Advice on this mix?

If I haven't given enough detail, this song is 2 takes of acoustic guitar, mic'd in stereo with one SDC pointed at the bridge and the other at the 12th fret of the neck. The vocals are done on about 5 different tracks, layered at points throughout the song. This is one of my first times working with a vocalist, and I found the dynamic range of the voice to be difficult to work with after the tracking was complete. In hindsight I will be more conscious of having the singer move towards the mic for the softer parts and moving away for the louder parts. To compensate, I tried to automate the main vocal bus for those parts, but likely still have work to do there. I'm trying to focus on making the vocals sound bigger in the mix, as when I had one lead vocal track panned up the middle it sounded quite weak, so I've been experimenting with reverb busses panned differently. I have done very little to the guitars after tracking, just some very small EQing here and there, trying to ensure that it sits well in the mix with the vocals.

Any feedback and advice that I could receive would go along way...I'm not worried about my feelings getting hurt, I just want to focus on becoming more skilled at mixing.

Many thanks
 
1) The overall volume of the track is really quiet
2) I think you should mess with the acoustic guitars more. They sound way too plain. EQ them a bit more and maybe add some reverb?
3) I think the lower octave of the vocals should be way quieter and the lead vocals should go up. They also sound a bit dry.
 
Man, the guitars are sounding great - nothing flashy with the processing, but the frequency balance is great and the panning gives a lot of depth to the sound. A bit more reverb would probably help, but I like the fairly dry take.

As far as the vocals are concerned, I think adding reverb and a panned delay would really flesh out the sound while not detracting too much from the simplicity (possibly also a touch of compression to even out the dynamics). In particular, the humming at the beginning would benefit from a strong dose of reverb. It sounds like the primary vocals are missing some of the low-to-mid frequency range (it sounds like they've been run through a highpass filter or high-shelf that are a bit too aggressively effecting the sound). The lower vocals sound much stronger eq-wise and feel a lot more present than the main vocals when both are going at once. On a busier mix it makes sense to have the primary vocals weighted that heavily to the higher frequency, but when there's not a ton of competing frequencies I think letting the lower frequencies of the vocals through gives a much stronger delivery and greater realism.

But I think overall the mix really works. The layering of vocals is nice and brings a lot of focus without relying upon processing.
 
What DAW are you using?

Place a De-Esser on the vocal tracks, it gets rid of that harsh SSSS and T sound when sung.

In terms of fixing the dynamic range, if you insert a compressor into the chain, it automatically controls the dynamic range.

Screen Shot 2013-03-13 at 01.44.59.png
Play the track at roughly a part where you think the vocals are at a comfortable level and set your threshold so it just starts compressing at that level.
The ratio is how much compression is applied, so 3:1 would mean that for every 3dB over the threshold, the output of the compressor will only be 1dB over the threshold limit. I don't find it uncommon to use a ratio of 7 or 8:1 for vocalists with a huge dynamic range.
Attack and Release are just how quick the compressor reacts to the sound going over the threshold and you should control that completely to taste.

The vocals are very mid-centric sounding for me (a lot going on between 2-4Khz), if you cut about 2-3dB in that region, they should sound more natural and should allow you to turn them up to sit in the mix better.

Guitars sound great. If you add a small hall reverb to everything, it should also allow it to blend in better!

If that's one of your first mixes then well done, it's far better than anything I had achieved in my first recordings!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top