Just because mixmkr asked!

  • Thread starter Thread starter sonusman
  • Start date Start date
sonusman

sonusman

Banned
Secret Heart. Oh wait, one complaint on this one. One of my first attempts at "mastering" using the L1. Not too bad until the tom hits at the end. I suppose I could have done a little spot editing in Wavelab to lower the level of that part, or a little low eq roll off.

BMW was a live recording. I didn't hear any of the track's while it was recording (I was mixing the band!!!), and only spent about 40 minutes on the mix. I like it though for a live recording. Not ideal, but I like it.

I used to have a LOT of mp3's uploaded to a website, but they changed their ftp thing and I never looked into how to get back into the site to get the links to the songs.

One thingmixmkr, I will probably NEVER be very satisfied with my work. I will quit engineering the day I think something couldn't be a bit better. Also, I maybe once a year actually work on something I wrote! At that pace, it will be a few more years before you hear a composition of mine. :)

Ed

Oops!!! The link...thanks participant!!! :D http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2270&alid=349
 
Wow this is great stuff. Esp for a live recording... sounds really loud. nice crispy acoustic git at the beginning. If I was forced to suggest anything I'd perhaps say the main vocal sounds a little too much like a radio.. ie restricted frequency. But heck for a live recording this is really splitting hairs.

Nice ballad too.

You couldn't mix my stuff could you ? ;)
 
Just looked up your website - I didn't realise your a professional. I guess you'd expect it to be pritty good then ! Still I'd pay for your services anyday.... if I lived in the same country or had the cash ! ;) great stuff
 
dres, thanks for the nice comments. Secret Heart is not a live recording, BMW is. It probably didn't finish uploading before I posted this.

The singer on Secret Heart is very problematic. The tracking engineer had a hell of a time getting a tone that didn't include a lot of hard "c" and "s" on it. He tried, oh, about 6 or 7 different LD's and this was the best he could come up with. I didn't have any decent sidechain capabilities on my compressors way back then (this was mixed in 1998) so I had to make due with the console eq on the Ghost and a Behringer Composer.

And indeed, I can mix your stuff!! ;) Let me know what you need and I will give you an estimate on the cost. :D

Thanks twist! That band was indeed very cool. I didn't intend to record them, but once they played a couple songs, I realized that they were VERY good (all their performance mistakes aside) and popped in some tapes on the ol' Black Face ADAT's and hit record. The band wasn't interested in using the recordings because they didn't feel that they performed all that well (I would have to concur with that) because they hadn't played together for the three weeks before this show. Too bad. I put together this quick mix for them to hear what it would sound like, but with them not doing shows anymore, they just didn't feel it was worth it to spend money to mix this performance.

Ed

Ed
 
secret heart was excellent in the sonic dept. I didn't care for the song, but it sounded great. If it's not too much to ask, could you go over specifics of how you got that mix?
 
That was quite some time ago JR. I can remember some stuff. I remember what gear I had, and some of the ways I was using it at the time. It would take quite some time to explain EVERYTHING about the mix though. ;) If you have a question about something in particular, I will attempt to share what I did, IF I can even remember. LOL

Ed
 
hey sonusman... sorry for the confusion .. I thought BMW was the name of the band that did Sacred heart. not a live recording then ? Oh well I guess your not quite the magician I thought you were LOL ;) ...but still a great song in my opinion.

Hey if I thought I'd ever sell more than 2 CD's I'd happily pay for a studio like yours !
 
Again, thanks for the nice words dres. The studio I mixed Secret Heart in is different than the studio I work at now. Secret Heart was tracked at the studio I work at now (well, the overdubs were tracked there, the drums were tracked in the tracking engineers basement...), but it was mixed at the studio I used to own. I sold it over a year ago. Also, those studio pics are grossly outdated now. We just remodeled Opal Studio in November and it looks and is laid out quite a bit different now. It was all for the better though! :)

Ed
 
OK I've listened to BMW now. They shure are fast and tight ! Not my kinda music but they sound entertaining. I can see why your happy with the recording... well done. The song reminds me of a horse race .... hang on tight while it gallops along !
 
A real pleasant listen..............Thats the best way to say it as everything blends so well level wise.
Clean as a new set of strings, and balanced nicely.

This tune (Secret Heart) makes me want to revisit some of the stuff I am working on as it provides a different reference than most of what I have heard lately. I have cheap monitors (SP-5B's) but I have found that for now I can do pretty well if I have a couple things to compare to in the same vein.

Well.........actually my in your face approach needs some work but this is inspiring as a mix. It is definately different than what I am used to using as a reference.

Thanks for posting
 
Ed,

Is this the same singer/band who did "Crashing"? Vocal tone sounds very similar. That acoustic sounds like a thousand bucks ;) several thousand bucks... When it comes in on the flamenco arpeggio/lead line, it's amazing how it cuts thru that dense mix... combo of level/compression/technique/instrument, I imagine.

Certainly a "commercial" sound. Any hints to lend about "arrangements" -- specifically -- how do you go about creating one from thin air? Does this come from "reference CDs", band rehearsals (experiments, to see what sounds fit together best)... or is the overall "sound" you're aiming for exist in your head without either? Any thoughts appreciated.

Good stuff.


Chad
 
hey, Ed:

Nice mix, like always! I have a question for you tho, who do you think affects the quality of the whole song more? The recording/tracking engineer or the mixer? I am asking because I remember hearing the last mp3 you posted, it sounded damn fine without even been mixed.
So, I've been wondering since if we all should stop worrying about mixing techniques(besides the basics) for now, and focus on tracking methods first. Honestly, your last post set a whole new standard for me for tracking!

AL
 
Your craftsmanship speaks all for itself. A landmark is good, that way people can have a reference and really know where they are. 'lotta folks ought to listen to this. That was good talent you were working with as well.
 
Very nice Sonusman.

So this one of the ones mixed on the two mackies or whatever from the analog vs digital battle?

Once again very nice

Beezoboy
 
BMW sounds awesome sonusman.......an amazing live mix.......the best live mix i've heard up here............it really has the live ambience that some live recordings somehow lose when they try to move beyond glorified bootleg status
 
A1A2, in reality, the tracking engineer makes the biggest difference. GIGO!!! If I don't have great sounding tracks to work with, I can't make them sound like this. The guy that tracked this stuff is pretty good. Great at getting guitar tones. He is hit and miss on drums, but he did okay on this one.

I DO think most should concentrate on better tracking. Period. Tracking is where it is at!!! GIGO!!! If the tones at tracking are lacking, the mix will reflect that severely. I cannot stress that enough. Sometimes it is impossible to track well when the client lacks the talent to play with tones that will work well for their music, or if they just don't have a clue what actually sounds good when they hear it. Trusting an experienced tracking engineer is a MUST.

In this case, we had a great song, some pretty damn good musicians, and a tracking engineer with something to prove. :) Chris Stevens tracked this whole thing on 16 bit ADAT's. Drum's were ART and Mackie pre's. Bass was ART's, as were many of the guitar tracks. Acoustics and vocals were a Focusrite Red 8. All mixed on a Ghost console with only 8 channels of compression available, 1 Composer, 1 AutoCom, 1 3630 (by the way, this comp was used on that Lead acoustic guitar solo and the bass!!! :)), and 1 ART Dual Levelar. I only had a Lexicon LXP 5, and a Alesis quadraverb for effects. It was mixed to a 16 bit DAT. None of this gear was "all that", and most of it is scoffed at.:confused: Oh well. :)

participant. This is a different singer and different band altogether.

As to how I came up with this "arrangement". Well, we started these mixing sessions out with artist playing me a lot of Sting, Toad The Wet Sprocket, Dave Matthews, and and Seal! LOL...Toad was the closest I heard to this sound, but they still sounded quite a bit different. The singer/guitar player guy was producing the CD, and he REALLY wanted his stuff to sound like the above artists.:rolleyes: It took doing two really bad sounding mixes before I could convince him that we should pursue a mix that works well with what is tape, rather than a "reference". Refernce material is all fine and good, but I pointed out to him that all those artists that he wanted to "sound like" sounded very different from each other too!!! Once he understood that, he was ready to start pursuing mixes that worked well for his songs. Things proceeded much faster and the output was much more pleasing. We weren't trying to make Lemondade out of raw meat!

I seriously don't know what goes through my head on stuff like this. I just get an impression of what I would like for it to sound like. This music had very "tough" sounding guitars, and I wanted to highlight the intricacies of his playing. I could hear a sort of processed drum sound behind that. I felt the bass was best left vague as the playing wasn't sync'ed all that well to the kick drum (this was more of the drummers problem than the bass players problem....). The vocals are very monotone so it wasn't all that hard to get them to sit somewhere in the mix. I just had to make sure there was a little space for his limited range. Luckily, the guitar arrangement was such that nothing competed with the vocals much.

That lead solo was tricky. The performance had a LOT of dynamics to it, and the background music was sort of static. It was certainly a surprise to find that a Alesis 3630 MADE that solo happen in the mix!!! I tried the other three compressors and none of them came close to bringing the lead upfront enough without sounding very hard. I needed soft guitar that was upfront, the 3630 made that happen. Screw off all of you that put this compressor down!!! I LIKE my 3630!!! :D

The delay hit on the vocals going into the solo and in the last verse almost didn't happen!!!! This guy HATED delay, and I had to practically BEG him to leave it in there!!!!

I might remix this song again one day. I didn't have editing for tracks back then, and I think I could have done a lot for the drum sounds by lining up the mics in a DAW. I also used a sampled snare with the original snare, and a used a sampled kick. Both had latency that I tried to get spot on, but just seem to sit right. A little drumagog would have done the trick!!! :) There are some places too where the kick just didn't sit right for me and a slight adjustment in the time line would have made for better impacts during transitions. I think I could have brought the bass into the mix a little better with a little work on the drums. But what is done is done. I make no excuses for this mix!!! :)

This song didn't make the bands CD. We mixed 15 songs in 21 days (we remixed 5 songs, the earliest 5) and when it came time to choose 12 to put on the CD, this one didn't make it. I regret now my part in that decision. Oh well. This band isn't together anymore so it matters little. I might later upload some other mixes from this CD that came out pretty nice. Some who have been around this bbs for a while have heard at least 3 or 4 mixes off this CD. Maybe some of you still have them?

I did mess up the mastering a bit on this one. It was one of the first things I ever ran through a L1 and I learned from those tom hits at the end that the L1 isn't going to alone work for mastering!!!

Ed
 
Beezoboy, no this isn't a Mackie mix!!!!

BMW was tracked using nothing but Mackie pre's though, and the tom's on Secret Heart were Mackie's.

I tracked BMW while doing house sound at a club. The setup was:

All snake channels going to a a Mackie 32/8 console. Monitors mixes were done from here. Each channel has a Direct Out.

The Mackie Direct Out's fed three Black Face ADAT's (TypeI 16 bit machines...)

The ADAT outputs went to my Soundcraft Ghost for front of house mixing.

All I/O for the consoles, ADAT's, and dynamic processors were on patchbays so I could use a compressor going to tape, or after tape. This was very handy. :)

I mixed the songs (8 of them) the next day in about 5 or 6 hours on the Ghost to my computer via the Lynx One soundcard. Did a bit of mastering on it in Wavelab.

Ed
 
Ed,

Truely appreciate you walking us thru the process. It's the most "in-person" experience I can think of on internet. Unfortunately, with the limited choices on mics and tracking environment, I suppose I (and many of us) have very little elements to play with...maybe that's why alot people are constantly upgrading their gear, to make up for the room/techniques, and so on.
Man, I am being too cynical here:D I will shut up now

Keep posting, this is almost like the video lesson for me

Big thanks

AL
 
Back
Top