New original mix - Child of the Elements

C

cmharwood89

New member
Hi all,

This is an original that I played, recorded, and mixed. The musicianship is imperfect, to be sure, but it'll do. Typically I do dead-simple singer/songwriter stuff -- tracks for guitar, vox, maybe something percussive if I'm feeling crazy -- so this is a bit of a stretch for me. It's touch messy; that's part of what I'm going for.

-- Updated with a SoundCloud link to the WAV file --



View attachment Elements.mp3

I first laid hands on a DAW earlier this year, and I got started in Reaper about 6 months ago, so I'm still pretty green. I'd love some feedback on what does/doesn't work in the mix.

What's going on in this track:
- Double-tracked acoustic in open tuning- panned right and left. Each is a blend of a condenser mic on the 12th fret and a DI out from the guitar. Both have a high-pass filter at about 60Hz, but otherwise, I let them fill out the bottom end. Two gentle stages of compression on each.

- Vox track has a HP at around 120 Hz and a gentle roll-off of above 6 kHz. Also two fairly gentle compression stages and the Reaper JS de-esser.

- Steel guitar is an el-cheapo resonator that I limped along with in open tuning. Condenser mic a few feet from the dish. EQ'd to get some twang and a HP filter at 100Hz.

- Percussion is weird. The beginning is me banging on the guitar body. After a couple of bars, I move into a cajon, mic'd with a condenser in front and a dynamic aimed at the rear sound hole. Dynamic mic track was EQ'd to bring out the bottom end and the condenser mic track was EQ'd to emphasize the snare. Both have a moderate stage of compression followed by a near-limiter. I had an alternate pair of tracks from banging on the guitar, and I kept the DI component, which added a cool (I though) throbbing low end with the open tuning. Another track of nylon brushes on the cajon, recorded with a condenser, and run through a HP filter.

- Background vox is just some harmonized humming, rolled off at the higher frequencies and run through an aggressive compressor to equalize the different tracks.

- Vox, guitar, and percussion were bussed to a shared reverb. ReaVerb convolution using an IR from the free Samplicity M7 pack. I tried going algorithmic reverb, but those snare sounds just couldn't be smoothed out with any of the plugins I tried.

-Steel guitar and background vox were bussed to another convo reverb. IR from the same package, but with more space.

-Background vox also sent to a third algo reverb. I used Voxengo OldSkoolVerb with the space and decay time nearly maxed out. I also boosted the low frequencies a bit.

Recordings were done with MXL 990/991 condenser mics and a crappy Behringer dynamic mic that I found.

I suspect nobody really cares about the details, but considering I'm still pretty new to this, I figured somebody with more experience and better ears could point out any faux-pas.


Thanks!
 
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I like the song and the performance. Vocals and guitars are well done. I'm not sure what to say about the mix. It's effective as it is. The instruments come through, and I particularly like those delicate picked guitar parts that are in the background but still clearly audible. Nice atmosphere. The trick is going to be to fix problems without killing the vibe. I think there's a little muddiness going on. The ambiance sounds nice and give it a feeling of having been tracked live in a room, but may be a bit much. I assume that is reverb? If so, it's a nice sounding one. I'll let others join in.

Just a suggestion: You'll probably get more comments if you upload to soundcloud and post a link. Some here don't like to download files, myself included.
 
Thanks for the comments! Yeah, I know theres a little muddiness in parts. My thought is similar; it's going to be tough to reduce that muddiness without compromising the low throb. Maybe if I cut the track from the guitar DI.

There's definitely some room reverb in the recordings (home recording), but what you're hearing is definitely the reverb plugin. I usually don't like mixes that are soaked in too much reverb, but it just seemed to fit the moody atmosphere here. It may very well be too heavy still; I can lower it and see how it sounds. The Samplicity IR's are gorgeous, btw.

I put a SoundCloud link to the uncompressed WAV file above and here:
 
Thanks! I listened on some other speakers, and I have to agree - the vocals are over the top. The low end was also a lot muddier than it sounded on the monitors. I got rid of the needless low-end guitar throb and lowered the vox by a few dB. I also discovered that the bass notes from the cajon were out of phase, which screwed up the low end on the percussion. All-in-all, I think this new mix is cleaner and better balanced.

 
On the first mix, I heard no mud. Sounded fine to me. Dark yes, but I wouldn't call it mud and it sounded fine. I didn't think for this style the vocals were too over the top. Sounded like a vocal dominated song.

First mix was fine to my ears.
 
Amazingly good. I like it.
At first I thought of too much reverb but on second listen I got used to it.. and on third listen I thought it was just great!!
Well done to you.
This proves (among other things) that a good song with a good arrangment needs no expensive gear to shine!
 
I love this. The reverby, swamping instrumentation is perfect for the song, and really gives it a lot of character. The low background vocals toward the end are a great touch. The singing sounds very good - only thing I noticed was a bit of pitchiness at 1:50 where you go for the higher note.
I guess the second mix is a bit better but I also liked the rawness of the first one.
Are you a Townes van Zandt fan? This reminds me a bit of him.
 
I really like the rhythms on the percussion. It is tight with the instruments. I like the balance - how the resonator has what could be construed as leads but you put them back in the mix as part of the blend. At times I thought it could be louder in the mix but my final conclusion was that it contributes to the overall feel quite nicely this way.

Cool tune. Lots of personality in there.
 
Instrumentation is beautiful. I think I'd bring the vocals down a bit. I might do some leveling to make the volume more consistent but not a lot, just enough to bring out the quiet details.

Edit: sorry, didn't see the second mix. This only concerns the original.
 
Wow, thanks all! I've continued tweaking slightly, and I think I'm pretty happy with the latest mix. It sounds good on everything I've played it through. I brought the guitars up a little more, brought up the bass drum/cajon, and increased the vocals a smidge (not much- about halfway between the first and second versions). I also played with the compression a little.



Question for y'all: I'm wondering if I should resort to some limiting. With the percussion and both guitar tracks, I've got some headroom-destroying transients. I've got two stages of compression (~2:1 followed by ~5:1) on most of the individual instrument tracks, with thresholds at about -30 and -20 dB (I see the first stage of compression kick in only about 50% of the time). I'm still getting transients (at around 2:10 and 3:00 particularly) that peak above 0.

Am I a terrible person if I slap a mastering compressor/limiter on the master track to keep those transients at bay? Would it be better practice to use more compression up-stream, on the instrument tracks? Limiters on the tracks with crazy transient peaks? I've really liked the transparency of the "Limiter No6" plugin. I have it on the master in the most recent mix to catch those overly-eager snare hits. The track is still very dynamic. For those of you that use the TT dynamic range meter, I'm getting a scored dynamic range of about 16-18dB (can't remember which was the most recent mix).
 
Take this for what it is worth. I never intend to master, I try to get all of my level around the same for a collection. I put a limiter on all my stuff. I have to where it just touches the peaks (I try to get it to dance) so I am just taking out those times that push it to peak and keeps me from bringing up the volume.

Now the pros on this site don't like limiting on a mix. With good reason, as they intend on taking the finished mix and doing further processing for Mastering. The extra head room gives the master engineer room to tweak each mix to fit in the master. So, if you are not going to master, then a limiter is not a bad thing. BUT, don't crush the mix, use it gently.

There are many on here that would disagree, and they are right(in the grand scheme of things), but for many of us hacks, a limiter used sparingly won't kill it.

I like your vocals upfront, but they could come down just a bit so the instruments can be heard a bit more. Up front, but down a bit. Sounding good.
 
First let me say, great song, great voice. If I could sing even a quarter as well as you I would be a happy camper. Having said all that, there was something about the mix that just bugged the hell out of me. I had to listen to it three time before I figured it out. Your song sounds a lot like the kind of song that Firefall would have produced. I kept expecting to hear Larry Burnett's vocals in the song instead of yours. I am not saying your vocal performance was inadequate, just not what my brain was expecting to hear. That is meant as a complement, I hope you take it that way. Again, great job.
 
DM60 said:
I put a limiter on all my stuff. I have to where it just touches the peaks (I try to get it to dance) so I am just taking out those times that push it to peak and keeps me from bringing up the volume.

Now the pros on this site don't like limiting on a mix. With good reason, as they intend on taking the finished mix and doing further processing for Mastering. The extra head room gives the master engineer room to tweak each mix to fit in the master. So, if you are not going to master, then a limiter is not a bad thing. BUT, don't crush the mix, use it gently.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I've been doing the same with my limiting. I only see it kick in during the serious peaks. I'd like to get a little more volume out of the "in-progress" mixes I do, though, so I'm worried that keeping the limiter on the master will cause some pumping/ducking. That's why I wonder if I'd be better served by squashing those transients at the respective instrument tracks.
 
cmharwood89 said:
Thanks for the tip. I've been doing the same with my limiting. I only see it kick in during the serious peaks. I'd like to get a little more volume out of the "in-progress" mixes I do, though, so I'm worried that keeping the limiter on the master will cause some pumping/ducking. That's why I wonder if I'd be better served by squashing those transients at the respective instrument tracks.
Click to expand...

Always better to do as much at the source/track than treat the whole mix, except when treating the whole mix. If there is a problem. don't fix it on the master, fix it at the source. For example, if a kick is making it thump too much, try and tame it on the kick track, not on the master.

The master track should be used only for the whole song, issues should be resolved there unless you have no other choice. Example, a mastering engineer may have fix problems on the mix because they only have a stereo mix.
 
SC is blocked at work, listening to the MP3. So I'm guessing I'm listening to the first mix.

The reverb, while not my taste, sounds good. Vocal is nice and clear. Levels all seem pretty well balanced.

The vocal could use just a bit of compression. To a lesser extent, so could acoustic the guitar. Slide guitar sounded pretty consistent.
 
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