HP: I'm not a beginner mixer, but I want to take it to the next level, and you make all the noises of someone who's familiar with that level, hence all this badgering. I'd be shy of hijacking Mr Allen's thread ordinarily, but he seems interested as well, so I shall make bold to pursue my line of inquiry. (I talk funny sometimes.
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I understand what you're saying in your recent response, but what would be really, really useful for me (especially since I've listened to 'Fire' mixes about 12 times so far and am familiar with it) would be if you were to break it down in terms of issues, tools used, and what the tweak was. So for instance: "The first issue was X, so I used a multiband compressor, and here's what I did with it." (Plus, I've already got the level-matched versions to listen to and actually hear how it sounds.) Plus, I really like this song, and MA would wind up with a better mix than he's got already. What do you say? Say yes.
I'm capable of bribery and flattery too, just so you know.
Hey
dobro, I feel like I'm the one being swamped here!
So you're not a beginner mixer but looking for the next level, you may be mixing at a higher level than me already! I'm completely ITB now by the way (in case you were wondering).
If you read back over the various posts, I think I've answered what you're asking about already:
"Take another listen to the balance, it's off everywhere. Rethink the focus, for me get that snare cracking and bring it forward (along with the whole drum kit maybe). Eq needs tweaking and open up the whole thing by reworking the reverb. Let the song take off and fly don't clamp it down to the ground!"
and then:
"In answer to dobro, everything I did was on the master bus (for the reason Monkey explained, no tracks/stems for me) using EQ, 2 compressors (1 single band and 1 multiband compressing in places and expanding in others), reverb and saturation, basically all smoke and mirrors. Nothing was done in M/S (in case you were wondering)"
Too general maybe? Those comments weren't supposed to be mix notes!
This won't help you one little bit because what I did wasn't mixing! (at best 'maybe' some kind of re-mastering) but here goes anyway:
Opened a session in my DAW.
Loaded the stereo file, played it and
listened.
The first thing I heard was the levels being off and 'mud', then it lacked width, energy and excitement beyond it being a good catchy song.
EQ, applied an instance of Pro-Q3 and adjusted the EQ as necessary to clear out mud and add clarity, I will have boosted the highs but can't remember exactly where or at what level.
Applied a TR5 SSL Style Bus Compressor, selected the 'The Glue' preset (should I explain why?) and, I think, adjusted the release time from 0.1 to 0.3 seconds (or maybe not, I can't remember but it seems like the kind of thing I would do) and played around with the threshold.
This settles the debate as to what comes first, the EQ or the compressor. Always EQ into the compressor, unless it's needed the other way around. See, settled.
The low end felt pretty empty so I applied an instance of Brainworx b
x_subsynth (some people don't like it but I do and I'm right). I can't remember the exact settings I used but I do remember I couldn't add as much as I wanted to. If I was mixing this I would have the bass more present in the mix.
For different reasons I introduced two instances of Pro-MB (a bit excessive isn't it) the first to try and raise some frequencies in the mix and tame various level spikes that still existed in the mix at different frequencies and create some energy in the mix, and one was used at a specific frequency range to try and tame the guitar I mentioned in another post (or they may have been used the other way around but I don't think so).
Introduced a second instance of Pro-Q3 to attend to EQ issues that were introduced by using the compressors.
I then added an instance of Cinematic Rooms Professional Reverb (a bit pricey but worth every penny, I love it!) to a parallel channel. Route the mix channel to the parallel channel additionally not exclusively (we know that right). I selected the 'Ambiences - Hall Ambience' setting on 100% wet and made no adjustments to the reverb in terms of decay time etc. (although I might have brightened up the high end a bit) and adjusted the fader on the reverb channel down to a level I was happy with (and without starting a debate, I know that technically having the reverb in series and adjusting the wet/dry knob would yield the same result as having it in parallel but that's how I did it).
By the way, you might use terms like 'send' and 'return' and 'aux' but I don't as I know what I mean, especially when I'm talking to myself
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Printed the file (I have a limiter on the master but I don't think it was doing anything) and shut down the session.
I think I said I got what I did to about 30% of where I think the mix should be. I may have exaggerated but it doesn't matter. It got Monkey thinking and he moved his mix on. In all honesty I still think it's a relatively weak mix (sorry Monkey but a great song!) that could be improved step by step with even small tweaks here and there but none of this will help anyone in any way as I WASN'T MIXING, it was all smoke and mirrors as I said before (see, talking to myself).
Is this what you had in mind?
What would you do?
Disclaimer: If I have left something out, it wasn't done intentionally (I've seen this written at the end of stuff before so it must be important). I talk funny sometimes too.
