Final Mix Questions

I would guess that your monitoring setup is bass heavy because the mixes seem lacking in lows and a bit brash in the highs. Also, both tracks are mastered really loud and are clipping quite a bit.

Workin' Man loudness.jpg
 
Welcome to the forum. Glad you decided to stop lurking and start posting. I hope you'll take time to listen and comment on tracks others have posted.

Working man: I agree with the previous post--brash mids, too little bass, not much dynamic range. You may have overdone the compression or limiting. I thought I heard clipping going on. The song, arrangement, performance, and especially vocals are really good. It's kind of odd to hear the dobro on the left so in-your-face while the vocal is a bit more wet and in the background. Maybe this was a conscious decision. My preference would be for a drier vocal sound.

Seventeen: Very similar comments, actually. Good song, excellent guitar playing. Way too much compression on the mix. Definitely this one is clipping. Again, your guitars are fighting with the vocals. I'd prefer to hear the vocals up front and drier. The bass sounded fine in the beginning, but as soon the full instrumentation comes in, it gets pushed to the back. I think the compression is taking all its punch.

Good to see another contributor on the forum working in a country-inflected style. I've done one lately, though it is not my usual style. FoulPhil has several tracks up in the same vein.
 
Agree with the guys above, although I think maybe its not that your monitoring system is bass heavy (mixing with headphones maybe) but that all the mids (and most of the bass) have scooped out. I can still hear the bass guitar, and the kick is back there, but everything else sounds tinny.
 
I've been having that problem alot lately, how do i fix it? The mids are the problem really. I did pull down the low end for some reason, just can't seem to get a handle on the mids
 
I'm curious how you ended up with such a loud track. Is that just how you mixed it or do you do some kind of main bus processing or do you master the track as a separate step? Is there an overall eq anywhere in there?
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I'm curious how you ended up with such a loud track. Is that just how you mixed it or do you do some kind of main bus processing or do you master the track as a separate step? Is there an overall eq anywhere in there?
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that was me pushing a limiter too hard, that's all. Its more dynamic when softer and not pushing so hard, I'm just wondering how in the world to get the harshess out of the 2-5k without it sounding dull. I have no clue
 
I thought the singing and playing was good.

The slide guitar and the vocal have a lot of energy in the 2k-3k range. It makes them a bit hard on the ears. That, combined with the intense limiting makes it a little hard to listen to. I think that, with a little breathing room, the song could have a real cool feel to it.

At :57 I can hear the slide guitar "slide over" to the left. I know you're tyring to make room on the right, but I could hear the movement. Heard it in another spot or two.

The bass sounds good.

Little pitch issue around 1:09.

Snare drum sound OK. I'm having trouble hearing the kick. The cymbals are a little harsh and hissy. The drums are a little narrow.
 
TripleM said:
I thought the singing and playing was good.

The slide guitar and the vocal have a lot of energy in the 2k-3k range. It makes them a bit hard on the ears. That, combined with the intense limiting makes it a little hard to listen to. I think that, with a little breathing room, the song could have a real cool feel to it.

At :57 I can hear the slide guitar "slide over" to the left. I know you're tyring to make room on the right, but I could hear the movement. Heard it in another spot or two.

The bass sounds good.

Little pitch issue around 1:09.

Snare drum sound OK. I'm having trouble hearing the kick. The cymbals are a little harsh and hissy. The drums are a little narrow.
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the funny thing is that I only have a two track drum to work with. one room mic/snare mic and a kick mic So thats pretty limiting in itsself. Cool thanks so much thouhgh, i'm doing that right now. You guys rock!
 
Huge improvement! This mix has a groove to it that comes from all the instruments being heard and working together. I can feel the bass pumping now, where before it was buried by all the compression and distortion. What I would work on next would be making your lyrics easier to understand. It's not necessarily about turning up the level of the vocals. I'd start by soloing the vocal, loading an EQ plugin, and sweeping through the frequencies to identity the high-midrange frequencies that make the lyrics more distinct. Note those frequencies down. See what happens if you make small reductions around those frequencies in other tracks. You should find that by reducing the conflicts in those frequencies, your vocals become clearer. Keep in mind, I am no expert. I'm just learning this stuff myself.
 
I listened to that last remix. I didn't listen to the first version of that song. But it's a better sounding mix than the version of Working Man I listened to yesterday. It's not heavily limited, which is a help.

The playing is real nice. The vocal sounds cool. A hint of a lo-fi/telephone voice. And it worked well here.

The guitars are still a little abrasive. They're lacking some low end and low mid-range. The same can be said of the harmonica too.

Pretty big pop at 2:32.

I like the acoustic guitar licks near the end.
 
I like that Workin Man track. The vocals and slide sound great. The main thing is to get a good recording up front, i.e. in a nice room without a lot of echoes and too many hard surfaces. Then you won't need to EQ much down the track
 
Hi there! Just listened to "name is something" - cool song and some great guitar playing in there, good grooves and nice feel with the subtle vocal delivery. I like the subdued enunciation - gives it a feel that matches the lyrics. A couple of notes:

- acoustic on left side sounds a bit loud.
- harp is a little bright.
- i totally dig the overall kit sound with the ride and backbeat snare hits. however during the section of just snare it sounds thin. Did you cut lows out of the snare mic? cool that you did it with 2 mics.

Paul
 
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