A/B Challenge

  • Thread starter Thread starter ecktronic
  • Start date Start date
Hey Eck, call me crazy, but I like the A mix better.

The B mix just sounds like you mastered it, rather than remixed it. It's louder and fatter, but not necessarily a better mix.

Guitars and drums sound better on the first one, IMHO.

But what do I know? :D

Thanks for sharing though. Band sounds like Tool. ;)

Chris
 
Cheers for your input.
None of the mixes have been mastered.
Yeah B is fatter, I also beleive its alot clearer, although I think the low end is eating upthe mid range a good bit. Might wait to let the ME take care of that as its hard to judge low end on my syste,.

Cheers,
Eck
 
bigmahon said:
The B mix just sounds like you mastered it, rather than remixed it. It's louder and fatter, but not necessarily a better mix.

Chris
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Dang, I meant to make the mixes the same volume bah!
A is -15dB RMS and B is -14dB RMS. Enought to make a noticeable difference although I think B is also percieved as louder from the way I used EQ.

Eck
 
Damn, A didn't sound bad at all. B definitely sounds cleaer and more open and more 'commercial' sounding. I don't know how much 'better' B is, but it definitely sounds more polished.
 
Greg_L said:
Damn, A didn't sound bad at all. B definitely sounds cleaer and more open and more 'commercial' sounding. I don't know how much 'better' B is, but it definitely sounds more polished.
Click to expand...
Thanks Greg.
I really hate the sound of A. It is really muddy, the bass guitar sounds really dead, like wooden or something! And the drums lack punch and clarity.
The vocals have tooo much unwanted ambience also. :) And guitars sound like mush. :P

Cheers for listening.
Eck
 
No contest, B is significantly better.

A has absolutely no depth at all, no bottom to it, and is fairly narrow.

You still have a ways to go, but a HUGE improvement. I would say your biggest weakness in the mix B is the vocal. It is not all that much better than A. It seems kind of small compared to the rest of the mix. It fits in mix A, but falls short in the B mix.
 
NL5 said:
No contest, B is significantly better.

A has absolutely no depth at all, no bottom to it, and is fairly narrow.

You still have a ways to go, but a HUGE improvement. I would say your biggest weakness in the mix B is the vocal. It is not all that much better than A. It seems kind of small compared to the rest of the mix. It fits in mix A, but falls short in the B mix.
Click to expand...
Cheers NL5.
The vox sound alot better in B as we made a vocal booth for that recording.
But I knwo what you mean.
Do you ahve any tips tp fatten up the vox?
Ive used, almost inaudible delays aswell as more obvious delays, and I sent the track to another track with EQ with no lo or hi end, and tucked underneath.
I like the whole mid range sound,
But if you have any tips Id love to hear them.

Cheers.
Eck
 
ecktronic said:
Cheers NL5.
The vox sound alot better in B as we made a vocal booth for that recording.
But I knwo what you mean.
Do you ahve any tips tp fatten up the vox?
Ive used, almost inaudible delays aswell as more obvious delays, and I sent the track to another track with EQ with no lo or hi end, and tucked underneath.
I like the whole mid range sound,
But if you have any tips Id love to hear them.

Cheers.
Eck
Click to expand...

Hard to say without having the tracks in front of me.

Also, you said you liked the whole "Mid range" only sound. Maybe that's ok then. Not sure how to get them to sit better.

If it were me, I would go for a fuller sound with some verb on it. Maybe try a dual delay/pitch shift brought up subtlety underneath? That would fatten and widen it out. I would definitely eq in some weight to it, but that might not be what you are looking for.

Also, they vox tracks have a lo-fi graininess about them - not sure if that is an effect, or a product of how they are recorded.
 
ecktronic said:
Cheers for your input.
None of the mixes have been mastered.
Yeah B is fatter, I also beleive its alot clearer, although I think the low end is eating upthe mid range a good bit. Might wait to let the ME take care of that as its hard to judge low end on my syste,.

Cheers,
Eck
Click to expand...
Eck - I agree with your observations above. Other than the low end, the B mix is definitely better and cleaner.

:) :) :) :)
 
NL5 said:
Hard to say without having the tracks in front of me.

Also, you said you liked the whole "Mid range" only sound. Maybe that's ok then. Not sure how to get them to sit better.

If it were me, I would go for a fuller sound with some verb on it. Maybe try a dual delay/pitch shift brought up subtlety underneath? That would fatten and widen it out. I would definitely eq in some weight to it, but that might not be what you are looking for.

Also, they vox tracks have a lo-fi graininess about them - not sure if that is an effect, or a product of how they are recorded.
Click to expand...
We used an NT2 into a ART tube pre amp for the vocals. Not the best equipment by any means!! But I thought they sounded nice recorded. Smooth ,low noise, and somewhat detailed. Although with NT2s the high end can sound a bit harsh, is that what you mean?

For the verses I was going for the mid range effect. I brought the mid range vox track up and brought the normal one down, For the chorsuses I did the opposite so the vox was fatter for the choruses. I could always try out doubling and pitchshifting slightly like you say.

Yeah there is reverb on the vox, but for some reason I cant get a beleiveable reverb sound sometime when mixing this style of music. I can usually hear a delay that makes it sound like it was recorded in a small room. Im pretty sure I know how to work the Waves R-Verb, but sometimes the reverbs sound crappy and unnatural.

Cheers man,
Eck
 
ido1957 said:
Eck - I agree with your observations above. Other than the low end, the B mix is definitely better and cleaner.

:) :) :) :)
Click to expand...
Do you think that the low end is too much in B?
I find it hard to judge with my setup. I dont think the low end has that boomy sound, I belive its pretty controled, but at the same time I think there might be too much in the sub low end around 20-80Hz.
Im trying to go for the commercial sound, and they dont have much activity in the sub low end, more so in the low end around 100-280Hz.
But that range can make mixes sounds real muddy and boomy.

I just dont understand what Im doing wrong to not be able to get the same low end as say Deftones.

Cheers,
Eck
 
did you record it again? it sounds like you just remixed it. anyway b is definatley better, but the snare sounds a little funny, distorted?
 
Is it the same source material?
Was the snare top and bottom mic'd? Because the second mix sounds like the bottom snare mic is riding too hard.
Obviously the guitars in the second mix sound much better, the first mix sounds like the mids were scooped out.
 
elly-d said:
did you record it again? it sounds like you just remixed it. anyway b is definatley better, but the snare sounds a little funny, distorted?
Click to expand...
No I tottaly re-recorded it. Mix A is faster than mix B if you listen carefully.
The recorded tracks were better in B than A, aswell as for the mixing.
Ill look into the snare distortion, not sure what It could be. No peaking anywhere.

Cheers,
Eck
 
kikkis said:
Is it the same source material?
Was the snare top and bottom mic'd? Because the second mix sounds like the bottom snare mic is riding too hard.
Obviously the guitars in the second mix sound much better, the first mix sounds like the mids were scooped out.
Click to expand...
No I re-recorded the whole song.
And you are right. Mix B has alot of bottom snare in it compared to the 1st one. I had to do this to bring a bit of life to the dead sounding top snare.

I thought the opposite about the guitars in mix A. I though the mids werent scooped and thats why they sound really messy and muddy.

Thanks for lsitening.

Eck
 
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