Hold Me Together

Tadpui

Tadpui

Well-known member
Long time, first time, and all that...

I realized that I'm really behind the curve compared to some of the fantastic music I've heard recently here in the clinic. But I figured that I'd be brave and post this work-in-progress.

Hell, maybe the most complicated thing about this was to figure out how to stream a full-quality MP3 online without using the song-clobbering features of SoundCloud. (H/T to Bulls Hit, whose Volcano link finally provided the key: use dropbox, make a few right-clicks, delete everything after the question mark in the link URL)

Anyways...I've been tearing this apart and putting it back together for several weeks now, trying new things as I learn. I'm hoping that you fellas here can help me progress with this mix. I've listened to it so many times, and tweaked and retracked so many things that I've lost all perspective on what's what. It's become something akin to those magic eye pictures...if you stare at it long enough, things emerge...

 
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The arrangement is nice and sparse so there's plenty of space in the mix. Everything sounds well balanced to me. Only crit I've got is is the accoustic strums that line up with the snare - most of the time they do line up but occasionally they come in slightly ahead, you could just slide the offenders back in your editor. Vocals are real good on this. Nice mournful guitar break near the end. Good job
 
Cool vibe! The thing that jumped out to me was the vocals are very small. Not necessarily too quiet; that are just very...well...small.
I'd try spreading effects. Pitch +/- 10 cents on each side. Use short spreading delays, choruses, etc. Make the left and right side of the effect returns slightly different and hit them with some dark, harmonic-type distortion (also different in each channel). Nothing over the top or all that noticeable, just enough to give it some depth. Stereo spread comes from a difference in the left and right channels; take advantage of that.

Other than that, solid mix!
 
I really like this. The sparseness of the mix for the main part fits really well for the build up at the end. Not too much or too little, sounds great. Not to completely disagree with Jeffro but I think the vocals are pretty damn good for this type of tune. Dry with just a touch of reverb, barely noticeable. I would say, personally, the only thing missing is some good harmonies. I think they could really bring the recording up a step.

Top job though, I really enjoyed the 3 listens. I'll be keeping the mp3 :thumbs up:
 
Bulls Hit said:
The arrangement is nice and sparse so there's plenty of space in the mix. Everything sounds well balanced to me. Only crit I've got is is the accoustic strums that line up with the snare - most of the time they do line up but occasionally they come in slightly ahead, you could just slide the offenders back in your editor. Vocals are real good on this. Nice mournful guitar break near the end. Good job
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Ah yes, good catch. A perfect example of something that I overlooked due to being too immersed in other aspects of the mix. I'll go through and see if I can correct that take, or maybe just retrack the acoustic altogether. Now I'm hearing a few chords that fret out and buzz. Thanks for the listen and comments!

JeffroMixesYou said:
Cool vibe! The thing that jumped out to me was the vocals are very small. Not necessarily too quiet; that are just very...well...small.
I'd try spreading effects. Pitch +/- 10 cents on each side. Use short spreading delays, choruses, etc. Make the left and right side of the effect returns slightly different and hit them with some dark, harmonic-type distortion (also different in each channel). Nothing over the top or all that noticeable, just enough to give it some depth. Stereo spread comes from a difference in the left and right channels; take advantage of that.

Other than that, solid mix!
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Wow, those ideas have never occurred to me. I've never tried widening of any sort, and you've got my curiosity piqued. Thank you for the suggestions, I'll experiment and see how it works out. I have a feeling that I'll make it worse before I make it better, but I like the idea and I'm interested in the potential effects.

Mr Clean said:
I really like this. The sparseness of the mix for the main part fits really well for the build up at the end. Not too much or too little, sounds great. Not to completely disagree with Jeffro but I think the vocals are pretty damn good for this type of tune. Dry with just a touch of reverb, barely noticeable. I would say, personally, the only thing missing is some good harmonies. I think they could really bring the recording up a step.

Top job though, I really enjoyed the 3 listens. I'll be keeping the mp3
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Thanks for the compliments, I really appreciate the input. I agree with you, I'm wanting to put some vocal harmonies in there somewhere. Maybe in the chorus and some subtle harmonies in a place or two in the verses.

Thank you all for the input, now I'm itching to get back to my studio and work on this some more. It's probably a good thing that I'm in the office today, because if I was working at home I'd be playing hooky and sneaking down to the studio! I'll fiddle with this tonight and see what I come up with.
 
Nice tune man. I like the melody a lot. I agree that some vocal harmonies would be a nice touch. I can't give too much advice on the mix, because I got no idea about that myself and anyways, it actually sounds pretty damn good to me. Sweet ending.
 
fritsthegirl said:
Nice tune man. I like the melody a lot. I agree that some vocal harmonies would be a nice touch. I can't give too much advice on the mix, because I got no idea about that myself and anyways, it actually sounds pretty damn good to me. Sweet ending.
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Hey, thanks for the listen! I'm sitting down right now to figure out what to do for harmonies. It's going to take a few tries to figure out what's going to work.

I corrected some of the timing errors on the acoustic guitars, but I have yet to mix back down. I think I'll fiddle with the vocal harmonies and some stereo effects before I render this project again and post a revision.
 
I like this. Everything there is tip top.
I did feel like I wanted something much more in the choruses though.
Nothing heavy or anything like that. Just something to fill it out.

Harmonies might be enough, but I kept wanting to hear a nice big clean electric strumming in or something like that.
Agreed about the vocals; I think they suit the song perfectly. Great job.
 
This song hit me at the right time and it feels good all the way around. I like it a lot.

I am on the fence about the overhead mics for the drums. I think they could be brought up a bit, but then I wonder if they'll interfere with the vocals. I do think there is room to bring the vocals up to and maybe still stay on top of the OH's. But if you turn up the OH's, be sure to lower the snare mic. As it is now, the snare is at the right level.

Everything else sounds perfect.

I agree with the comments about BGV's. Just a few Oohs and Aahs will do the trick. :)
 
Not a thing wrong IMHO with the mix. Everything sounds very natural and centred. As Chili and BGV has commented, a few additional vocals would be a nice touch but great song none the less.
 
Lol - I get the same response from my kids when they are texting..... Thanks for the clarification!
 
Steenamaroo said:
I like this. Everything there is tip top.
I did feel like I wanted something much more in the choruses though.
Nothing heavy or anything like that. Just something to fill it out.

Harmonies might be enough, but I kept wanting to hear a nice big clean electric strumming in or something like that.
Agreed about the vocals; I think they suit the song perfectly. Great job.
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Thanks for the listen, compliments, and suggestions. I'm working on some harmonies for the chorus, but I haven't arrived on anything that I like yet. This is already in the upper end of my limited vocal range, so higher harmonies are proving difficult. Any lower harmonies that I've tried haven't really fit so far. I'll keep hammering away at it and see if anything sticks.

I'll keep in mind the clean strumming guitar idea. My LP doesn't seem to agree with the clean channels on my amps, but maybe my old Aria with the pickups tapped into single coils can do some clean strumming. I've got all weekend, so I'll give it a try :)

Chili said:
This song hit me at the right time and it feels good all the way around. I like it a lot.

I am on the fence about the overhead mics for the drums. I think they could be brought up a bit, but then I wonder if they'll interfere with the vocals. I do think there is room to bring the vocals up to and maybe still stay on top of the OH's. But if you turn up the OH's, be sure to lower the snare mic. As it is now, the snare is at the right level.

Everything else sounds perfect.

I agree with the comments about BGV's. Just a few Oohs and Aahs will do the trick.
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Thanks, I'm so glad that you like it so far! I did go back and raise the overheads a tiny bit. And then a tiny bit more. And just a smidge more again. I'm struggling to find a balance in EZD between direct kit sounds, overhead mics, the room mic, and a room reverb convolution VST. It's like a combination lock...finding the right combo is complicated! I haven't let go of the EZD room mic yet, although I know that I probably should.

elmedia said:
Not a thing wrong IMHO with the mix. Everything sounds very natural and centred. As Chili and BGV has commented, a few additional vocals would be a nice touch but great song none the less.
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Thanks for the listen! I'm cooking up some background vocals but nothing worth rendering so far.

I also tightened up the timing on the acoustic a bit. I think I'm just going to retrack it because when I soloed it, I found a couple of total flubbed chords, a few fretted-out notes, and timing errors galore.

I also added a low-level reverby wide-panned ebow part right after the 1st chorus to add a little flavor before the 2nd verse gets going.

I need another session or two to sit and fiddle with these new elements before I commit and post a revised mix. I really appreciate the input, everyone.
 
Oh, you're using EZD, I didn't catch that before. I almost always keep the snare top very low and just use the overheads. Sometimes I use the snare bottom, sometimes not. I do use the room mic, but I feed it into the reverb send. I don't put reverb on any other part of the kit. I get a nice dry kit with a bit of room. Works well for some of the stuff I've been doing lately, but may not be for everyone.
 
Yeah, it's just the default Rock/Pop kit from EZD with the snare changed to the Rogers. You would laugh (or barf) if you could see how I've got EZD routed and treated in Reaper for this project. I think I'm up to about 14 tracks if you count folders and send effects :D I wanted to toy with parallel compression on the kick and snare, wanted to experiment with compressing the overheads, and also tried what turned out to be a nice-sounding drum room reverb impulse on the whole kit. I should just rename the drum folder "Caution: do not enter!".
 
Man, this is a great song - sweet to listen to. I like the sound of everything, but I love the song. Bass, drum, guitar and vocal sounds are all real nice, fit well and suit the song. I heard some timing things also but mostly between the bass and drums. Bass sounded high to me, but I would check on a few systems yourself. I kept thinking I wanted more guitar and drums but I think agree with others here who suggested widening. For me, I might notch the tempo up a little, and maybe inject some more attitude in the guitar in the leads. It just feels like there's some implied balls there that need to show.
 
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