Did the best I can, until I get better input from those smarter than I ....

BxD

BxD

New member
Hi all, I have given this about 4 hours of mixing, and think I did fairly well considering my experience doing this -- now it is time for critique. I don't mind a 'tearing apart' of the musicians, but you should know that they are 14 y/o's and wrote / recorded this in one 4 hour period. So it should sound a little rough and unpolished. I am using Roland VDrums TD-20 -- both the SPDIF input and the individual lines in. Also, using an AKG 214 mic, and two Guitars DI'd into the interface. The interface is the Focusrite saffire 40 Pro for the 10 in from the drums, and the rest is coming into the Steinberg UR824, into the computer running Cubase 7.0.x. Here is the link to the mix I did -- https://app.box.com/s/x62semqankkeurkosse3 -- and I will add the individual tracks when they finish uploading. They normally do more hard stuff, but this one is a little bit of a departure -- a slower tune. thanks in advance... Bret
 
Look forward to hearing the individual tracks. I will likely play with this one, as I have a soft spot for kids playing music...
 
all tracks are there now. song is called The Stranger.mp3

took forever to upload the tracks, but they are there now. I did not use the VDrums Instrument file at all (as it is incomplete midi file). For some reason, the actual song is on "page 2" when trying to view/download the files.

As stated before, they are kids -- and they only ran through the song a couple of times before trying to record.
 
When I got to thinking about this -- I realized that the tracks I uploaded "processed" individual tracks and not the RAW ones. So I uploaded the RAW tracks used -- pre "everything" (including removing paper shuffling noise, etc.).

...and I forgot to mention... something goes dreadfully wrong at 4:30+ with the singer's voice (in my opinion) -- but I didn't change anything or any settings/automation. Any clue as to why?

Thanks in advance for helping me figure out what things perhaps "should sound like" to use as a baseline for the future mixes.
 
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I took a shot at this one, the hardest thing I found was removing all the noise on the vocal tracks, lots and lots of hiss and other noises, ended up splitting the .wav into little pieces to try to keep the track as quiet as I could, tuned the background vocals a bit. Nice song though...had fun with it, hope you like it.
View attachment the stranger.mp3
 
I read somewhere that one should double the vocal track -- and alternate the eq settings at full on / full off, as you move up the frequencies. The left one starts full off and the right one starts full on. That is what I did, and that may have given it too much noise. I do notice that once the song speeds up in your version -- the voices also vanish and sound odd, just like they do on mine. Maybe I should have put the raw (and unprocessed) tracks up instead of putting processed ones up. Oh well, yours sounds better than mine did. Thanks.
 
BxD said:
Maybe I should have put the raw (and unprocessed) tracks up instead of putting processed ones up. Oh well, yours sounds better than mine did. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Always better to put up raw tracks so that we have a better chance of fixing anything that may be going on, in this case the vocal track was recorded on the low side, until the fast section (a punch in?) when it seemed it might have a compressor on it (the pumping, disappearing effect?), if you have the raw tracks go ahead and post them...we'll see what we can do.
 
thatsenuf1962 said:
Always better to put up raw tracks ....
Click to expand...

The raw tracks are now there. I cannot hear any noise on the vocals now, other than the normal noises she is making. I imagine ANYTHING done with these is better than what I did. I put the stereo drum track from the SPDIF out for reference, but I usually use the individual ones. The "harmony" track is way off key, as you state -- no clue why I never noticed it earlier.

Thanks, as always....
 
Thanks a ton !! I will let the band hear it tonight, as they are going into a studio to cut three songs tomorrow (different ones than this one). It is miles better than what I could have done with my level of experience.

The biggest thing I notice in overall approach you take is that you dramatically lessen the importance of the guitar in the whole song -- especially in the fast section in the end. Also, the cymbals don't kill other stuff (but that is more of a technical thing I haven't been able to correct yet -- or "stop doing wrong yet" may be a better way to put it).

I will reply back with what the band thought about it -- and anyone else that takes a shot at it too (as there are more folks that have downloaded the new and clean tracks).

Best regards and thanks again...
Bret
 
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