Mixing/Mastering Impressions

F

Flubly

New member
There's a few seconds of silence at the beginning as a result of switching DAWs. Haven't fixed it yet.

Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/flubly/you-forgive-i-forget-near/s-TKWDk

Flac: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gm6ca7729qipd7v/You%20Forgive%2C%20I%20Forget%20%28Near%20Final%20Master%29.flac

Been working hard at this and am losing my objectivity after being too close for a while. Top that off with using a lot of tools and techniques that are new to me and you get some doubt on my part. My friends and the songwriter love it, but honestly their opinions are rather uninformed and I need criticism.

Obviously there's limitations on the recording process that effects the mix (lower quality preamps = less separation). Just give it to me and I'll respond accordingly. I know it can be hard to ride the subjectivity line between intentional aesthetic and quasi-objective standards of quality. Like the amount of verb in this mix might annoy some people, but I want that aesthetic. If anyone thinks I can achieve that aesthetic in a better and more clear way while maintaining the goal, I'd love to hear it. Feel free to express distaste anyway, though. Surprising things come from polarized perspectives.

P.S. Total amateur with no intention of investing more into the "studio" in quite a while. Just producing music for the hell of it. These tracks were recorded in a booth made of mattresses in an empty dorm building three years ago. Just started working on them again recently.

UPDATE 7/22: http://soundcloud.com/flubly/yfif-alternate-methods/s-02K36

I dunno, I'm not crazy about this one folks. What do you think?

Did some light compression on the guitar and vocals as well as some more EQ on the low-mids, and fiddled a tiny bit with the automation (haven't touched the drums, though)

Mastering chain is a lot more diversified now. Gentle limiting split among the saturation, compression, and EQ on the master bus. Elephant is still my final limiter, though, because I really don't like what L3 did. Not much of a volume gain, but I'm not one to really have heart burn about such things. I didn't have the hardware or room treatment to get great tracks for loud mastering.

Haven't touched the verb yet, as that's a minor concern for me right now.
 
Last edited:
Very very nice sound. You got the acoustic guitar nicely. I always want to hear the pick on the strings. Very slick sounding to me. There is a lot of reverb but I know where you're going and I'm an old guy (we generaly like verb:D).
 
I really like the mix and the song :). The vocal sits very nicely in the mix and the guitar is recorded excellently. There is a fair bit of reverb, but as Track Rat said, I can see exactly why it is there! Maybe a little more could be done with the percussion at the end? It would be lovely to hear it as more of an exciting 'thump' that drives the song along.
 
I might fool with the automation at the end a bit. I brought it down a lot because the vocals are very sensitive to compression and I had to work the mix around that inability to drive them above the instrumentation. It might get that more driving effect if I steepen the slopes a little.
 
Nice tune this Flubly. I really like your voice and phrasing, it reminded me of the Mountain Goats or Decemberists. The instrumentation all sounds very nicely arranged and the reverb suits the song.

The only issue I got was that the mix sounds a little 'hot' in places to me, mainly from the acoustic. I wonder whether you've got a limiter on the master bus that's set a little higher than needed?

Good work though.
 
robgreen said:
Nice tune this Flubly. I really like your voice and phrasing, it reminded me of the Mountain Goats or Decemberists. The instrumentation all sounds very nicely arranged and the reverb suits the song.

The only issue I got was that the mix sounds a little 'hot' in places to me, mainly from the acoustic. I wonder whether you've got a limiter on the master bus that's set a little higher than needed?

Good work though.
Click to expand...

Whoops, I should make it clear that it's not me in this recording. It's a very talented guy who I will hopefully be releasing an EP for in the next year or so (fingers crossed). He's just a finance guy who likes to write music, never really played any shows or anything.

There is a limiter on the master bus and I got it cranked more after a friend said it sounded like I was going light on the limiting in my first mix. I have some compression on the guitar in addition to that, do you think it might help to go easier/get rid of that?

I am having some trouble meeting in the middle of my love of high dynamic range recordings and mastering for more volume and "life". Now that I know I like the mix, should I export the session without the master bus plugins, normalize the song and then master that one file? That might help me see where my volume is varying too much, adjust, and then be able to use the limiter more moderately.

How do you guys usually approach that?
 
I'm experimenting with a limiter across the two buss lately. Not sure yet if I like what I'm getting. I've been A/Bing mixes with and without and the verdict isn't in. I've tried L2 but I'm not impressed with the sound. The way I've "peak limited" was to manually zoom in on a hot peak excursion at either zero crossing and reduce the amplitude. It's tedious work but can pretty effective.
 
Track Rat said:
The way I've "peak limited" was to manually zoom in on a hot peak excursion at either zero crossing and reduce the amplitude. It's tedious work but can pretty effective.
Click to expand...

I've thought about that but obviously want to keep that as a last resort because of the tediousness. It's definitely better than automating the limiter when you're happy with its results on everything but a certain track.

I've never used L2, but I tried L1 at a friend's and wasn't very happy with the sound. Honestly, I probably just don't know how to use it to its strengths. I've been using Voxengo's Elephant and am in love with it. Such a rich sound and it preserves transients like a champ.
 
The song is a good one. I like the performance. My impressions: The reverb room is too large and too heavy for this performance IMO. That is unless you want it to sound like it's being played in a big empty warehouse. Seems to me this would do better with a more ambient reverb giving it a more intimate feel. YMMV. The dynamics of the voice and guitars are wide, and could use some taming. One thing you can do if you don't really want to smash it is stack compressors, and get about 3-4 dB of gain reduction from each one. Works well and won't sound smashed. Something like an 1176 followed by something opto like LA2A or my favorite for vocals the CL1b. I use the plugs, not the real thing. I would only use the limiter for mastering. This one doesn't sound ready for that quite yet.
 
The key to "mastering" (and I use that term in the amateurish sense that we home recordists take it for) is to compress and limit in stages. Usually, my master mix bus FX chain looks something like this

EQ (I do a high pass around 40hz here)
|
Limiter (very gentle, should be clipping none but the most extreme peaks by just a few db)
|
Compressor (1.5:1 ratio, 20-30ms attack, release timed to the bpm of the song. Usually 1/32 or 1/16th note. Again, trying to get just about 2-4db of gain reduction on average
|
some sort of analog tape saturation plugin on light settings. I use voxengo analog flux
|
Limiter (again, gentle settings)
|
EQ (I like to add a slight high shelf to the mix, around 2 - 3db starting around 6k. I like to use the Waves Linear phase EQ plugin here)
|
Master Limiter plugin (This is the one where I really bring the volume up. I usually use Waves L3 on the "warm" setting and lower the threshold until I'm getting between 2 - 4 db of gain reduction on my loudest transients.

Also, just some knowledge that may help ya in the future:

A mattress booth is really not a good idea. Things like mattresses, carpets, blankets will kill all your high frequency reflections, but not do anything about the low mids to the bass frequencies, increasing muddiness. Not saying your tracks were muddy, but just wanted to let ya know in case you didn't already. Also, lower quality preamps doesn't necessarily mean you have less seperation in your tracking. Seperation comes first and foremost from the source being recorded, then it's the room it was recorded in, then it's the mic it's being recorded with, then it's the EQing and mixing decisions...and the last thing responsible for its ability to stick out is probably the pre-amp. I mean a shitty preamp will obviously sound shitty, but after a certain point, the difference is barely noticeable.

I guess the point of my speech is that you can make amazing sounding recordings with budget equipment. You just need to understand how to make the most of what you have.
 
@ Guitar Zero: Thanks, I hadn't tried stacking compressors yet. I'll give it a shot and see if the vox respond better.

I'll fool around with some different approaches to the verb and see if I can't get it closer to a cathedral than a warehouse. I don't mind warehouse, but I might like the other better. I'm using a long plate on one of his other songs and it's working pretty nicely, I might try something similar on this.

I actually do only have the limiter on the master bus, I think what you're hearing is just a total lack of compression. I tried to compensate somewhat by just automating volume. Obviously that doesn't reduce the dynamic range within phrases effectively, but I'll try your advice to get my cake and eat it to.

@ Burning Bridges: Interesting, I'm curious at the high pass in the beginning of the chain. What's your reasoning there?

I used to think EQ on the master bus was strange, but after delving into mastering it makes sense since limiting and saturation change the mix pretty drastically. I didn't do it on this, but maybe it could benefit.

3 limiters! Man, coordinating that seems intimidating to me. I've just started trying to use multi-band compression and felt overwhelmed. What limiters do you use for those gentle stages? Does it change depending on what you're mixing?

BTW, could I get a link to a final master of yours on soundcloud or something? I'd like to hear that fx chain of yours working. Obviously I wouldn't have the pre-master to compare, but I think it would help to understand what your vision is for the process.

Yeah, mattresses definitely aren't ideal but even cheap DIY acoustic treatments weren't plausible in college. Mattresses provided a 100% free controlled situation wherein I knew how to fix the few problems it created in contrast to the many problems created by recording in the open rooms.

Thanks for all the feedback guys! This is a great hands on way to learn for me since this is my first time ever even trying to master something.
 
Flubly said:
@ Guitar Zero: Thanks, I hadn't tried stacking compressors yet. I'll give it a shot and see if the vox respond better.

I'll fool around with some different approaches to the verb and see if I can't get it closer to a cathedral than a warehouse. I don't mind warehouse, but I might like the other better. I'm using a long plate on one of his other songs and it's working pretty nicely, I might try something similar on this.

I actually do only have the limiter on the master bus, I think what you're hearing is just a total lack of compression. I tried to compensate somewhat by just automating volume. Obviously that doesn't reduce the dynamic range within phrases effectively, but I'll try your advice to get my cake and eat it to.

@ Burning Bridges: Interesting, I'm curious at the high pass in the beginning of the chain. What's your reasoning there?

I used to think EQ on the master bus was strange, but after delving into mastering it makes sense since limiting and saturation change the mix pretty drastically. I didn't do it on this, but maybe it could benefit.

3 limiters! Man, coordinating that seems intimidating to me. I've just started trying to use multi-band compression and felt overwhelmed. What limiters do you use for those gentle stages? Does it change depending on what you're mixing?

BTW, could I get a link to a final master of yours on soundcloud or something? I'd like to hear that fx chain of yours working. Obviously I wouldn't have the pre-master to compare, but I think it would help to understand what your vision is for the process.

Yeah, mattresses definitely aren't ideal but even cheap DIY acoustic treatments weren't plausible in college. Mattresses provided a 100% free controlled situation wherein I knew how to fix the few problems it created in contrast to the many problems created by recording in the open rooms.

Thanks for all the feedback guys! This is a great hands on way to learn for me since this is my first time ever even trying to master something.
Click to expand...

The high pass is more to sort of kill the ultra-low frequencies that I can't hear well enough to mix/are so low that they are going to cause low-end mud/rumble. For the type of music I mix, I don't really want anything going on too low anyways.

Generally, I use waves L2, although I'll be honest, I don't always use a limiter in that role. A lot of the time I will use a clipper, such as gclip, instead because I prefer the way it manipulates transients. Its very easy to use and the same logic applies: Gentle limiting/clipping on the loudest transients only. The goal is to level out your transients, so that way you can properly set your compressor and maintain consistency. Here is a track that was mastered with the chain that I was telling you about before, although I used gclip in place of a limiter on the master mix bus. The mix is not final and can still use some improving in some areas but you get the idea.

 
Wow, yeah that's a very polished sound and you've got a lot of volume. Did you have to automate any of the limiters?

Also, what/how much compression did you use on the main vocals? The details are retained very well without smashing it.
 
Last edited:
Flubly said:
Wow, yeah that's a very polished sound and you've got a lot of volume. Did you have to automate any of the limiters?

Also, what/how much compression did you use on the main vocals? The details are retained very well without smashing it.
Click to expand...

Thank you sir! I didn't automate the limiters, but I did to a ton of automation on the song itself. Generally i make the verses quieter than the choruses/bridges/endings. I set my compressors and limiters up on my master mix bus so that the hardest they will ever be pumping is on the loudest parts and that it sounds good there. It helps the choruses to explode out of the speakers from the quieter verses.

As for the vocals, I just compressed them with waves C1. Different compressors definitely will add different harmonic content to what they are compressing. C1 adds a really nice air-ness to vocals, and also can help to tame them if they have a tubby quality in the low mids. I used a 2.5:1 ratio, set the attack literally as fast as I could set it (I think .01 ms lol) and the release was set to around 40ms. Lastly I broke out my trusty Waves Linear Phase EQ and added a 3db boost at 12khz with a Q of about 1.2 or so.
 
Uploaded an alternative mix (updated on the OP) from the results of experimenting with the given advice concerning compression and mastering (haven't tried the suggestions about verb or drum volume yet). I don't think I like it too much, but I don't really have a clear handle on what I don't like. It may be pumping here and there, that could be one problem. I'm also real squeamish about narrowing dynamic range so that's another factor. Doesn't breathe as well as it did?

I dunno, it's hard to know what's due to my ignorance and what's due to diminishing returns with limited source material.
 
Nice song and well performed. Not crazy about the verb, but I've been weening myself from reverb lately. I used to be a heavy addict. :) A shorter duration would help bring the vocal more forward where I think it should be for this type of song.

Don't kill yourself over a mix. Step a way for a few days and listen to something completely different. Then come back with fresh ears. It's easy to lose perspective when listening to the same song for too long.

Bumps are tolerated if you don't do it too often or too soon. I'm glad this one got bumped, I probably would have missed it.
 
Thanks for the advice! I've been listening to choral and strings for the past few days, though, so I might come back and want even more dynamic range, haha.

I'm willing to experiment with different aspects of the verb, but the long decay is something that the songwriter and I came to agree was an important aspect for a few of his songs. We wanted to reinforce a motif of isolation and implying that through verb was very attractive. It's like there's no one there to hear him. I can be a verb junkie, too, but I think it mutually spoke to us thematically in this case, not just pleasant to our ears.
 
Hey all! Well, I sat on it for a few months and took another stab at mastering this piece: YFIF Parallel by Flubly on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

I took a subtly different approach to the guitar's verb, and used parallel compression to slightly tame the dynamic range of the vox and guitar. There's also a wee bit of parallel compression on the master buss too. I just found that traditional compression approaches destroyed the tracks because they weren't properly recorded for robust processing. They really became impossible to EQ.

Anyway, what do you guys think? I'm starting to think I'm getting into the realm of diminishing returns.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top