First mix on Logic pro

[Brenton]

I recently switched my setup from a long time sonar user to logic pro and i attempted to remix one of our songs we recorded in a pro studio in 2016. I didn't automate any of the vocal levels because I'm lazy but it was still decent enough that it didn't hurt my ears. I decided to create the song from scratch rather than use the recorded parts from the original.



Making A Way by Brenton Fernandez | Free Listening on SoundCloud



Heres the original track:
YouTube

 

[keith.rogers]

I honestly preferred the original mix mainly because, while I probably make mixes with forward vocals, this was a little too much for me. I thought the introduction of the vocal line after just a little instrumental intro (as in the video) worked better.

Delay on the vocal track was too noticeable for my taste, but maybe if the vocal had been down a bit and in the mix all the time it might not have struck me that way.

It was hard to compare because of the different levels - what loudness do you finalize your SC mixes to?

 

[Brenton]

Thanks for checkin it out! I know what you're saying about the vocals being hot in the verses and intro along with an abundance of delay. My original plan was to automate the vocals to be well blended in the intro and verses and keep close to the same level in the chorus. Also to decrease the delay to an almost unnoticeable amount in the areas where the vocal is more isolated. I don't normally push tracks this hard in terms of loudness but i finally got a new version of ozone and I ended up putting that on the master bus to see it's workings and such! I also had to use flex pitch built in to logic to fix vocal pitch issues since I didn't get all the plugins installed I needed to yet. Not really crazy about how it worked on parts of the vocals. I still have quite a few things to learn on logic before I get a really good mix out of it!

Are you a logic user as well?

Heres the amplitude stats on the track:

 

[keith.rogers]

I do use Logic Pro X.

I get lazy about using Ozone in my "quick mixes" (i.e., on the master bus) that I send out for review, e.g., to see if there's anything there that someone might want me to use for a video, but if you subscribe to the iZotope mailings (or read anything at all about mastering), that's a practice that's generally frowned on - almost as bad as trying to master your own mixes .

You probably want to get familiar with the LUFS levels that are considered the norms for some of the major distribution sites. Last I read, YouTube was basically enforcing -14dB LUFS, and iTunes does -17dB (!), so your mix is quite "hot" for those standards. If you put that on the video your original was on, and posted it on YT, they'd dial it back about -7dB, which would be a different experience for the listener. (Slap a utility Gain plug on that track and see how it sounds.)

And, yes, I'm talking panning with the guitars.

 

[Brenton]

Thats interesting about the levels! I had no idea youtube and iTunes have a standard at those levels! Where have I been? I did have one problem with this project that I couldn't get past though. My midi controller which is a Yamaha mx49 (newer blue edition) kept doubling the midi notes in the software synths. Every time I would record a part and either quantize or trim it, the same note would be below the note I just trimmed. I'd end up deleting the top note but it got annoying. I searched through different forums and such, tried different things but still came up without a solution.