocal?  Not sure what that is.  I'm hearing some kind of slap-back during quiet pinao passages (3:30) as well.  Maybe too much compression on the Pinao.

ATOR - Definitly different!  Creative for sure.  Not to my taste (too much of the pad) but great venture into the unknown :-)  I think it's too eerie for this song though.  Woah ... the doubled line comes out of nowhere (and the timing is off maybe?)  The main content (vocal, piano) sounds nice though, but piano level is a bit low.  The ending is nuts :O

chrisj - low end reverb too much (needs eq on the return? Kinda boomy).  Vocal sounds nice, but a bit too much sizzle (again, on the reverb?) ... the Sssss's are distracting.  Plosives need more control.  Overall nice mix, but the reverb is bugging me somehow!

gatino - The vocal delay is too prominant for me, sounds like a cave.  Piano is a bit low maybe (too compressed?), but it's got a good tone.  The vocal does not seem to "sit" well with the piano.

maxim - Another experiment mix :-)  Some clicky artefacts right at the start.  The vocal is VERY thick.  Sounds like someone is whispering on the left???  Plosives need fixing.  Yup, the chorus vocal is definitly not right, but kuddos for the experiment :-)  Piano level changes in a few spots and jumps out suddenly (2:41).  I suspect what you were after just is not possible without additional tracking, but I can get behind the idea!

rankus - so far so good ... great balance of the tracks.  Might need a high pass (at 30Hz maybe) ... sounds like there is some very low rumble to me??  Need a bit more control of the plosives (2:01).  Good mix, and great dynamics!

rattleyour - Vocal sounds like it's in a well ... very closed in and muddy (but with echo ... does that make sense?  maybe a very deep well, lol).  Defninitly not bright enough for me.  The piano has a good tone, but maybe missing some dynamics?  I can hear the vocal level changin during the climax ... a little too obvious.

UnderTow - Love the piano ... bright and clear.  Vocal is definitly out front, and sounds like a bit much on the bottom for me ... just a bit too thick (it overpowers the piano in some places).  Good aggressive mix.  The vocal may be just a much though.  I like the idea of the delay on the second last line ... timing might be off a bit, but it works!

iCombs - some hiss during the intro (from the room track?).  Vocals are nice and clear ... maybe a bit thin?  The delay is distracting in places.  Good dynamics on the piano!  Good mix, but vocals could go up a bit ... sounds like the singer is behind the piano.  Again, like the delay on the penultimate line ... really punches it (wish I'd though to do that!)

Scotch (hey! That's me!) - I can see how my mix is brighter than most.  Also, very dry (relatively).  In hindsight, I would try out more reverbs to expand the space a bit.  I can also see how more low end would add weight to the track.  Maybe my room is to blame ... new mixing room (to me) and it's as of yet untreated.  This was actually a great excercise, since there aren't 5 guitar tracks to hide behind :-)

fantomas - Piano sounds a bit muffled.  The vocal is a bit too muddy as well ... just too much overall bottom maybe (or not enough top)?  The plosives need more control.  Can definitly hear the mp3 artefacts ... I hesitate to comment since a lot of it may be based on the crapy compression!  The delay timing sounds off to me.

starscream2010 - Can difinitly hear the hammers on the pinao ... nice!  The vocal is huge as well, but not out of place.  Plosives need a bit more control.  I like this mix a lot, though it is very convetional, but agressive (kinda like mine!).  Nice reverb ... very unobtrusive.  During loud passeges and hits there seems to be a weird clanging/ringing on the piano (3:10).  maybe the comression is bringing this out?  Now that I focus on it, it's pretty annoying :-)

Great job everyone, and I look forward to the next "lesson!"
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: cerberus on November 25, 2006, 01:14:02 AM
jhall... sublime and powerful.  huge and intimate.  present and deep.  i so much like how the piano is wet like rain, like tears,  the vocal is proud, the reverb paints the room.  this one made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  the vibe feels classic and modern and hyper-present...  i heard a lot of things that i would describe as "evidence of a recording", but still it felt like i was there watching it happen, or the perfomers and room were here. it is the most visual mix i've heard so far. and so far, the best because not only don't i find objectionable flaws, but it lifts me up.

ok, i'll do the others later, it would hardly be fair... now i think my own sucks badly in every way compared to j's;  he painted it like a master. not a poem, or even music, but art.

jeff dinces
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: TheViking on November 25, 2006, 01:23:07 AM
garretg wrote on Fri, 24 November 2006 00:56



VIKING: Very solid, professional mix.  great piano sound...  maybe the vocal is a touch high in the mix for my tastes.





Good comment.   It's funny because this issue comes up a lot for me.   Usually when the mix is 'just right' for me, I send it off to master and the vocals seem to get quieter or something.   It happens EVERY TIME.   So, I just got used to a louder blend of Vox in my mixes.   Maybe this is too much, as you've commented.   But I wonder what a healthy dose of vocals is these days?

Anyone else have similar experiences with vocal levels?

Thanks again for all the comments.   This IMP was really awesome and it's great to hear a bunch of different opinions on this stuff.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ScotcH on November 25, 2006, 10:30:23 AM
After re-reading my comments, it seems that I concentrated on technical aspects a lot, with very little comments on "feel" and emotion of the tracks.  I think I just don't have enough experience to discuss that in any meaningful way, other than to say, "this works for me" or "not".  I hope my comments are not overly negative sounding, and that they are useful in some way!
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on November 25, 2006, 10:58:43 AM
cerberus wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 01:14

jhall... sublime and powerful.  huge and intimate.  present and deep.  i so much like how the piano is wet like rain, like tears,  the vocal is proud, the reverb paints the room.  this one made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.  the vibe feels classic and modern and hyper-present...  i heard a lot of things that i would describe as "evidence of a recording", but still it felt like i was there watching it happen, or the perfomers and room were here. it is the most visual mix i've heard so far. and so far, the best because not only don't i find objectionable flaws, but it lifts me up.

ok, i'll do the others later, it would hardly be fair... now i think my own sucks badly in every way compared to j's;  he painted it like a master. not a poem, or even music, but art.


Can I hand you a towel, there?  Twisted Evil

(I liked J's too, but I'm still waiting to hear what his special purpose was for this IMP)
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: Tom C on November 25, 2006, 02:13:55 PM
chrisj wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 16:58


(I liked J's too, but I'm still waiting to hear what his special purpose was for this IMP)


I finally managed to spend a couple of minutes with this mix and
I think that one purpose was to show that less tracks don't mean
less work.
The raw tracks are very good, so it's difficult to get them more
life and vibe without overdoing it.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: maxim on November 25, 2006, 05:00:03 PM
kevin wrote:

"..But I wonder what a healthy dose of vocals is these days?"

thanks for the track, btw

imo, the vocal level varies from style to style, and culture to culture

eg, i like french pop mixes, especially, the blokes, but, compared to australian music, the vocal levels are about 6 db higher on average

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: gatino on November 25, 2006, 07:57:08 PM
ScotcH wrote on Fri, 24 November 2006 23:49


gatino - The vocal delay is too prominant for me, sounds like a cave.  


my reverb chamber:

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/447/tanknh6.png

TANK-FX
Laughing

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: mattrussell on November 25, 2006, 08:19:09 PM
TheViking wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 01:23

garretg wrote on Fri, 24 November 2006 00:56



VIKING: Very solid, professional mix.  great piano sound...  maybe the vocal is a touch high in the mix for my tastes.





Good comment.   It's funny because this issue comes up a lot for me.   Usually when the mix is 'just right' for me, I send it off to master and the vocals seem to get quieter or something.   It happens EVERY TIME.   So, I just got used to a louder blend of Vox in my mixes.   Maybe this is too much, as you've commented.   But I wonder what a healthy dose of vocals is these days?

Anyone else have similar experiences with vocal levels?

Thanks again for all the comments.   This IMP was really awesome and it's great to hear a bunch of different opinions on this stuff.


by the words "send it off to master", are you meaning to a mastering engineer or to duplication?  i assume you mean a mastering engineer, but i just want to check.




Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: TheViking on November 25, 2006, 08:22:25 PM
Yes...   you got me correct there.   Mastering engineer not duplication.   Although, a good discussion could be made on the differences in sonic quality between one duplication company and an other.   I've heard stories...   and I've heard differences.

But for this discussion...   I mean mastering engineer.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: mattrussell on November 25, 2006, 08:48:57 PM
as i'm sure you know well, additional compression, overall EQ and levels will be adjusted by the mastering engineer.  it's his job to do those things and how much he adjusts them is up to you (the mix engineer), the producer and the artist.  a discussion with the mastering engineer is always in order PRIOR to you shipping him the mixes.  

just as a general rule, i usually make the vocal a little louder (+1-1.5) than i know it "should" be in anticipation of masteriing.  this is especially true if i want an "up front vocal" because i know that as compression gets applied to the mix, the vocal will surely drop.  if you want the mix to more or less stay the same in terms of balance, tell the mastering engineer to be careful with it and try not to squish it very much--or at least not enough to basically blow up everything you did.  

if you do your job right and you have a discussion with the mastering engineer prior to he/she touches the mixes, everything should work out.  if it doesn't, that person should be willing to fix it at least once.  to be 100% sure, try to get the client to use someone you know and trust.  no matter the case, if you can, go to the mastering session.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: cerberus on November 26, 2006, 05:46:59 AM
chrisj wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 10:58

Can I hand you a towel, there?  
can i hand you a trowel, there?  Laughing

jeff dinces
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on November 26, 2006, 01:24:39 PM
cerberus wrote on Sun, 26 November 2006 05:46

chrisj wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 10:58

Can I hand you a towel, there?  
can i hand you a trowel, there?  Laughing


No thanks. I prefer to SHOVEL the mud onto my mixes!  Laughing
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: iCombs on November 26, 2006, 02:31:43 PM
maxim wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 16:00

kevin wrote:

"..But I wonder what a healthy dose of vocals is these days?"

thanks for the track, btw

imo, the vocal level varies from style to style, and culture to culture

eg, i like french pop mixes, especially, the blokes, but, compared to australian music, the vocal levels are about 6 db higher on average




Funny that this should get brought up.  I was listening to Zep 4 not too long ago and was actually a little shocked at how far back in the mix the vocals actually were.  I know I get constant beef that my vocals aren't far enough up front.  But I just can't stand the feeling that the vocal is jumping up out of the track, and I can't stand mega-hyper-overcompressed vocals, either.  And I'm a little hyper sensitive to sibilant vocals, so I'm really careful about how I boost the top of my vox tracks...so what's a boy to do?
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: scottoliphant on November 26, 2006, 05:19:20 PM
Quote:

Funny that this should get brought up. I was listening to Zep 4 not too long ago and was actually a little shocked at how far back in the mix the vocals actually were.
same with old stones records. the early beatles stuff was at the other end of the spectrum =) nice job everyone on the mixes, didn't get a chance this go with all the coming and going for thanksgiving

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: gatino on November 26, 2006, 10:18:11 PM
iCombs wrote on Sun, 26 November 2006 13:31

I was listening to Zep 4 not too long ago and was actually a little shocked at how far back in the mix the vocals actually were.  I know I get constant beef that my vocals aren't far enough up front.  But I just can't stand the feeling that the vocal is jumping up out of the track, and I can't stand mega-hyper-overcompressed vocals, either.  And I'm a little hyper sensitive to sibilant vocals, so I'm really careful about how I boost the top of my vox tracks...so what's a boy to do?


i think the time will soon come when in-yer-face vocals will be pass
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: TheViking on November 26, 2006, 11:06:59 PM
gatino wrote on Sun, 26 November 2006 22:18


i think the time will soon come when in-yer-face vocals will be pass
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ATOR on November 27, 2006, 07:55:44 AM
Cerberus
really intimate, as if I'm sitting behind the piano myself. I like the sound. It's very mono, I'd like the piano to be more stereo. There's some low-end resonance in the plosive vocal-area. There are two weird sounds around 4:00 and 4:15

Chris J
Bring on the big verbs! Sibilance and plosives could be tamed more. Maybe you could put in a larger pre-delay to make the vocal sound closer. I like the idea of drenching the vocal in reverb, the one man big as a choir idea.

Fantomas
Vocal and piano have a silk-like quality but lack something in the high >8k region. I like the delays. Could use plosive control. Vocal struggles to be on top of the piano in some places.

Garret
Big lush warm reverb on the vox. Low end of the reverb blurs piano a little bit. Dry Vocal could be louder, sometimes it almost drowns in the piano and the reverbs. Tick in latest Baby.

Gatino
And the price for biggest reverb goes to... I like it. Did you use a separate reverb for left and right or have different delays before the l+r reverb tails? Piano could use more definition and presence. Vocal sounds good.

iCombs
I like the subtle delays but I wouldn't use them throughout the whole song. Piano sounds great. The singer sounds much closer than the piano, but could be bigger, the piano is a little overwelming.

J Hall
Wow, bigger than life piano and vocal, sounds grand. Especially in the quiet parts. In the louder parts, the compression clamps down the vocal and piano and takes away a lot of the dynamics and excitement. The space is great too.

Matt Russell
Piano vand vocal are in a very different in space. To me it also sounds as if the dynamics from the piano and the vocal are separated, they don't follow each other like in the raw recording. They both sound good though. The vocal gets smaller when it should get louder and bigger. Piano starts to distort at loud parts. there's a small tick just before 1:00

Maxim
A Frankenstein piano Smile Vocal and piano lack top end. The extra vocals are so horribly out of tune it gets real funny Smile Could use some extra plosive control. I'd like a little less reverb on the piano, right now it's blurring the mix.

Rankus
Piano is a little heavy in the mid-lows and too big for the vocal. Vocal could me more in the spotlight, now the piano attracks most attention. I like the delays on the end.

Rattleyour
Vocal is very distant (little dull and too wet) almost 10m/30ft behind the piano. Piano sounds good. I'd like it all to be closer.  Vocal sounds weird in the last loud part, as if it goes out of phase.

Scotch
Sounds good. Little too much sibilance. There's a separation between piano and vocal dynamics. You can hear the compression clamp down the vocal in louder parts. I mis the piano and the vocal dynamics, the song loses a lot of excitement and tension without them. tick just before 1:00

Starscream
Piano has a nice big space without being distant. Vocal sounds good too. Already in the beginning I hear compression clamping down the piano and the vocal and this gets real ugly as the song proceeds. Sounds great where there's no compression.

The Viking
I like the dynamics, the balance piano/vocal and the fullbodied sound. Sibilance is distracting in vocal and delay. It's a bit heavy in the midlows and lacking high end but nothing a little mastering can't fix.

Tigeba
Hey you didn't pan the tracks like the rest of us did Smile Sibilance needs taming. Too bad the compression kills the dynamics, space and excitement. I like the delay.

TPolce
Nice space. Sibilance needs taming. Vocal gets clamped down when it's loud. In the louder parts the piano overwhelmes the vocal. In some parts there's some flanging on the vocal

Undertow
Vocal sounds great and big. Good space. You did a great job at controling the dynamics without compression artefacts. It did rob the song of excitement and it sounds weird when the vocal has the same loudness when he's whispering and singing on the top of his lungs. The same thing goes for the piano, at the end he's banging the keys but the loudness is the same as normal playing. I like the subtle reverb automation.

------------------------------------

Dynamics

To me the dynamics are very important in this song, it's what creates the tension and makes the differences between parts of the song. There are no extra instruments. It's just piano and vocal and the dynamics make the song.

I do like the mixes with a fullbodied vocalsound like J.Halls, I don't know how he did it but I guess compression is a big part of it. In most mixes with compression already working at the start the vocal gets clamped down and ugly in the louder parts except for Undertows mix. I think he used automation before compression and it sounds great al throughout the song.

I'll have to try this first but it looks like for me the ideal vocal would have volume automation to even out the input of the compressor -> compression (+parallel compression?) to get a fullbodied sound -> level automation to recreate the dynamics.

I'd like to know how you approached the dynamic aspect especially J. Hall and Undertow. A combination of these two approaches with some added dynamics would make my ideal mix.


All in all this mix proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'll have to have another go (or two) at it because my ideal mix is still out there somewhere.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: tigeba on November 27, 2006, 11:51:47 AM
I still haven't had a chance to do a proper listen to everyones tracks but I will throw in a few comments about my own for fun.

I decided to do a non-traditional panning, which a few people commented on.  In truth, I wussed out because my original idea was to go hard left with dry vocal and all wet on the other side for a really retro vibe, but I think it was either a little too distracting or I was a little too chicken.  The vocal and the piano are still a bit offset to give each other space.  Not so sure if it worked 100%.  I believe the squashified piano some have commented on is actually me using a lot of the room track on the piano, as the stereo piano really only has about 2 db of compression max.  It was one of those last minute decisions after the whole mix was already done, and I should have just left the room track off!  Guess this is why you should always sleep on a mix, eh?


As far as the vocal goes, yep is it bright, but I feel it is fairly similar to a lot of my favorite tracks.  I believe knowing what the raw track sounds like is a bit biasing.  FWIW, I used Ben Folds - Still Fighting It as sort of a reference.  Obviously a singer with a brighter and higher voice, but that was sort of what I was going for.  

I will try to listen to everything tonight and post comments for all the tracks, and I look forward to the "How I did X" thread.

Smile

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ATOR on November 27, 2006, 01:58:30 PM
GarretG wrote

ATOR: A+ for creativity. I love what you did with the sampled ooooo. gorgeous pad sounds (I'm stealing that for some of my own tunes). Good call flying in another version of the vocal, heavily eq'd, for some extra vibe... I really like the repeated phrase that's band limited more than the straight doubling... the double sounds odd to me, but the delay repeats are great. I think this could be my favorite mix if you dial back a few of your most aggressive moves, and fix the primary vocal treatment (the high end sounds way too hyped to me)... very cool mix thoughThis could be stunningly great with a few more adjustments. I think I need to call you about mixing some of my tunes when I win the lottery... taking something that's more than a little on the schlocky side and making it seethe and burn, well I need that too sometimes.. Smile


Thanks Garret! Nice to hear. I agree with your suggestions.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: garret on November 27, 2006, 05:36:35 PM
TheViking wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 01:23

Usually when the mix is 'just right' for me, I send it off to master and the vocals seem to get quieter or something.   It happens EVERY TIME.   So, I just got used to a louder blend of Vox in my mixes.   Maybe this is too much, as you've commented.   But I wonder what a healthy dose of vocals is these days?

Anyone else have similar experiences with vocal levels?




I don't have any experience (yet) sending stuff off for mastering/duplication... but when I do my own d.i.y. mastering, I find the opposite to be true.... peak limiting seems to draw out the vocals, and I have to go back to the mix and drop the vocal a half db to compensate.  I don't do a lot of eq in my d.i.y. mastering, though, so maybe that's the rub.. perhaps your mastering engineer of choice keeps knocking the upper mids down, and you keep cranking em to compensate? Smile

Or, perhaps it just depends on the mixer and the style of mixing...

As for the overall question of appropriate vocal levels.. I always thought I was in the very loud camp, but after listening to this IMP, I'm not sure.   I'm a singer, usually balladish stuff too, so you'd think I'd want more me more me.   I don't work professionally doing mixing work, and I don't listen to what's on the charts much, so maybe I'm out of touch with what the kids are expecting to hear these days.

-Garret
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: UnderTow on November 27, 2006, 06:16:43 PM
Thanks everyone for the positive comments!  Smile

garretg wrote on Fri, 24 November 2006 06:56


UNDERTOW: Vox a bit loud, or maybe just too bright for my tastes...  makes for a hard listen start to finish... other than the vox (which might be a matter of taste), I think this is an excellent mix.



Yeah the vocal is indeed a bit loud. My vocal perception is definetly skewed at the moment. I'm doing alot of TV work with heavily compressed voice overs so when I ran out of time, I thought I could get away with the mix the way it was.

ScotcH wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 06:49


UnderTow - Love the piano ... bright and clear.  Vocal is definitly out front, and sounds like a bit much on the bottom for me ... just a bit too thick (it overpowers the piano in some places).  Good aggressive mix.  The vocal may be just a much though.  I like the idea of the delay on the second last line ... timing might be off a bit, but it works!



I like the thickness on the vocal. Maybe thats that TV skewing messing with my judgement. And yes, the delay is out of time. Smile I should have taken the time to get it right.

ATOR wrote on Mon, 27 November 2006 13:55


Undertow
Vocal sounds great and big. Good space. You did a great job at controling the dynamics without compression artefacts. It did rob the song of excitement and it sounds weird when the vocal has the same loudness when he's whispering and singing on the top of his lungs. The same thing goes for the piano, at the end he's banging the keys but the loudness is the same as normal playing. I like the subtle reverb automation.



Thanks. Again that TV voice thing ... There is no automation in this mix. I ran out of time to get the details right. One of the things I should have done is set the vocal reverb send pre-inserts so that the natural dynamics of the singing would have made the reverb more dynamic. Unfortunately that means I would have had to do some processing on the send for which there was no time. I'm not sure what you are hearing. What did you think I had done?

ATOR wrote on Mon, 27 November 2006 13:55


Dynamics
I do like the mixes with a fullbodied vocalsound like J.Halls, I don't know how he did it but I guess compression is a big part of it. In most mixes with compression already working at the start the vocal gets clamped down and ugly in the louder parts except for Undertows mix. I think he used automation before compression and it sounds great al throughout the song.



Nope, no automation. Smile I think things might get a bit clearer when I explain everything I did: There is the equivalent of 17 plugins in this mix (although some steps are combined within plugins). There is alot of compression going on.

Quote:


I'll have to try this first but it looks like for me the ideal vocal would have volume automation to even out the input of the compressor -> compression (+parallel compression?) to get a fullbodied sound -> level automation to recreate the dynamics.



My intention was to automate the output volume of the vocal track and I think that would make a more exciting mix.

Quote:


I'd like to know how you approached the dynamic aspect especially J. Hall and Undertow. A combination of these two approaches with some added dynamics would make my ideal mix.



I'll give full details in the techniques thread.

Quote:


All in all this mix proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would be.



Agreed. This was a very good learning experience. Kevin, thanks again for the great material!


Jeff, I still owe you an email response. Things have just been very hectic resently ...

Alistair
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on November 27, 2006, 10:45:04 PM
chrisj wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 09:58



(I liked J's too, but I'm still waiting to hear what his special purpose was for this IMP)


i wanted to break IMP down to it's core.  the concept here is to remove the mystery from the mixing process.  the mystery being what the tracks were like raw when you hear a great mix and think, "how the hell do they do that?".  this way, we all have the tracks, put our best fooot forward, and get a chance to say, "hey ________ that kick drum is killer, how did you get that kick to do that?"  since you know EXACTLY what it started out as, and can hear what it ended up as.

well, the more i thought about it, the more i realized that i put the cart before the horse.

if we reduced the track count to something very minimal, but had a killer performance, by a great writer and player, recorded really well, MORE could be learned then just taking a high track  count and playing with it.

i knew that people would get this IMP a sneer at it, thinking it was too easy.  but listen to how wildly different all the mixes are.

THEN, stop listening to them from a technical stand point.  and START listening to them to see if the mix itself makes you want to KEEP listening.

that's what a mixer's job is.  to put the whole thing together in a compelling way.  to make the listener want to keep listening.  some of these mixes do, some don't.

that was the point of this particular IMP.  small track counts, remove many things from your process......HOWEVER, they complicate things greatly because they force you make each element mean something......there are not enough tracks to call one "texture", everything we had here HAD to support the theme.

so, with that in mind, perhaps you should listen to some, or all, of the submissions again with a different perspective.

i'd like to see people change their lists to "which mixes kept me listening, and which didn't.....AND WHY"  and don't give me a bunch of technical babble, tell me what about it was great or wasn't great.

"the way the vocal comes off the speakers captures my attention"  stuff like that.

NOT, "the 5k spike in the vocal really annoys me"

find the vibe, and the vision you dig, and then find out how the mixer did it!!!!
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: gatino on November 28, 2006, 12:27:08 AM
j.hall wrote on Mon, 27 November 2006 21:45


i'd like to see people change their lists to "which mixes kept me listening, and which didn't.....AND WHY"  and don't give me a bunch of technical babble, tell me what about it was great or wasn't great.


sounds good. can you start us off?

being completely green i wasn't planning it this time around, but i'll jump in anyway later this week.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ATOR on November 28, 2006, 08:00:41 AM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 28 November 2006 04:45

THEN, stop listening to them from a technical stand point.  and START listening to them to see if the mix itself makes you want to KEEP listening.

that's what a mixer's job is.  to put the whole thing together in a compelling way.  to make the listener want to keep listening.  some of these mixes do, some don't.

find the vibe, and the vision you dig, and then find out how the mixer did it!!!!

You're making a great point here. I usually made mixes the way I thought they were supposed to be from a rather technical view. Even if a mix turned out good they never really excited or grabbed me.

With your comments from the previous IMP in mind, this was the first mix that I made 'What do I need to keep listening' my primary goal. For me that meant dynamics that really drag you in and adding FX because I get easily bored  Very Happy

I think you still need the technical guy around for fixing the annoying 5k spike in the vocal but my mixing will definitely change for the good with the 'make me move' guy in the drivers seat.

Thanks J.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: mattrussell on November 28, 2006, 08:02:47 AM
j.hall wrote on Mon, 27 November 2006 22:45

chrisj wrote on Sat, 25 November 2006 09:58



(I liked J's too, but I'm still waiting to hear what his special purpose was for this IMP)



find the vibe, and the vision you dig, and then find out how the mixer did it!!!!



thanks for saying this j.  it's pretty much why i haven't jumped in and said too much.  vibe is everything and each mix has a different one.  some are good and make me want to hear the whole thing and some are bad and make me want to shut it off after two lines of vocal.  connecting with the song is the whole deal and those who spend time nit picking over the tiniest of details are missing the point.  

that said, i still like polce's, UnderTow's and frankly, i still like my mix.

this has been a great IMP.  whatever you choose to do for the next one, please try to make it as interesting as this one.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on November 28, 2006, 12:18:02 PM
ATOR wrote on Tue, 28 November 2006 07:00


I think you still need the technical guy around for fixing the annoying 5k spike in the vocal but my mixing will definitely change for the good with the 'make me move' guy in the drivers seat.

Thanks J.


at one point in my life i was quite the tennis player.  my personal coach was a bit unorthodox, which made for a perfect match with me and him.  anyway, he told me something i've never forgotten that can be applied to this topic.

he said at the peak of my physical ability, "at this point, you will only lose matches because your mind could not keep up.  your body is trained, it's now up to you mind to do the work.  at a certain point, the game becomes 80% mental and 20% physical simply due to the fact that your body has been trained and conditioned for this level of work"

so, assume i'm your mixing coach.  i'm telling you that you've trained your ears in a technical way, and you've focused your auditory mind to a technical one, that is no longer the issue.  NOW, you have to take all that technical knowledge and apply it to the REAL task.  the hardest one there is, art!

it's time to make the technical the 20% and the art 80%

this, is exactly what IMP is all about.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ScotcH on November 28, 2006, 01:40:04 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 28 November 2006 12:18


at one point in my life i was quite the tennis player.  my personal coach was a bit unorthodox, which made for a perfect match with me and him.  anyway, he told me something i've never forgotten that can be applied to this topic.

he said at the peak of my physical ability, "at this point, you will only lose matches because your mind could not keep up.  your body is trained, it's now up to you mind to do the work.  at a certain point, the game becomes 80% mental and 20% physical simply due to the fact that your body has been trained and conditioned for this level of work"

so, assume i'm your mixing coach.  i'm telling you that you've trained your ears in a technical way, and you've focused your auditory mind to a technical one, that is no longer the issue.  NOW, you have to take all that technical knowledge and apply it to the REAL task.  the hardest one there is, art!

it's time to make the technical the 20% and the art 80%

this, is exactly what IMP is all about.


Woah ... dude, you just blew my mind!  I drive a race car, and the same advice comes up all the time ... drive the track in your mind, and your body will follow ... don't focus on the details, like gas pedal, shifting, etc.  I can see how this can be applied to mixing.  Once you know HOW to tweak an EQ or comp, let your perception of the artistic aspects of the mix drive the decisions you make when you move the controls.  I'm going to take the time to relisten to the mixes again, and redo my mix with what you wrote in mind.

I'm really looking forward to more of these!  Great opportunity for noobs like me to get feedback!  Thanks!
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: gatino on November 30, 2006, 10:39:34 AM
ATOR wrote on Mon, 27 November 2006 06:55


Gatino
And the price for biggest reverb goes to... I like it. Did you use a separate reverb for left and right or have different delays before the l+r reverb tails? Piano could use more definition and presence. Vocal sounds good.


hehe...

the only verb i used was on the vocal, front and center. there were very short delays (w/o verb) on the vox going left and right trying to make it phat. (i think doubling the vox would be better, but they didn't give us that.) thx for the comments. i've learned a lot from everyone.


Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: rankus on December 01, 2006, 02:44:49 PM
 
j.hall wrote on Mon, 27 November 2006 21:45


i'd like to see people change their lists to "which mixes kept me listening, and which didn't.....AND WHY"  and don't give me a bunch of technical babble, tell me what about it was great or wasn't great.


I noted this in my comments.  I mentioned that "I found this mix engaging" etc. to the mixes I thought captured this elusive phenom.... specifically to address this because I agree with J 100%...

I believe the term used is "suspension of disbelief", whereby the listener forgets they are listening to a recording and "buys into" the song completely. This was my goal with this IMP  (Don't worry J we are listening)  I hope I managed to at least come close (plosives aside)

It would be really nice if others kicked in their comments as J has asked... It may be painful to hear, for the mixer and probably just as difficult for the commenter... but this is why we are here.  Growth sometimes requires some pain, so suck it up you pansies and let me/us have it with both barrels!

Don't let this important IMP go out with a whisper!
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ATOR on December 01, 2006, 05:59:07 PM
UnderTow wrote on Tue, 28 November 2006 00:16


Thanks. Again that TV voice thing ... There is no automation in this mix. I ran out of time to get the details right. One of the things I should have done is set the vocal reverb send pre-inserts so that the natural dynamics of the singing would have made the reverb more dynamic. Unfortunately that means I would have had to do some processing on the send for which there was no time. I'm not sure what you are hearing. What did you think I had done?

Nope, no automation. Smile I think things might get a bit clearer when I explain everything I did: There is the equivalent of 17 plugins in this mix (although some steps are combined within plugins). There is alot of compression going on.

My intention was to automate the output volume of the vocal track and I think that would make a more exciting mix.



Maybe I was naive in believing human beings normally put one compressor over a vocal Smile There was no way you could have reduced the dynamic range that much and still have it sound good with a single compressor so I assumed you used automation.

I've taken another shot at the mix and this time I put 3 compressors over the vocal and got a big vocal without obvious compression artefacts. Sometimes more is more.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ATOR on December 01, 2006, 06:52:54 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 28 November 2006 18:18


at one point in my life i was quite the tennis player.  my personal coach was a bit unorthodox, which made for a perfect match with me and him.  anyway, he told me something i've never forgotten that can be applied to this topic.

he said at the peak of my physical ability, "at this point, you will only lose matches because your mind could not keep up.  your body is trained, it's now up to you mind to do the work.  at a certain point, the game becomes 80% mental and 20% physical simply due to the fact that your body has been trained and conditioned for this level of work"

so, assume i'm your mixing coach.  i'm telling you that you've trained your ears in a technical way, and you've focused your auditory mind to a technical one, that is no longer the issue.  NOW, you have to take all that technical knowledge and apply it to the REAL task.  the hardest one there is, art!

it's time to make the technical the 20% and the art 80%

this, is exactly what IMP is all about.


I've been thinking about this a lot and it reminds me of a masterclass I had from guitarist Jim Hall. It was about creating music and getting loose from scales, chords and their functions. We had to completely detune our guitars so we couldn't use our mind or motoric fingerpatterns to find notes. Then we had to play a note and listen to it. Then play another and listen to the sound of those two notes. He basically made us bypass all the technical stuff and make beautiful sounds.

I thought it was bullshit back then, why make it hard on yourself when you know what scale to play and what goes well with a II-V-I progression. I took the technical approach and I guess that's why I never turned out to be a good guitarplayer and eventually quit because playing became boring.

Now I'm on my way back to making music, this time in mixing, with another J. Hall and I realize I'm being put back at the same crossroads: make technically good music or make inspired music from the heart.

Making music from the heart scares me but this time I know where the other road leads. It's time to detune my guitar Cool

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on December 01, 2006, 07:55:18 PM
i've been back to back in multiple sessions for a few weeks now.  when i get a chance to dig into a few mixes i will.

early next week looks promising.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: maxim on December 01, 2006, 09:38:43 PM
peter wrote:

"...make technically good music or make inspired music from the heart"

both
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: gatino on December 01, 2006, 11:12:22 PM
ATOR wrote on Fri, 01 December 2006 17:52


make technically good music or make inspired music from the heart.


music is inspired first and technical last. form and analysis comes after the fact! i believe the german sixth (or italian, french, whatever your pref) chord was originally nothing more than a happy accident. know what i mean?
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: UnderTow on December 12, 2006, 06:05:49 PM
I was hoping for some more comments from J. He is probably too busy so here comes an explanation of what I did.

First up, te recording and performance are very nice. This, in a sense, was more challenging than having loads of tracks to play with. Things had to be right because there was no where to hide.

I listened to the material to get an idea of what to do. I don't listen to much music with vocals so I asked my girlfriend for something. She gave me Christina Aguilera - Hurt. That helped me decide to go for a big pollished pop sound.

Techniques: Tracks loaded into Sonar 6. Piano panned hard left and right and sent to a bus. Room track not used mainly because it was mono and it would be harder to integrate it into an artificial reverb instead of just faking the whole space.

Vocal pre-processing:
First I loaded the vocal into SoundForge and hipassed all the pops at arround 300Hz. I also selected all the big ticks and used the smooth function in SF to remove them.

Vocal chain:
- PSP MasterQ Hipass at 120 Hz 24 dB/Oct. HiShelf at 10Khz + 2.8 dB.
- Voxengo Voxformer in dual band mode. Cross Over at 1.4Khz. About 2 - 3 dB of compression on the low band. 0.5 to 1.5 dB on the high band. De-Esser set to 6Khz about 2 dB of De-Essing. Alot of the "Presence" knob but set to 100Hz. This give back the weight that was hipassed by the MasterQ.
- VC-64 Vintage Channel 3 - 4 dB of De-Essing at 3.3 Khz. 2 - 4 dB of compression quite fast attack, slow release, ratio 1.4:1, smooth mode. Another HiPass at 91 Hz, 3 dB boost at 160Hz 3.4 dB Boost at 5Khz (Q 0.7 in both cases).
- Sent to Global Reverb and Vocal Reverb.
- Output to Master Bus.

I should have done some volume automation so that it started off a bit softer and grew with the song. Next time better.

Vocal reverb
- Wizooverb W2 set to Choir Cathedral IR with 4.2s time.
- PSP MasterQ: Hipass at 60Hz, LoShelf at 840Hz -2 dB, -1.5 dB at 250Hz Q 0.4. LoPass at 7.8Khz 12/Oct.

The vocal reverb goes to the master bus but also to the global reverb.

One thing I should have done is set the vocal send to the global reverb pre inserts so that the reverb gets bigger when the vocals gets bigger. I forgot ... :/

Piano bus:
- VC-64 Vintage Channel: Between 1 to 3 dB of compression (Attack 14.5ms, release 100ms, ratio 1.5:1, mode smooth and optical. Hipass at 30Hz.
- PSP MasterQ: Another Hipass at 30Hz 24 dB/Oct. LoShelf at 700Hz -0.6 dB, -2 dB at 270Hz Q 0.4, +2 dB at 90Hz Q 0.3, +0.7dB at 6Khz Q 0.3
- Output to master bus and send to Global Reverb

Global reverb:
- Wizooverb W2 set to Large Chamber IR with 1.6s time.
- PSP MasterQ: Same as Vocal verb EQ.

There is a short amount of delay at one point on the vox. I just used the Sonitus delay for that.

Stereo bus:
- Waves SSL Stereo bus comp: Between 0.5 - 3.5 dB of compression. (Attack 1ms, Release Auto, Ratio 4:1)
- Voxengo Warmifier set to 6550 emulation. (For fake analogue warmth)
- Voxengo Warmifier set to 12AT7 emulation. (For more fake analogue warmth)
- Voxengo Elephant set to EL-3 mode. Max 0.7 dB limiting on the left channel at the loudest peak. DC filter 18 Hz Butterworth which gives a nice sound to the low-end IMO.


r8brain free for sample rate conversion to 44.1Khz.



Alistair
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on December 15, 2006, 05:06:47 PM
sorry guys.  i'm running in too many directions to be super effective iin the last few IMPs.

i promise to get more involved to better steer what i want people to learn.

sorta hard to get there when the "teacher" never shows up for class.

HAHAHAHA

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on December 15, 2006, 09:55:03 PM
It's because you're working so actively that your POV is extra valuable, J- don't worry about it- I only hope that by the time you get around to commenting on one of my entries it's worth the comment, and I've been paying close attention and figuring out how to understand what you're telling us.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on December 17, 2006, 04:19:15 PM
that's cool chris, thanks for being patient.

we all know that commenting takes a time investment.  i'll make it happen......eventually.

as for understanding, well......i think that mainly boils down to if the comments i give make much sense to the specific approach you like to take to music.

i think many people on here think i over compress.  though, more often then not, i have to tell my clients that's i can not compress it anymore then i am.......yes, i have many people ask me for more.

so, any of my comments need to be weighted against MY work.  my actual work should speaks volumes as to what i might have to say about some one elses work.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: garret on December 17, 2006, 04:59:01 PM
j.hall wrote on Sun, 17 December 2006 16:19


i think many people on here think i over compress.  though, more often then not, i have to tell my clients that's i can not compress it anymore then i am.......yes, i have many people ask me for more.

so, any of my comments need to be weighted against MY work.  my actual work should speaks volumes as to what i might have to say about some one elses work.


I don't think you over compress, but I do get a feeling of muscularity from all your mixes.   I can always pick out your mixes from the set... this time around, btw, I listened to the tracks blind... (I imported em all into my daw, hid the track names, and took notes by track number only.)

The thing I'm most interested in knowing is if you think my mixes are ever hitting that elusive magic that you describe so well... personally think I get there sometimes, but I don't really know.

-G

Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: cerberus on December 18, 2006, 01:44:53 AM
i am sorry for not completing my reviews. i don't like to post negative comments, and here's the thing... i know i got some of the vibe i was looking for... but my mix was flawed, so now i can't say how to get the best vibe that it could have. i feel unqualified to complete the reviews.

the ugly truth is that i spent half the time tuning-up the vocal. not even mixing.   i thought it would be fun and challenging to do what at first seemed impossible; and to see if i could pass off this trick in front of other engineers. (now, i expect you can hear it if you know...)

whatever it sounds like... it took a LOT of effort..  [stereo? i ran out of time...i threw a "hail mary pass" at it...] did i say that already?   the tuning part is why.  some of you noticed some oddness.. it does come through on one or two long notes. but i am a little proud of at least that.

some said my piano treatment was less than thrilling, which means i need to improve the compromise more.  but i learned that it is possible to tune these vocals to use  pitch, not just timbre and dynamics and overall low-mid-high balance and stereo... and get away with it.  most of this time i spent was on an aspect of the song that nobody guessed... and.... now i wonder. was it a selfish approach?  wrong for the song?

did it  occur to anyone to actually try and re-tune the vox? of course it soured the piano slightly... that was how ii wanted to make it work.. that it could sound really sad and i wanted just the right amount of tension and drift in the pitch for each phrase and in some cases note by note.   anyone else?

jeff dinces
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on December 18, 2006, 07:51:09 AM
Nope, but I peak limited the vocal by hand, including evening out some of the notes that had little volume fluctuations. Helped the mellow bits be mellow... I had no EQ _at_ _all_, everything was the convolution reverbs- a hall on the piano, a bright ambience and a plate on the vocal, and I balanced overtones using those but I didn't have enough predelay happening. Still, I'm happy I'm starting to tap into your musical soul, both with this and with the Zack mastering on slutz. Today Cerberus, tomorrow the world! Very Happy
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: ATOR on December 18, 2006, 10:01:40 AM
cerberus wrote on Mon, 18 December 2006 07:44

did it  occur to anyone to actually try and re-tune the vox?


I fixed a long out of tune note in the vocal but the out of tune piano spill that accompanied the tuned vocal made me ditch it. Instead I doubled the chorus lead with detuned versions to sort of mask the out of tune notes.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on December 18, 2006, 10:15:46 AM
with a piece like this, and a singer as skilled at being expressive as he is, there is no reason to attempt to tune the vocal.  obvious to all of us, the piano bleed into the vocal mic is too great to pull off a smooth tuning.  on top of that, it just kills the vibe of a piece like this.

if he hits a bad note, focus less on the bad note and focus more on how to capitalize off it.  bob dylan has been doing this to great success for YEARS.

this is a perfect example of when to take your technical prowess and put it away for a moment.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on December 18, 2006, 10:45:43 AM
chrisj, welcome to the hot seat.  (you sorta did this to yourself by mentioning it)

your piano treatment is really nice.  right off the bat, i want to listen a bit further to see how things develope.  you used the sharp attack of the piano to your advantage in a nice way.  the bottom end of the piano is pretty thin, but can be excused for the moment.

the vocal comes in.  this is when i would turn it off.  the vocal effects don't match the piano.  90% of the listeners (educated in audio or not) want a solo piano and vocal performance to sit in the same space.  mentally, they are visualizing a guy at a piano, playing and singing at the same time, i.e. elton john.  i think we all agree on this.

so, with that in mind, your vocal treatment, doesn't match the piano.

the plosives on the vocal mic are distracting.  roll off the vocal mic until the bottom of his actual voice rolls off.

i want to hear that vocal compressed hard to give it the same edge your piano has.  visualize these two elements as one.  marry them, literally.  think of all the stereotypes you have a piano playing singer and ldo not hesitate to play into them.

if the piano has a sharp attack, make his vocal identical.  

in songs like this i will pay closer attention to lyrical content.  if the song has a darker lyrical point, i might make the mix dark to instantly put your mind into that place.  OR, i might make it very bright and smooth to keep a person from killing themselves when they really dig into the lyrics.  you have to focus a mix like this around the only elements you have....piano, vocal, lyrics.

if you have time, i'd like to hear a recall, i do not expect it, but it would be cool to hear how my comments shift your focus and see what you might do with it now.

i'm going to do two more of these in the next few days.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on December 19, 2006, 12:37:26 AM
j.hall wrote on Mon, 18 December 2006 10:45

if you have time, i'd like to hear a recall, i do not expect it, but it would be cool to hear how my comments shift your focus and see what you might do with it now.


I'd like people to have the impression that I'm a good person to ask for stuff, so of course you can have that- here.

http://download.yousendit.com/795460CF0EE14AFE

Here's what happened. I ditched the no-EQ experiment in order to do the stuff you asked for- more bass on the piano, de-pop roll-offs and such things. There's an air boost on the vox, a really narrow sheen boost on the piano, a 'body' boost low in the vox and the bass boost on the piano.

I started throwing on compression (actually a sort of limiter I like) on the vox and pushing it a lot harder, slowing down the attack, and the articulation and animation of the vocals started to jump up until I was able to make it go in front of and dominate the piano, or set back and lay behind the piano. So I made them match like you suggested.

I think it worked, man- thanks bigtime- can you follow up on the revision and render an opinion on whether you think it worked?
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: j.hall on December 19, 2006, 11:00:26 AM
chrisj wrote on Mon, 18 December 2006 23:37

can you follow up on the revision and render an opinion on whether you think it worked?



certainly.

the piano is more inviting, i'd still go bigger on the bottom, but this works.  

the vocal is so much better.  it's a touch muddy, but i can live with it.  i'm wanting the vocal to be compressed a bit harder with a slow attack.  you've got it super smooth, which is great, i'm just wanting some edge to it.

yeah chris, this is really good.  any of the above comments are just nit picking.  as the track developes i'm less prone to comment on the the slightly muddy vocal tone.

if this mix were on a record i'd think nothing of it.  thanks for doing the recall.  i hope my comments were helpful to you for future application.

the track just ended, man that is night and day compared to your first version, SO MUCH more inviting and intimate.  you made me keep listening, which is hard to do for a song i've heard a thousand times.
Title: Re: IMP8 mix discussion.
Post by: chrisj on December 19, 2006, 05:41:40 PM
Thanks hugely- as for whether your comments are useful going forward, OH HELL YES.

Looking forward to the next IMP...