Recent "Rescue" operation

Blue Bear Sound

Blue Bear Sound

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My brother's Jazz trio cut a demo at a local studio (one that was equipped with a Grand Piano for the keyboard player), and was sorely disappointed with the resultant mix -- the keyboard player is the one who produced the demo and was there on the mixdown (he's a rookie)......

Anyways, he played it for me and I couldn't believe how badly the mix was mangled - piano too low in the mix, drums were mushy, bass was boomy, everything was muddy........ my brother asked if there was anything I could do to save it... (I just smiled and took a copy of the CD!)

Here's a sample track - the original and the mastered version:
(dig the drum solo towards the end of the cut - that's my bro!!)

Original

Mastered


Bruce
 
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and it's crispier too....doesn't get soggy sitting in the milk so quickly!
Musically, not really any empty spots for just the three dudes. I liked that.

so...does this 'other' local studio charge more or less than you?...and what do they use?

(damn jazzers just hate that MIDI pno...eh?):rolleyes:
 
mixmkr said:
so...does this 'other' local studio charge more or less than you?...and what do they use?
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I believe that studio is mostly a PT shop.......... as well, I just looked, their hourly is actually cheaper than mine! (hmmm... they must've changed that recently, 'cos they used to be double my rate!)

Bryan's group would have come to Blue Bear Sound except for the fact that I don't have a grand piano available! (picky, picky...!!!) ;)

Of course the irony is that they wanted a real grand piano, then the engineer butchered the sound in the mix!


Bruce
 
I thought that the original mix was pretty good. Nice tracking and mixing. I wish I could get my stuff to sound that good.

The mastered mix actually managed to improve it noticeably. It sounded more polished, present, clear etc.

The most important thing is the piece though. THats some seriously fine music.

Kudos.
 
Yeah, they are some fine players....... a few errors on the piano here and there, but it's pretty impressive playing all around!

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention... the bass player was around 19/20 at the time, and the piano player was 17/18........ and my bro's 32......!!!

:eek:


Here's another clip that bass-players especially will appreciate:

bass-solo track
 
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Suh-wheet

Thanks.

It seems hard to find jazz these days that is't replaced with sythesized instruments or is just plain too weird. Of course I don't look too hard...
 
good job, Bruce. The mastered one does sound alot more polished and better in many other ways that I can't describe with my limited knowledge.

Now, if you could, can you roughly share with us what you did to the mix? Some eq'in of course, and??

ps. You didn't get the individual tracks, just the song on the CD, right?

AL
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
Yeah, they are some fine players....... a few errors on the piano here and there, but it's pretty impressive playing all around!
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you damn techies and your quest for perfectness... lol... life ain't perfect man and nothing in it should be...

I think same goes for audio tracks... There needs to be a few errors here and there or else it just looses its natural feel and becomes so mechanical... I don't mean purposeful errors or huge ones, just subtle small errors that I maybe could've played better, but my view is thats life and 3/4 the people that are listening aren't gonna know I messed up anyways... give the cuts and more "live" feel to them anyhow...

well I didn't get a chance to listen to em yet (back home on 56K... ughh!) but I'll be sure to download em some time this week I hope.
 
A1A2 said:
Now, if you could, can you roughly share with us what you did to the mix? Some eq'in of course, and??
Click to expand...
Sure... very roughly, here's what I did:

- twisted some knobs
- listened to it
- made a funny face as I realized I fucked with it too much
- turned the knobs back
- listened again
- screwed my face up again making that funny face
- fucked with more knobs this time
- repeated that a couple more times
- when I stopped making funny faces, I knew I'd done it!

;)

:D :D
 
A1A2 said:
ps. You didn't get the individual tracks, just the song on the CD, right?
Click to expand...
Believe me, I wanted the original tracks - at least then it would have been mixed right! ...but I couldn't get them, the studio had already disposed of them.... (the piano player cut a demo deal, which didn't include copies of the original tracks...)
 
" twisted some knobs
- listened to it
- made a funny face as I realized I fucked with it too much
- turned the knobs back
- listened again
- screwed my face up again making that funny face
- fucked with more knobs this time
- repeated that a couple more times
- when I stopped making funny faces, I knew I'd done it!"


After all the time I have spent reading and researching trying to figure out the "secrets of mastering" it comes down to this........fuck!

Seriously,Bruce,you did an excellent job especially with the bottom end.I have a little set of Altec Lansing multimedia speakers with this puffy sounding little subwoofer and a bunch of munchkin sized satelites on my internet pc.The original had so much mudiness to the bottom I couldn't even tell the drums from the bass most of the time.The mastered version's drums came out of the mix to where I could hear them much more clearly and the bass was much more defined.


Great job!
 
I guess mastering is something that I shouldn't mess with at this level. But, I will sure try those faces and see what they do to my recordings :)

AL
 
since no one else is willing to give it a stab here goes:

1) bruce's master has more stereo than the original. you can really hear it most in the separation of the cymbals and toms and less so than in the stereo mic'd piano which is a shame since it's a 3-piece band. i wouldn't have done any better (and i've tried), but it's easier to critique than to engineer.

2) bruce's version has more high end than the original. in the original you can barely hear the drum intro (mostly hats and cymbals) blending in with the piano before the bass comes in and the drummer hits the pocket. the high end boost also makes the bass solo shine...

edited note: which according to my spec analyzer is correct, what a great ear i have!

3) he must have used a high pass filter because the kick and bass is less flabby, i'm thinking 70hz with a pretty steep shelf...

edited note: which according to my spec analyzer I am wrong about... what a crappy ear i have!

4) bruce's version is also compressed and louder. me thinks he used a multi-band compressor and then a peak limiter.

btw, bruce your brother can really play. his solo kept the essentials of the pocket going while filling at the same time. the piano player fat fingered it quite a bit at 4m:20secs but who cares, it's a well done tune.

there's a howlin' wolf tune called wang-wang doodle or something to that affect where the band obviously missing it's queue after the first verse. it's wrong but when you listen to it, you start to listen for it.

i broke out my classical and joined the band.
 
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