RID Recording Institute of Detroit

[Chili]

Thanks for the suggestion

If you search out your submission and give me a link, on this thread, I'll be happy to critique.

I listened to your Texas tune on the "other music" link you supplied. I couldn't hear the kick drum or bass and the vocals (bkg I believe) were so swamped with reverb I couldn'tunderstand them.

Couple of things to keep in mind for mixing, as taught at RID

1. The most basic definition of a "good" mix is that all of the instruments are heard.
2. Start with the drums and no reverb and make sure all of the components of the traps are heard, more or less evenly. This is an important step because the various parts of the set give you the beat, the 1-2-3-4 of the bar. Usually the foot drum defines 1&3, with the snare the 2&4 and the high hat the eighth notes. The additional soundings, the crash and toms give you accents. All of this is under the heading of guidelines, not absolutes.
3. Add rhythm instruments (rym guitar, bass and any other instrument giving you the main rhythm of the song). Get each of these sounding at the same level as much as possible, mixing so the kick drum is part of the rhythm (hint: Start with the bass and make sure it has equal weight with the kick). Again, you are doing this without reverb.
4. Add your lead instruments, such as vocals, lead guitar, etc. so they have more weight than the rhythm instruments. Get all of these working together without reverb.
5. Your reverb is your "distance" control. More reverb = more distance. Don't treat the reverb as an effect on one thing (like the vocals). Reverb gives you the sence of the instruments being played in a room (rather than all in your lap)

Think of mixing as painting an audio picture of a performance.

After you get the basics, as explained, you can vary things according to taste.

Hope this is helpfull to you.

oldbob

Cool. Thank you very much. A lot of what you said, I've been preaching here for years. Funny how it comes back. I'm surprised you couldn't hear the low end (kick and bass); it sounds good here. Differences in listening environments. I thought I had my room worked out pretty good. I'm gonna have to revisit the acoustics.

Mind me asking what kind of system/room you listened with??

thanks!!

 

[oldbob]

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Thanx - think I got it set up

 

[oldbob]

Cool. Thank you very much. A lot of what you said, I've been preaching here for years. Funny how it comes back. I'm surprised you couldn't hear the low end (kick and bass); it sounds good here. Differences in listening environments. I thought I had my room worked out pretty good. I'm gonna have to revisit the acoustics.

Mind me asking what kind of system/room you listened with??

thanks!!

My how embarrassing. Apparently I have a defective cord on my speaker feed - that was the problem

And I teach that you should listen to a tune you know before starting an audio session.

Now that I'm getting full audio, it sounds a lot better, but here;s some fine points on Lost In Texas:

1. Everything is pretty definite except the bass line. It could use some "bass presence" It could use a bit of 400 Hz and then maybe a slight reduction in 100 Hz to get a bit more definition. I'm thinking EQ with a Q of about one octave (1.4)
2. Your vocals and guitar are clear but sitting there separate from each other and the drums. Rather than changing their direct sound, I would say that the kind of reverb you have (and the amount) could be better. I don't know what you are running - I suspect you are using the same reverb for everything. I usually blend two reverbs like Hall and Plate (or "room") with more hall for the vocal and more plate/room for rhythmn & drums.
3. There seems to be brilliance missing from the cymbals (10-12K) - its possible that they are just mixed a bit low.

Anyway that's what I hear from listening to the result (the MP3 mix)

Take Care

oldbob