First time mix

R

rocketman768

New member
Hey, I'm sorry if this gets asked a lot around here, but I was just wondering if a few of you experts that hang around could give this song a listen. I've recorded a good bit of stuff before, including stuff that's not on my page, but I just finished (or think I finished) a song that I've really tried to pay attention to as far as sound, eq, volume, et cetera.

FX: So far, all I did was give the vocals some slight compression (manual editing as well as plug-in) and reverb. I gave the bass a little more compression, and turned up the highs about 3 dB on the drums cuz the cymbals were warbling a little like they were competing with the rest of the tracks.

It must've been tough for mp3 to encode, cuz I asked it to do 160 kbps VBR, and it spit back a 190 kbps song. My average RMS is -14.6 dB if you measure it with square waves and -11.6 dB if you measure it with sine waves.

Anyways, I guess I'm just asking if I'm missing something or if something sounds off or what I could do to get it to sound *nice*, and don't tell me "get a drummer" please! Although I'd like one...

Webpage is http://people.clemson.edu/~pglee/music.htm

Song is at the top ("A New Can't"). I think only 2 people can download at a time, so if you get errors, it's probably that. Of course, you're free to browse the other stuff too :) Thanks!
 
Hey, welcome to the board.

I can't download music since I'm at the office right now. But next time you should put the post in the MP3 mixing clinic section. You'll get a lot more listens there.

Good luck
 
Rocketman,

Nice song! I like the overall individual sound of the guitar; it's tightly compresses, but for effect and not necessarily for loudness (at least it doesn't have to be ;) ), and the vocals sound good. there is a nice hook to the rhythm too, a nice skipped hearbeat effect. And the lyrics are nice.

I have - for my tastes and ear anyway - a couplele of constructive criticisms on the mix, however. They are pretty much all related to the idea that the guitar is too overpowering for the rest of the mix. First, for most of the song the vocals are almost completly buried under the guitar, which to me is a shame, because what I can hear of them sounds good. Second, I know you are usig synthetic drums, which is fine; but synthetic or not I'd really like to bring them forward as they are almost completly lost in the mix under the guitar. Third, there is a small bit of mid-high harshness in parts of the song that I think might be the summing of what ride cymbals there are with some of the upper "whitemeat" foments of the guitar.

I think all this can be "solved" (if that's the right term for what is really only one guy's opinion :o ) by

1.) Punching up the drums a bit with a little narrow Q low-mid boost (somewhere in the 180-250Hz range perhaps).

2.) Easing back signifigantly on the guitar tracks using a level automation rubberband on them. Keep the gits in front when really called for like in the intro and fills and stuf like that, but back it off a bit when riding with the vocals; let the vocals come to the front a bit more, they deserve it.

3.) While I can undertand the 3dB boost in the cymbals, I think that is actually causing some of the harshness conflict with the guitars. Perhaps a bit of a notch in the guitar EQ at about the same frequency that you did the cymbal boost would help them coexist a little more peacefully.

4.) This is strictly a subjective cosmetic touch, but might I humbly recommend a little bit of a reverb tail only on the final finishing beat(s) of the song? I understand that the guitars are in-your-face dry for the entire song and that one of the major riff hooks during the song counts on the fact that theres no verb there, and that's all fine. But it could arguably be said that the verb that's on the vocals does put a very ambient feel to the song, and the lack of verb on the instruments at the end almst makes it sound like - even though there is obviously no verb on the gits at all during the song - the "song's ambience" has been turned off. This is a very subjective idea that you could toss out, but you might want to try it on just to see how it fits. ;)

All just opinion, of course. Take it all FWIW. But no matter which way you slice it, It's a good piece that's off to a good start! :)

G.
 
Hm, you were definitely right about the guitars. I didn't realize how loud I had them. I'm still working on the mix, but now it's starting to sound better. I gave the drums a boost around 800 Hz to really bring out the snare cuz I could hear that it was getting lost, and I just brought up the drums overall since I had some extra room after lowering the guitars. I'm still trying to find the right spot for the low-mids though.

I appreciate that you like the song :)
 
Yeah sounds pretty good man. Guitar tone is nice although maybe a little too grizzly, but could work with a bit of EQ and volume being brought down a bit.
Too much reverb on vox. Try diff settings for tail and wet/dry.
Will look out for another mix in the MP3 if you are posting it.
Sounds like you know what youa re doing, but you need to work on your levels a bit.
 
Ok, I've been working on this some more, and I think I've got it as best as it'll be. Same file, same place.

The only thing that is really different (besides messing with levels, compression, and minor tweaks) is that I pulled up the eq curve on the vocals around 6000 Hz (just playing around) and it ended up giving a strange tool-like sound to it. I think the vocals are right about where they should be volume-wise in relation to the rest of the tracks. You can now distinctly hear the vocals coming out in the chorus. But, it's a very fine line. I can't seem to get the song where I want it. It all seems too tamed and "closed" to me. I think that might be a whole 'nother problem though.

Can you maybe give me a couple of tips as to how you guys go about bringing the levels of the tracks together? Let's assume everything is compressed right and I just have 8 tracks of stuff. What I do now is every track starts out at 0 dB which is obviously peaking out the mixer. Then I tone down each track little by little to get what I feel like is the right mix where I have the master only peaking at a few places in the song.
 
rocketman768 said:
Can you maybe give me a couple of tips as to how you guys go about bringing the levels of the tracks together? Let's assume everything is compressed right and I just have 8 tracks of stuff. What I do now is every track starts out at 0 dB which is obviously peaking out the mixer. Then I tone down each track little by little to get what I feel like is the right mix where I have the master only peaking at a few places in the song.
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Rocket,

I'm dl'ing the new mix as we speak. Given the lateness of the hour here and the heavy ear fatigue I have from working on some new mixes myself all day, I'll give it a good listen tomorrow (Sunday) and let you know my paltry response. But before signing off for the night, I'll give you a couple of cents worth of response to the above question...

Usually when I start setting up a mix on my DAW, I'll set the volume levels for each track (the DAW equivalent of the input/trim control on a mixer channel strip) to be approximately what I think the maximum level for that track will be that I'll need in the song. Then using the volume envelope rubber bands (the DAW equivalent of a[n automated] fader on a mixer channel strip) to around 6dB down from 100%. These are all rough approximations at this point; both the trim and the default fader values for any given track may change as I refine the mix.

However, the rough idea is that I've set a maximum volume for each track using the input/trim volume for the track and then backed off that a bit with a straight line a few dBs down from the top with the fader envelope. This gives me a potential 6dB "road" of extra "headroom" in each track on which I can ride the faders and do the mix. This "headroom" in each track allows me to bring up particular tracks when they need to be and bring down the others when they don't need to be. If the 6dB down starting point for the envelope winds up being too low for how I wind up using that instrument, I can always drag it back up a bit or just boost the inpit volume for the track; if it's too high, vice versa.

But the key is to "ride those faders"; i.e. use volume automation on the individual tracks; don't just set one static level and stick with it through the entire song. Bring the vocal forward (or push back the guitar) when you want the vocal to have the focus, boost the guitar during a dramatic fill for emotional emphasis, change the mix for choruses versus the mix for verses to set them apart, emphasize the hooks, etc. etc.

OK, got the song downloaded. On a quick initial listen of the first few bars, it sounds like there's some definite improvement over the previous mix. I can hear the drums now and the vocals are much more present, yet the guitar is still just as important as it was in the previous mix. That's all great news. :)

But before I can put a sharper point on the listen, I really do need to rest up. It's after 1AM here and after a live gig until 3AM last night and a full day of mix prepping today, my ears are begging for some silence (sometimes nothing sounds better than the sound of nothing ;). But before I get my ears back to the grindstone tomorrow, I'll give your new mix a worthy listen and see whazzup.

G.
 
OK, Rocket, it's the next day. :) ...

This mix is a BIG improvement. The drums are now audible and the cymbals are now seperate entities from the guitars and not clashing the way they did before. The vocals are now not only much more audible, but now I can hear some nice tricks you did with it that I didn't even know existed in the last mix.

I'd still stick by last night's idea of riding/automating the mix. There are a couple of short spots in the song where the mix could use a little "spot sanding" that way, but overall it sounds like the basic levels are pretty good.

It *might* be argued that maybe the vocal and guitar trim levels might take just another 1 to 1.5 dB of matching (e.g. maybe bring the vocals up a half a dB and the gits down a half a dB), but that's a subjective possibility only that could prove to be wrong once tried. Try it if you want, if it doesn't work out, that's cool; at the very least that will reenforce the knowledge that the current levels are right.

I'd also be tempted to try and punch up the kick just a little and see how that sounded, if that helped round out the definition on the low end.

But other than those few tweaking possibilities, as far as listening quality, I think you're probably about 90% of the way there, whereas the last mix was maybe 50%. Having only the MP3, I can't speak as to the technical issues (e.g. how would an ME look at it), but for user playability it's just fine. Sounds very good, it's a nice song with a good hook that' I'd put on an indie showcase program in a minute. Nice work. :)

G.
 
Yeah the drums are a bit louder, but still could do with some work. Im sure the guitars are a little loud. Theres just something that makes them not sit right. May be in relation to the vocals. Work on compresssing the vox maybe. Just an idea because the vocals keep getting swallowed up by the mix. Could be bad singing technique into mic though making it hard to keep it prominent in the mix.

Sorry if I offend you, but are they direct guitars? could be a reason they seem so loud and up front.
 
SS Glen, I really appreciate the advice and the time you spent listening to the song. I think I've learned a few things that will at least let me have my songs sounding pretty decent. I'd really like to hear what your songs sound like too. Again, thanks a lot :)

Ecktronic, yeah, the drums sound weak to me too, but I think that's something to work on for my next song. By itself, the drums sound great, but there is something about the kick drum that just doesn't cut it. I'm thinking of having my buddy come over and do some sampling.

But no. They aren't direct guitars. It's an ESP Explorer through a Marshall MG100DFX -> sm57 -> pre-amp -> line in of SB Audigy. No compression, no anything. I think what caused a little funkiness in the guitars is that I set up the mic by just listening to the recorded guitar alone. So, I think I got the mic too close to the cab cuz I wanted that kick and low end from the guitar. Once I mixed it, I realized that that stuff isn't even coming through, so next time I'll try it a few inches farther away to get a bit more tone. Besides, I think I just need a 2nd mic on the thing. I'm still at the point where there's tons of stuff that I haven't tried doing yet.
 
Yeah i always use more mics than less mics. Sm57 Sm58 and even also a far condensor mic. You can nudge the track sin phase if you record them out of phase. Try and get the close mics in phase though at tracking so when sound checking them for tone you get a better idea of what they will sound like together.
 
ecktronic said:
Im sure the guitars are a little loud. Theres just something that makes them not sit right. May be in relation to the vocals. Work on compresssing the vox maybe. Just an idea because the vocals keep getting swallowed up by the mix.
Click to expand...
Agreed. This is where I thought that automating the levels on the guitars and the vocals would be a big help. For much of the song, the max level of each of those sounds about right, but there are a few spots when the git still steps on the vocals. At those points (e.g. transitioning into a verse, just as one example) I think just rubber-banding down the lead guitars a few dB before they complete the transition to the verse rhythm might be good to clean it up.

Of course there's always more than one way to skin a cat; this is just one po' boy's option. :)

G.
 
Yeah vocal automation is a definite if you cant get a constant level with just compression. Also if you compress the hell out of the vox and they are still getting lost then automation on other instruments is needed.
So i would start automting the vocals. If you need to automate the other instruments it should kinda be obvious where the parts are that need automating. Might take quite a while but seiously it will be worth it man. Look forward to hearing a new automated version.
 
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