I Do with BroKen_H

I listened to mix #3.

Nice song. It moves well. I thought the piano sounded good. I liked the harmonies.

To me there seems to be a little lack of high end. Not enough sparkle. I think it's mostly in the lead vocal - not enough in the upper end. There is also a little swirliness in the lead vocal. Like a weird chorus/delay something going on. A double tracked lead vocal would work well.

I think the mix could stand a little stronger low end. Nudge up the bass and kick.
 
Ok - BroKen_H sent me a great solo which I've now added to the track.
- took the vocal straight to reverb (no more chorus/echo)
- took some more low mids off the lead
- panned the bgv 75% L/R
New mix #4 is up in the original post.
 
Thanks so much Gerry. It's been fun and an honor to play on this song. You've really got a great one there.
 
The feeling is definitely mutual :) I really appreciate the time and effort and the results were stellar!
I may even get the mix right eventually lol....Thank god the guys are here to help me out :)
 
Again, very very catchy song. The song is heart warming and your voice is great on this. I know your getting a lot of opinions on how it should be mixed and its always subjective to the way the listener wants to hear it(I stole that saying from another user lol)...

So here is my view on the newest mix...

There is still something on the lead vocal that still sounds slightly harsh in the upper mid-high frequencies. Its like the vocals are way brighter than everything else. If you can't hear it then you will probably have a hard time chasing it down so this may all be a moot point. But sweeping a sharp notch on the EQ you could probably find and eliminate it.

Great great song though...you should be proud of this one.
 
Bruthish said:
Again, very very catchy song. The song is heart warming and your voice is great on this. I know your getting a lot of opinions on how it should be mixed and its always subjective to the way the listener wants to hear it(I stole that saying from another user lol)...

So here is my view on the newest mix...

There is still something on the lead vocal that still sounds slightly harsh in the upper mid-high frequencies. Its like the vocals are way brighter than everything else. If you can't hear it then you will probably have a hard time chasing it down so this may all be a moot point. But sweeping a sharp notch on the EQ you could probably find and eliminate it.

Great great song though...you should be proud of this one.
Click to expand...
Hey Brutish - I remixed and reduced the Lead vocal high mids by 2db around 2k with a medium Q.
Here's hoping this sounds better.....Mix #5 in original post.
 
I listened to 'I Do mix for Ken 20150506A 256.mp3'

The balance is good. The main vocal is slightly telephony. Is that what you were aiming at?

The kick's loud enough, but lacks a bit of definition. I'm starting to understand why so much modern mixing adds samples to kicks and snares. (There's not a lot you can do via parallel compression.)

Ken, was that a real piano?
 
I listened to mix #4. The vocal's actually breaking up a bit, isn't it? Was it recorded hot?

Really nice song, though. And nice playing. Really like the piano.
 
Mix 5 is in error state Gerry.
Mix 4 significant improvement with a real solo added.
Bass sounds quite a bit better in this mix.
It's a piano lead tune now - no fighting between keys & guitars.
 
Just listening to mix #4, I like the piano lead, but I'd reduce the piano volume a bit whenever there is singing in the rest of the song, its distracting when it's constantly noodling around while the singing is going on.
 
Just stepped back in to say that I woke up this morning with this song in my head.....so I declare it a hit! Good job
 
dobro said:
I listened to 'I Do mix for Ken 20150506A 256.mp3'

The balance is good. The main vocal is slightly telephony. Is that what you were aiming at?

The kick's loud enough, but lacks a bit of definition. I'm starting to understand why so much modern mixing adds samples to kicks and snares. (There's not a lot you can do via parallel compression.)

Ken, was that a real piano?
Click to expand...

Yes, and no. Originally it was a Kawai 8' grand. It's been (very cleverly) digitized into my CE220. It is impressively accurate on feel, on playability, on sound, and on other things as well that only classically trained pianists would notice. An amazing instrument.
 
mjbphotos said:
Just listening to mix #4, I like the piano lead, but I'd reduce the piano volume a bit whenever there is singing in the rest of the song, its distracting when it's constantly noodling around while the singing is going on.
Click to expand...

Gerry;
Have to agree to this. A -2 or -3dB automation during the verses (choruses aren't real noodley) might just pull focus on the vocal (where, IMO, it should be).

I love mix 5. This sounds ready. I've assumed all along the vocals are what you wanted, but I've seen several comments on them as well. Is the distortion/destruction/whatever part of the recording/time process or is it intentionally done that way? This is only a question as it sounds good the way it is and maybe it's for exactly the reason I assume...that you want a nice smooth song and something has to have a little rasp.
 
BroKen_H said:
Gerry;
Have to agree to this. A -2 or -3dB automation during the verses (choruses aren't real noodley) might just pull focus on the vocal (where, IMO, it should be).

I love mix 5. This sounds ready. I've assumed all along the vocals are what you wanted, but I've seen several comments on them as well. Is the distortion/destruction/whatever part of the recording/time process or is it intentionally done that way? This is only a question as it sounds good the way it is and maybe it's for exactly the reason I assume...that you want a nice smooth song and something has to have a little rasp.
Click to expand...

I'll have a look at the mix this weekend (if I don't have to work again) and see about automating the piano around the vocal lines.
And I'll look at the vocal line to see if I can clear it up a bit.

On another topic....
I created a new bundle in Sonar to back it up last night. When I opened the bundle to check it, the vocal, drums and piano were gone (completely), the piano track contained rhythm guitar and a bunch of tracks were way out of alignment. The audio folder was full of bits and pieces of tracks, old track names, the track named piano played a guitar track, just a friggen mess. I have no idea why, but it's happened to a few projects I bring home from Mike's (same version of Sonar X3).

I did figure out how to fix it though...I saved a full copy of the project folder somewhere else first :) . I "bounced to clips" (option in Sonar) each final track which created new wav files of every track with the latest track name and the word (Bounced) appended to the end. I deleted the unneeded tracks in the Project screen. Then I ran the Clean Audio Folder option, which deleted everything except the bounced tracks. Then I created a bundle of the 7 or 8 files left and it opened perfectly - tracks all right and everything ok.

Bit of a pain to have to bounce everything in order to pack it. Sometimes you just want to bundle what you have while you're working on it - especially if you're still editting and want to bring a copy to a different computer. That and crashing when you nudge a clip are my two biggest complaints about Sonar.
 
Speaking of automating, how are you at sidechaining. The piano could auto dodge if you sidechained to the vocal out...variable via sensitivity.

The bounce problem was what pulled me away from Home Studio and into Reason all these years ago. Glad (sad?) to see they still haven't solved it after 14 years. :(
 
BroKen_H said:
Speaking of automating, how are you at sidechaining. The piano could auto dodge if you sidechained to the vocal out...variable via sensitivity.

The bounce problem was what pulled me away from Home Studio and into Reason all these years ago. Glad (sad?) to see they still haven't solved it after 14 years. :(
Click to expand...

Yes I've used sidechaining a few times so I'll try that first. Sonar has a sidechain compressor in their Pro Channel modules.
 
Latest mix #6 is now in the original post.
I found the problem with the vocals - I was using the wrong plate reverb. It had an adverse affect on clarity.
Did a lot of changes to eq/levels etc. once I found that because it affected everything.
I sidechained the piano to the vocal track so it ducks a few db when the singing is taking place.
Let me know if there's anything you feel needs to be addressed....
 
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