How to create different moods from similar recordings

RAMI said:
What you want to accomplish should be tackled in the tracking stage. It's the playing, the speed, the dynamics,the delivery, etc...that make a song "mellow" or not. Like Boulder said, it's too late to try to create a mood by the time you get to mixing.

Many bands use the same gear to record, yet still manage to create different moods. It's about the tune, the playing, etc....

"Stairway to Heaven", "Misty Mountain Hop", and "Black Dog" are all on the same album, are played using the same instruments, probably all recorded in the same studio by the same musicians. Yet, they all have completely different moods to them.

I think you're making a typical noob mistake by hoping there are "tricks" and "secrets" that go on in the studio to create what should be created right at the source, AKA by the musicians and their instruments.
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Very good example. Id say you can create slightly different mixes but other than replacing tracks altogether, like a dance mix, you aren't going to alter the original mood of the song very much.
 
Everybody's doing the Maxwell House shake !

Maxwelllll said:
The problem is I would like one song to be a lot more mellow than another song, but still retaining the same sort of sound. How can i achieve this through the mixing alone? The recordings are done with the same setup on amps and everything, as i still want it to have the gainy guitar sound.

How would I go about achieving this?

Don't Cry by Deerhunter is the sort of sound i would like from the mellower track - it has a focus on gainy guitars but sounds rather mellow. What steps should I take to try and get a mix like that from the track i have?




Would one way of doing it simply be to turn down all instruments and turn up vocals?
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Armistice said:
But as everyone is pointing out, this means going back to the source and getting it right there, and also knowing what you want to do ahead of time...
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Armistice said:
1. You're using a guitar sound that has a reasonable degree of high end to it, which makes it sound a bit harsher. Try using a different distortion device.

2. You're always going to struggle to get a song to sound mellow with that level of snare drum action that kicks in regularly... it's just not mellow drumming.

3. The pace of the song doesn't really suggest mellow either.
4. Add some bass - this will make it seem less harsh as there's no bottom end happening there - again, that makes everything a bit brittle

5. Pan - everything's in the centre... hits you in the head. Turn the gain down and double track and stick them either side, or (gasp - heresy) move the guitar off to one side - have a close listen to Deerhunter and you'll see it's not in the centre.



7. Deerhunter's "vibe" is also somewhat dependent upon the voice. You don't have a voice yet...

8. Some of the guitaring is quite discordant in the noisier section - makes it difficult to be mellow - not impossible, but difficult.

I can see where you're trying to go... it's not impossible.
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RAMI said:
What you want to accomplish should be tackled in the tracking stage. It's the playing, the speed, the dynamics,the delivery, etc...that make a song "mellow" or not. Like Boulder said, it's too late to try to create a mood by the time you get to mixing.

Many bands use the same gear to record, yet still manage to create different moods. It's about the tune, the playing, etc....

"Stairway to Heaven", "Misty Mountain Hop", and "Black Dog" are all on the same album, are played using the same instruments, probably all recorded in the same studio by the same musicians. Yet, they all have completely different moods to them.

I think you're making a typical noob mistake by hoping there are "tricks" and "secrets" that go on in the studio to create what should be created right at the source, AKA by the musicians and their instruments.
Click to expand...
When one thinks 'mellow', the mood is calm. Now, that calm can be pregnant with tension and menace {think "Every breath you take" or parts of "Bohemian Rhapsody"} and there can be dynamically loud bits to punctuate certain parts of the song. But mellow songs are controlled in quite a disciplined way ~ they're sometimes actually harder to play. In the second song, the one you say you want to be the mellow one, pretty much every aspect presented militates against mellowness as Armistice points out. I actually like it as is but the last thing it inspires is a feeling of mellowness. The drums are excitable, the guitars are fizzing, discordant and improvisatory in a Syd Barrett circa '67 kind of way. The track as is makes me want to jump and rock my head and throw ludo counters all over the place and drive at 85 MPH......
Sometimes through wonderful accidents, songs don't turn out as intended but if the intention is something mellow {even allowing for the vocal, melodica and bass to come}, I'd echo much of what's been said and start over with discipline. For example, the tone of the guitars is less the problem, it's the way they're played ~ along with the drums they're like the musical equivalent of a teenager making out for the first time, barely able to contain themselves. For mellow, they need to "age" by 20 years into controlled maturity, if you catch my drift. Panning is a useful tool in the mellowness stakes with the effects earlier mentioned, because it helps 'spread out' the sound.
RAMI's point is really worth looking at again. The three songs he mentions come from a fantastic album and they were {along with most of the other songs} all done with basically the same set up ~ but the moods of the songs were decided before the record button was ever hit. That was one thing I always used to point out to people that would criticise many of the heavy bands I liked ~ actually, they were extremely diverse and the setting of different moods (often within the same song) was key to why they were good.
 
grimtraveller said:
When one thinks 'mellow', the mood is calm. Now, that calm can be pregnant with tension and menace {think "Every breath you take" or parts of "Bohemian Rhapsody"} and there can be dynamically loud bits to punctuate certain parts of the song. But mellow songs are controlled in quite a disciplined way ~ they're sometimes actually harder to play. In the second song, the one you say you want to be the mellow one, pretty much every aspect presented militates against mellowness as Armistice points out. I actually like it as is but the last thing it inspires is a feeling of mellowness. The drums are excitable, the guitars are fizzing, discordant and improvisatory in a Syd Barrett circa '67 kind of way. The track as is makes me want to jump and rock my head and throw ludo counters all over the place and drive at 85 MPH......
Sometimes through wonderful accidents, songs don't turn out as intended but if the intention is something mellow {even allowing for the vocal, melodica and bass to come}, I'd echo much of what's been said and start over with discipline. For example, the tone of the guitars is less the problem, it's the way they're played ~ along with the drums they're like the musical equivalent of a teenager making out for the first time, barely able to contain themselves. For mellow, they need to "age" by 20 years into controlled maturity, if you catch my drift. Panning is a useful tool in the mellowness stakes with the effects earlier mentioned, because it helps 'spread out' the sound.
RAMI's point is really worth looking at again. The three songs he mentions come from a fantastic album and they were {along with most of the other songs} all done with basically the same set up ~ but the moods of the songs were decided before the record button was ever hit. That was one thing I always used to point out to people that would criticise many of the heavy bands I liked ~ actually, they were extremely diverse and the setting of different moods (often within the same song) was key to why they were good.
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Thank you so much for your reply. You're absolutely right in every sense. I think i might try to record two different versions of this song actually: one mellow as it sounds in my head, and the other as it is now.
 
Hey guys, thought i'd report back after finishing. Here is a link to the finished product, I am quite pleased with how the track in question, 'Revolving Doors' turned out, so thanks for your help!

Boring Girls
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I can hear the limiter on the master bus dip the volume with every bass drum hit.
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I know the recordings aren't perfect because i'm not at all experienced with mixing and I had some problems when I imported all the audio files into the same project to work on the transitions between tracks. What's the best course of action to keep the levels good here?
 
Maxwelllll said:
I know the recordings aren't perfect because i'm not at all experienced with mixing and I had some problems when I imported all the audio files into the same project to work on the transitions between tracks. What's the best course of action to keep the levels good here?
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The simple answer is to not finalize it so loud. But if that's something you feel is necessary then maybe go into the tracks and limit things individually; or try different limiter settings, a different limiter or several limiters stacked.
 
Ok, I think in my excitement I rushed the final stages with limiters. I'll have to make sure next time I spend a bit more time on that. I was worried that the tracks wouldn't be loud enough as that was normally the problem when I used limiters, so I just tried to get them as loud as possible.
 
Also i'd really appreciate some help with the whole idea of bitcrushing. I bitcrushed the vocals as I really like the effect it gives, but by doing that a layer of noise is added to the vocals that is impossible to tame. Is there any alternative effect that gives the same outcome as bitcrushing? Or is there any way to limit to noise it produces so I can add the noise in a more controlled way?
 
That track seemed very clipped / distorted.

Noise will always be an issue. Mixing multiple tracks makes the noise cumulative. With the usual solution of using gear that has minimal noise at the input stage.

Or other more exotic tricks like two matched mics as close as possible. Then invert one track, and mix together to extract the noise floor, then invert that result and mix it back with the original track to get a track with a much reduced noise floor. Not a perfect solution and it depends on a lot of factors if it even works. Same chain, matched mics, OMNI better than cardioid, mic elements as close as possible, same orientation, stacked vertically, yada yada yada. If it weren't for the lack of a stereo image since I only have two matched mics, I could learn to love this technique. But I generally find mono tracks more hideous than a stereo one with a high noise floor. Since most of our out in the real world conditions are not quiet studio environments, the noise floor (unmixed) goes relatively unnoticed by most. Within reason. But I grew up with cassette tapes where hiss was a given and the gold standard.
 
Maxwelllll said:
Also i'd really appreciate some help with the whole idea of bitcrushing. I bitcrushed the vocals as I really like the effect it gives, but by doing that a layer of noise is added to the vocals that is impossible to tame. Is there any alternative effect that gives the same outcome as bitcrushing? Or is there any way to limit to noise it produces so I can add the noise in a more controlled way?
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Lowering the noise floor is the main benefit of higher bit count (word length, actually), so it stands to reason that reduced bits raises the noise floor.

Try mixing a bit-crushed copy of the track with the original.
 
Shadow_7 said:
That track seemed very clipped / distorted.

Noise will always be an issue. Mixing multiple tracks makes the noise cumulative. With the usual solution of using gear that has minimal noise at the input stage.

Or other more exotic tricks like two matched mics as close as possible. Then invert one track, and mix together to extract the noise floor, then invert that result and mix it back with the original track to get a track with a much reduced noise floor. Not a perfect solution and it depends on a lot of factors if it even works. Same chain, matched mics, OMNI better than cardioid, mic elements as close as possible, same orientation, stacked vertically, yada yada yada. If it weren't for the lack of a stereo image since I only have two matched mics, I could learn to love this technique. But I generally find mono tracks more hideous than a stereo one with a high noise floor. Since most of our out in the real world conditions are not quiet studio environments, the noise floor (unmixed) goes relatively unnoticed by most. Within reason. But I grew up with cassette tapes where hiss was a given and the gold standard.
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I really wish I could appreciate your advice more but it is incredibly confusing. I have to apologize for being a bit hopeless.

bouldersoundguy said:
Lowering the noise floor is the main benefit of higher bit count (word length, actually), so it stands to reason that reduced bits raises the noise floor.

Try mixing a bit-crushed copy of the track with the original.
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That is not a bad idea. Do you mean the vocal track (the only track i bitcrushed) or the song as a whole?
 
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