Acoustic guitar + vocals

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Rubyscube

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Hello!

I am trying to help out a singer/songwriter friend of mine who needs a couple of his songs mixed.

It's just acoustic guitar and vocals, but being a total noob to mixing I'm having a really hard time making even that sound half decent..

With that said.. I'm really fascinated by the art of mixing and motivated to learn, so any comments or tips would be greatly appreciated :)

https://soundcloud.com/urbanmachete/freaky-oscar-2/s-pJTfU
 
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I like the song. Freaky Oscar is a cool title.

I would roll off some low end off the guitar. There is some low end that is out of control and pops out once in a while. Some of it comes from the playing style. Some of the percussion stuff gets a little out of control.

The mix overall is missing some high end. Not a ton, but it's missing a bit of the high end sparkle.

The vocal has some boxiness to it. It is noticeably dryer than the guitar and so they give me a feeling that they're in different places.
 
TripleM said:
I like the song. Freaky Oscar is a cool title.

I would roll off some low end off the guitar. There is some low end that is out of control and pops out once in a while. Some of it comes from the playing style. Some of the percussion stuff gets a little out of control.

The mix overall is missing some high end. Not a ton, but it's missing a bit of the high end sparkle.

The vocal has some boxiness to it. It is noticeably dryer than the guitar and so they give me a feeling that they're in different places.
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Thanks for the reply!

The guitar has a 12 db/octave highpass filter around 120hz. I was afraid of the guitar ending up with not enough meat if I put it any higher, as it's the only instrument in the mix. Should I just up the high-pass, or could more be gained by pulling down certain narrow frequency bands?

The vocal was actually recorded with a shure sm7b at the same time as the guitar, he just did both live. What's funny is that the vocals actually have a tiny amount of reverb on it, while the guitar is completely dry. What would be the best way to equal it out? Making a fx return and send both vocals and guitar through the same verb?

Thanks a lot, this is really giving me somewhere to start from :)
 
I had similar thoughts. Perhaps try moving your HPF down then applying a slight shelf up higher. I thought it sounded pretty good, although I couldn't get over the feeling that the singer was about to lick my ear. Ewww.
 
Armistice said:
I had similar thoughts. Perhaps try moving your HPF down then applying a slight shelf up higher. I thought it sounded pretty good, although I couldn't get over the feeling that the singer was about to lick my ear. Ewww.
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Haha!

Any idea what I could do to remedy the ear-licking? :D
 
I would try all the things mentioned EQ wise: Move the HPF down and notch a bad frequency, move the HPF up and see if that gets rid of it, leave the HPF where it is and notch the problem.

Try 'em all and listen to what works the best.
 
TripleM said:
I would try all the things mentioned EQ wise: Move the HPF down and notch a bad frequency, move the HPF up and see if that gets rid of it, leave the HPF where it is and notch the problem.

Try 'em all and listen to what works the best.
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Thanks!

I'll try it out and post an updated file when done :)
 
TripleM said:
I would try all the things mentioned EQ wise: Move the HPF down and notch a bad frequency, move the HPF up and see if that gets rid of it, leave the HPF where it is and notch the problem.

Try 'em all and listen to what works the best.
Click to expand...

Here goes!

I pushed the high pass up to 172 hz, boosted a little shelf around 10k on the whole mix, added a bit more verb on the vocals and little bit on the guitar.. I also tried to reduce the boxiness of the vocals by pulling a bit down around 1.32k.

Does it help?

https://soundcloud.com/urbanmachete/freaky-oscar-2/s-pJTfU
 
Cool song, nice playing. Second what other people said about the low end of the guitar. I wonder if he had the mic pointed too close to the sound hole? I actually liked the closeness of the vocal. Maybe add a little more reverb and call it good.
 
Vocals need some delay. I like Dry but not this kind of Dry. over all guitar and vocals need some space and compression. besides that it sounds nice. Acous is a bit brittle but you can fix that. Good song and performance.
 
packrobottom said:
Vocals need some delay. I like Dry but not this kind of Dry. over all guitar and vocals need some space and compression. besides that it sounds nice. Acous is a bit brittle but you can fix that. Good song and performance.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback!

Mainly, I have no input on the "artistic" side of things for this, and his wish is to have it as "dry and genuine" as possible.. so I'm not sure it would be appreciated if I went to town with delays etc. Could probably up the verb a bit though.

Agree that the guitar is brittle, but I can't really fix that.. that's why I am asking you guys for tips! :)

Basically, I just want to make it sound as good as possible within the boundaries this guy puts up. So, some pure technical advice would be worth it's weight in gold to me atm!
 
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