Adding some 'spice'

Goldilox

Goldilox

New member
Now this might belong better in the newbie section, but I'm currently mixing down some full band 'live' takes. I'm pretty happy with the performances, although I'm overdubbing the odd vocal, but there's still some magic lacking in the final product. On one track I re-amped the vocal through a guitar amp and suddenly it had that spark I'm after.

I just wondered what everyone here likes to use in the way of subtle or not so subtle effects that might 'lift' my mix either on the vocal or something else?
 
maybe a harmonic exciter or something of the like? BBE makes a nice one, i know there are other better ones, I just don't know who makes them.

hope this helps.

Tyler :)
 
I'm compelled to fall back on the cooking analogy world again here Goldie, but that's kind of like asking about how to season food to make it taste better; it all depends on what food you have and what it needs based upon how it now tastes. I can't tell you to add salt if what you have is already too salty, cayenne pepper would probably be the wrong answer if you're making maple-cinnamon oatmeal, etc.

The question is what exactly is your mix missing? "Spice" or "spark" is too vague of an answer to have any specific meaning for which there are specific answers. Put on your critical/analytical listening hat and listen for just what you feel is wrong with what you have now. It's only in knowing what's wrong that you can tell what is right for correcting it.

G.
 
You're probably right SouthSIDE Glen, but I guess the joy of digital recording is (to return to the cooking analogy) that you can throw in all the chilli in Mexico, taste, and then take it all out again. I'm new enough at all this that i can't always 'hear' it until I actually try it, and i suppose I was looking for ideas of things to throw in the pot. Re-amping that vocal really fixed the blandness of what was supposed to be a dirty rockabilly style tune, but had come out a bit too nice. On another track I added a stock phaser effect called 'my first Stereo TV' to the lead guitar and that did a similar thing of 'saving' a mix that wasn't obviously at fault but just didn't sit right with me.
 
Before we can tell you what the songs need, we need to hear the songs. Post some links.

Stuff I have done in the past:
*Re-amp vocals
*Run snare mics through a guitar distortion pedal
*Set a snare drum next to a speaker, play the recorded snare mic through that speaker, and record the sound of the new snare drum rattling away as the sound blasts into it.
*Record a new *insert instrument* part while the crappy *insert band member* isn't looking.
*Record a measure of hand claps/shaker/cymbal/etc and loop it.
*Do something extreme and tasteless to the 2-buss and mix it back with the original mix...or just leave it extreme and tasteless depending on how shitty the source is.
 
Chibi Nappa said:
Post some links.
Click to expand...

As requested:
Country Blues
Call My Name
Future Blues

These are still not finished mixes - I've just burnt them to a CD to start checking how they sound on other systems.

The original plan was to do a whole album's worth live in our rehearsal space to get something akin to an old blues record. Listening to what we ended up with, and struggling with a bit too much drum bleed in the vocal mic caused me to decide to overdub some vocals.
 
Future Blues works as-is. I'd remove some of the compression. There isn't enough empty space in there. And maybe take a tad of the room 'verb off of the vox (if that's what I'm hearing). But I like that one.

I really like the lack of bass guitar and overkill on the bass drum tubbiness and guitar "mud".

Call My Name is really suffering from the compression/loudness. Maybe the brushes don't work with that sound as well as the sticks do... On top of that, the vocals aren't "with" the music. It feels like the vocals come from a different place. Maybe go back to your original vox take with the drum bleed?



I still need to hear the last one...
 
Thanks for the useful response Chibi :)

The only compression on either track is a 2:1 @ -20db on the master bus, I could reduce the ratio and increase the threshold I guess...

The echo on Future Blues is what was supposed to be the original vocal, which I tried mixing in a little to give the drums some extra room (that's how far they overpower it). It gets a bit obvious at the moments where the vocals are phrased slightly differently, although I'm not sure whether I quite like the effect...

Unfortunately the original vocal on Call my Name was quite badly clipped (almost every woahoa). Although one or of the two live vocals from the first session clip in a couple of places, it was the only one where that's bad enough to spoil the take...I guess i was enjoying myself during the original recording!

The vocal on Future Blues is way way lower in the mix than on Call my name - so I might try that and see if that pulls it together a bit.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I'm compelled to fall back on the cooking analogy world again here Goldie, but that's kind of like asking about how to season food to make it taste better; it all depends on what food you have and what it needs based upon how it now tastes. I can't tell you to add salt if what you have is already too salty, cayenne pepper would probably be the wrong answer if you're making maple-cinnamon oatmeal, etc.

The question is what exactly is your mix missing? "Spice" or "spark" is too vague of an answer to have any specific meaning for which there are specific answers. Put on your critical/analytical listening hat and listen for just what you feel is wrong with what you have now. It's only in knowing what's wrong that you can tell what is right for correcting it.

G.
Click to expand...

I'll take it a step further, and add that so much of it is also based on personal taste.

Through empirical research, I've concluded that pesto sauce does, in fact, taste good on damned near anything, and a good hot sauce isn't far behind. Mustard? I hate the stuff.
 
Goldilox said:
Thanks for the useful response Chibi :)

The only compression on either track is a 2:1 @ -20db on the master bus, I could reduce the ratio and increase the threshold I guess...
Click to expand...

That's actually quite alot (at least it used to be) most of the guides I read a few years back recomended figures between 1.1:1 to 1.5:1 on the master bus, although that may have changed now with the loudness wars gone mad.
 
benage said:
That's actually quite alot (at least it used to be) most of the guides I read a few years back recomended figures between 1.1:1 to 1.5:1 on the master bus, although that may have changed now with the loudness wars gone mad.
Click to expand...
Loudness wars and all that aside, it's next to impossible to meaningfully talk about the compression ratio without also talking about the threshold. And when talking about the threshold in digital (dBFS) terms, the strength of the signal matters some too.

In the OPs case, that's indeed quite a smash. For your average digital master bus sum, 2:1 @ -20dBFS means that pretty much the entire crest factor of the signal is being cut in half. More if the signal is already on the hot/compressed side.

On a live recording that should not be anywhere near necessary, IMHO. While live recordings can often be overly dynamic if the tracks are grabbed direct and before any live compression used for the PA, that should mostly be taken care of on the track level during mixing, if not during tracking. Plus the 10dB or so of makeup gain that's probably used after the 2:1 master compression will tend to bring up all the noise and low-level smudge usually associated with live signals.

That alone might be enough to mask any "spice" that the recording may have.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Loudness wars and all that aside, it's next to impossible to meaningfully talk about the compression ratio without also talking about the threshold.
Click to expand...

Sorry, yeah forgot that part! I think they'd usually recommend a 'low' threshold with those figures, somewhere in the -20 -30 dBFS range, or so bulk of signal is getting compressed.
 
whatever you do to polish the final mix be sure your doing it in small accruements...its all to easy to get addicted to stereo expanders and exciters etc and totally fuck up what you're doing


I've no idea how I know that..it just came to me <whistle>
 
benage said:
Sorry, yeah forgot that part! I think they'd usually recommend a 'low' threshold with those figures, somewhere in the -20 -30 dBFS range, or so bulk of signal is getting compressed.
Click to expand...
This is only a guideline. Do not take these number values to actually mean anything and do not file any of this in your "always do/never do" folder:

On a 2-buss, if your ratio is high (for a 2-buss... something like 2:1 or higher), then you want a high threshold. If the signal peaks at -6, set the threshold a few db lower than -6. If the signal peaks at -10, set the threshold a few bd lower than -10. It all depends on how hot your uncompressed signal is. A threshold of -20 is light for a signal that peaks at -17. The same threshold of -20 is brutal for a signal that peaks at -4.

If your ratio is lower (1.2:1 or something like that), then you can set a threshold way below the signal peaks.

But a high ratio with a low threshold will sound severe on a 2-buss.
 
benage said:
When anyone talks about crest factors all I'm really thinking about is this:
View attachment 62247
Click to expand...
:). Then think about what the OP is winding up with as this:

crest_half.jpg


:D

G.
 
Ok see if you good folks think these are an improvement. Future Blues I've just eased up the compression. On 'call my name' I've pulled the vocals back a little and pushed the drums up a tad to give it a bit more drive. Thanks for all of your help so far :-)

Call My Name

Future Blues
 
Just had a short listen CallMyNameMix5...

Just two things in my opinion: either use less distortion on the rhythm guitars or sticks on drums...

IMHO, vox is now a little hard to understand. You might add a second copy of the vox that is compressed. It might be necessary though, to avoid comb filtering to run the uncompressed track through a compressor, too, but to set up the comp so that it does nothing (but gives you the same delay time for that channel).

You might do a search on

'the exciting compressor' or 'new york compression'. At the moment I think the voice sits 'too deep' in the mix :)

YMMV, though,

aXel
 
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