Are this mastering companies ok?

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I have a bad habit of making mixing a nightmare by having a 10 times too dense arrangement... Knowing that "less is more" and having the backbone to actually follow that rule seems to be two different things.

Ain't that the truth. Don't feel bad, Joza, you have just described an affliction that probably 95% of us have when we start out (including me.)

My thinking here was this...I had to make a comp track from all the choruses and copy it, use a lot of time correction (and I dont really know the tricks how to do that well) and use midi controlled pitch correction with very fast attack, so if you listen to it in solo it is quite "distorted".

That explains what I was hearing. I thought there was something not quite right about the way the vocals "chorused" when laid on each other. At times I almost thought it was a phasing issue, but I couldn't put my finger on it. This was part of the reason I was thinking maybe to separate the vocals. But heavy autotuning of the backup vocal could be what I was hearing.

Use your judgment there. If the background vocal is not of steady enough quality to stand on it's own or to get increased gain, then certainly don't do that.

And I have no problem with the off-center lead vocal. As many here can tell you (hello, miro? ), I am not one of those that feels that lead vocals should always or automatically be thrown down the center. And now that you bring it up, one option with your mix might be to actually pull the dry piano a little more towards the center, maybe only a 50% pan to the right (more or less), and then push the stacked vocals just a little more to the left - not too much, maybe just a few degrees, so you get little more of a L/R balance between the vocals and piano. The exception being that neat little vocal break with the reverb at 2:20; which I'd throw right down the middle like a high, hard fast ball in baseball . Once again, just an idea to try, if you have enough time. No promises that it will actually be better.

That reminds me, starting at right around 2:07 or so up to that vocal break at 2:20, there's a nice tapping at the ride cymbal. This picks up again after the break at about 2:26 through the rest of the song. If you can isolate that in your tracking and pull that up a bit (via either gain or EQ) as an added accent from 2:07 on through the end (excluding the vocal break), I think that might sound pretty nice.

G.

 

[Joza]

That reminds me, starting at right around 2:07 or so up to that vocal break at 2:20, there's a nice tapping at the ride cymbal. This picks up again after the break at about 2:26 through the rest of the song. If you can isolate that in your tracking and pull that up a bit as an added accent for the last third of the song, I think that might sound pretty nice.

Yep, its all virtual instruments from East West libraries, not tracked stuff, so I can do anything with it.

Just checking I understood right: You suggest turning the ride cymbal louder starting from 2:07 and till the end of the song? If so, I think I agree with that.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Yeah, that's just what I'm saying. I don't remember offhand whether it's there in the vocal break, but I wouldn't touch it there if it is, But everywhere else from 2:07 on, I'd like to hear just a little bit more of it (maybe just 2-3dB or so) and see how that works.

Again, this is all IMHO and to my personal production tastes. Others may rightly disagree on any of this.

G.

 

[Joza]

http://www.box.net/shared/bxkudis0bu
Here is the last one, but it doesnt have big changes. Ride at the end is slightly louder and I played a bit more with panning and volume automation (without any great achievements).

Unless someone has some ideas still I can concider this ready. I dont think it actually needs mastering anymore but I just might concider it anyway just to see what would they do to it. Then I learn to know better what to expect from it.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I took the liberty of playing with v3 just a teeny bit for about ten minutes as I listened to it, and made some very small changes. You're welcome to try them yourself if you want, or to stick with what you got if you prefer that. Keep in mind that what I did was to an Mp3 mix and doesn't really count much for that reason, but I just wanted to see what would happen. Here's what little I did:

- The mix sounded just a small taste midrangey to me, so I warmed up the bass a little and added just a little sparkle to the high end.

- Punched up the dynamics just a taste to give it just a little bit more of a bounce.

- EQed up just a small section of bass at about 0:19.3 seconds just to emphasize that tympani roll or whatever it is there.

- Muted the first second of silence to remove some -80dB or so of noise or rumble in the silent intro. Also extended the silence to an even one second from the 0.93 seconds that was there before.

- Similarly sharpened the tip of the fade at the end of the song so that it fades to pure silence instead of leaving a (admittedly low) -80dB noise floor at the end of the clip.

That's all, not much. But I'd personally be happy with calling that a mix that I'd be ready to send to mastering (if it was to be used for something that called for mastering, of course.)

If you want to check out a rough MP3-adjusted example, you can find it by clicking here.

G.

 

[Joza]

Thanks! Im now at my parents but I'll check it on monday when I get back home.

 

[Joza]

Ok, now I got to listen to it. You definetely took it to right direction again. Encouraged by that, I will propably send the original wav to mastering.

Huge thanks to you one more time!