Darth's mix revisited....

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DarthFaders

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Made a few changes and did some minor mastering on that latest song...

Please, tell me that it was worth it!

Here it is...

Darth
 
Dear Total Amateur:

I'd like to be the first to say that this is the second worst mix I've ever heard in my entire life. The only thing I've ever heard that was worse was the earlier version of this song.

(God, I'm jealous)

I can offer nothing to help you improve this

(because it sounds perfect to me)

Good luck with your new recording endeavor. Keep trying, you'll get better...

(this mix is better than anything I've ever dreamed of producing).

All My Best,
Anonymous
 
where did the highs go?

Think I'd like the snare drum up some; it's just buried. That could also give you smore highs. The drummer playing (or attempting! :eek: ) triplets on the ride during the chorus seems to take attention off the vocals. Even so, all the cymbals could stand to be brought up in the mix. There's a certain mushiness during the chorus, too. IMO it's the close panning of vox, snare, and rhythm guitar (the one just right of center).

Nice arrangement; very professional.


Chad
 
Sounds pretty good to me!

The only thing I heard were some timing issues during the slower,quiter parts.

Other than that,I dig it!
Nice upbeat feel,btw.

Best to you,
Pete
 
Sorry. Feableweiner wouldn't come in tonight. I'll try again.
 
Sounds like you thickened things up and maybe compressed the overall mix just a hair to glue it together a little more.... a killer song but it STILL has those tempo fluctuations!:D:eek:
 
chrisharris: those words coming from you are flattering. From what I've heard of you, you are an EXTREMELY talented guitar player, as well as a very talented engineer. I'm glad that you liked the mix. It means a lot coming from you.

participant: I agree with you about the busy drums taking away from the vocals in the chorus. That's what we get from recording a BUSY drummer with no click track. However, there are no triplets in the chorus. If you listen to the track a bit closer, you'll notice that every note can be subdivided into sixteenth notes (or at least they should be, they're a bit sloppy at times.) No triplets there at all. And, if you listen closer, the only things panned right up the middle in the chorus are the kick drum, bass guitar, snare drum, and the doubled lead vocals. The verses have a mono guitar, but that changes to two stereo pairs of guitars for the chorus, widely panned. I tried bringing up the snare, but it always seemed counter productive. I even have a different EQ going on for the snare while the distorted guitars are going on. As for the level of the cymbals, I totally disagree with you. I think they're fine! Amy more volume on the cymbals, and it really sounds messy! Thanks for listening, and pointing out new things for me to listen to. That's the point of getting reviews of mixes, if you ask me. You've definitely given me things to think about in the future.

muzeman and Kramer: there's nothing that I can do with the timing issues...they are definitely the weakest points of the song, but it's too late to fix any of that. There's no hope in fixing the COUNTLESS tempo issues in this song. Sorry, guys!

Thanks for listeneing everyone, and keep `em coming...I always like critiques!

Darth
 
DarthFaders said:
muzeman and Kramer: there's nothing that I can do with the timing issues...they are definitely the weakest points of the song, but it's too late to fix any of that. There's no hope in fixing the COUNTLESS tempo issues in this song. Sorry, guys!

LOL.I know,I just had to throw that out there for the fun of it.:DThe only way to fix the timing issues would be to re-record the whole thing!:D

I checked out the bands video and some of their other tunes.Good stuff.....any idea when they'll get something on the old MTV?
 
Hopefully soon, so I can start making some MONEY!!!!!!!!


Darth
 
very serious recording here.. I'll skip the performance comments.. I think it can be argued that there aren't enough highs in this, but it gives it a warm sound that I think I like.. It is not harsh like so many recordings I hear.. maybe the snare could be a hair brighter, but overall it sounds real imhop, not home recorded at all..
 
Thanks, Sam. I agree that the overall mix needs more highs, and I plan on doing this for the next master, for sure. Thanks again, everyon, for listening!

Darth
 
DarthFaders said:
Thanks, Sam. I agree that the overall mix needs more highs

Yup, that's what I suggested in my first message :cool: The reason I suggested raising the cymbals is... yup... more highs. If the mix is getting messy, you could consider rolling off everything below 4kHz on them.


Chad


EDIT: Whoa... just realized what I said :) What I meant was "in the louder, messier parts of your mix". Taking that much out of the cymbals would make them sound really strange otherwise :)
 
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DarthFaders said:
Hopefully soon, so I can start making some MONEY!!!!!!!!


Darth

sounds like you should've gotten paid for the work you did on this one! this sounds outstanding from a mix perspective. the only (very minor) issues are in the performance. the tempo moves around a bit, but the thing that still bothers me the most is the drummer in the chorus. I don't know why but that bell ride thing that he's doing sounds more academic than musical to me. Maybe that's just a style difference of mine. I don't think it kills the song or anything. You still have a potential radio hit imo.

Maybe it'd help to stick a click track in the drummer's ear for the tempo shifts?
 
Wow. Nice stuff, Darth. The force is really is with you.

Just a few comments. And keep in mind I'm very nitpicky, so take what I say with a grain or two:

Noticed a lot of subsonic stuff going on below 30 hz. This isn't the type of song that really needs it, so that might be wasted bandwidth. A low-cut might be in order. Lots of peaking going on around 550 hz or so, which is mostly vocals peaking a bit much - maybe just a hair more comp/limiting on the vocals would help a bit, but it's minor nitpick.

2800 hz seems to be where I'd like to hear a little bit of rising shelf eq-wise. There just seems to be a lot of downward sloping going on there that throws things just a tad off balance next to the very steady, strong bass and somewhat sporadically peaking mids. If you're concerned about cluttering things up in that region, then try cutting at about 1K with a very w-i-d-e Q before or after raising everything else above 2,800. Follwing me?

Very solid mix, nonetheless. One question: How do you get that snare sound? Is that just the natural sound of it? I'm hearing some sort of slap-backy/chorusy/detuney doubling effect. Makes it sound very powerful. Kudos to you on that one. Great work.
 
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