Please Mix This - A Challenge (really, very challenging)

  • Thread starter Thread starter chrisharris
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I'm not voting......I hear things I like and don't like in every mix.
This is an example of how different mixes can sound very different and good in different ways.
I think I like grouco's vocal sound the best........pglewis has the best bass sound (maybe:) ) and I hate to say it, but I think I like my treatment of the slide and steel the best BUT......every new mix I bring up makes me question whether I'm so sure about anything. ;)

One thing that's beyaond dispute....this is a great song.
 
Lt. Bob said:
...and I hate to say it, but I think I like my treatment of the slide and steel the best
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You know, I really like the sound you got on the pedal steel, but I'd love to hear this with the slide part in correct sync. It's too far behind the beat. I say this with all due respect. Your mix sounds good. :)
 
Here are my mix notes...
I used all the tracks.

I had one reverb on an Aux send. 30 ms pre delay, 750 ms decay time.

Drums were stereo with EQ -2db @ 8k to try and tame the harshness that I was hearing. Slight reverb. I ran a little automation on a few parts. It's hardly noticable but a good homework assignment for those who are bored. :)
(Chris, any explaination for the distortion on these tracks? I hear it on everyones mix with the drums)

The bass track has a compressor plug-in to get some of the attack back into the sound.

Acoustic guitars had everything below 80hz cut, panned 3 and 9 o'clock

Steel guitar had EQ -5db @ 250hz, panned about 2 o'clock

Slide guitar was panned at 10 o'clock

Lead vocal had EQ +1.5db @ 200, +4db @ 14.5k
Compressor 4:1, -6db reduction on peaks, soft knee
De-esser, and reverb

I copied the two background vocal tracks so I could seperate the "oohs" from the parts where words were sung. I have all four parts panned across the sound-scape.
I think I detect flagrant abuse of Autotune on those ooh parts possibly. :) ha ha
EQ was -4.5db @ 3.6k
De-esser and lots of reverb

Lastly, I think you have a good voice Chris. I went with the instruments dropping out early and the last line sung acapella.
 
Not just to be politically correct, but there's no way I'd be able to pick a favorite out of all these mixes. It shouldn't be surprising, but there are aspects in each of the mixes that stood out to me. Some people were able to salvage the drums far more than I thought possible. Of course, I liked what I did with the stereo image :). But others did a better job on the main voc, I thought, as well as the "bass".

But it's cool to be able to pick and choose from what everyone else did. And it was a well worth the couple of hours I put into it for me, I learned some things from this for sure.
 
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad: I just spent 2 hour's doing a drumless, bassless mix......guess what????????


C.E. MOTHER FUCKIN' P CRASHES ON MIX DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I shit you not!!!!!! damn, i was really into it to. Trying all kind's of goodie's out!:mad:

That is the first time that CEP has done this.........NO MORE HARRIS TUNE'S ON MY COMPUTER!!!!!:eek:


ahhhhhhhhh, well that felt good.

Mesh..........dude, that was very cool of you to post those link's!!!!!! It will save me mucho tiempo! thank's , dude!

I'm gonna do some listening now. I will return!


What's the name of this song, again?










JULIET! :mad:
this i will never forget!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:D
 
Sorry I'm late, but this made for a nice Friday night after dinner with a few beers project. :) Very nice song, Chris. Some of the melodies in there are especially nice. I'm gonna check out some other mixes after this mine has uploaded. Should be very interesting!

I stuck with the original tracks. Then I loaded them into Wavelab and selected the "Polish a Turd" preset. It automatically mixes the song to its best possible mix, optimizing to each track's full potential. It's quite good. "Polish a Turd." Try it.



:)


"Juliet"
 
Wow, I just listened to 5 other mixes. Very cool experiment Chris. Nice mixes!
 
chrisharris said:
it'd be interesting to hear that combination without drums...should sound like 3 guys singing in your living room, lol. Chris
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WOW, that is exactly what i was going for in the mix that just broke my freakin' heart!!!!!! CRASH AND BURN!

I wanted to take the "intimate" approach, as opposed to my "pit" mix!:D

And i'm in complete AWE ,that you actually tried something that I did within a mix, and liked it!:eek: TOO COOL! (for me it is!)


Still listening!!!! and i do have some fav's!!!!!!!:D


MESH.........Can't get your link to work..ERROR 404...I really want to hear your drum track!


EDIT.... .forget it, mesh.i got it off page three. http://hem.tyfon.net/wa0043/mp3/
that one work's!
 
SLuiCe said:
... this made for a nice Friday night after dinner with a few beers project. :)
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How many beers?

:D

I'm only posting this ss because you've been here longer than I have, and everything you touch is pretty fantastic, and you seem to have a damned fine sense of humor. :D :D

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I GIVE YOU, THE WINNER OF THE LOUDEST MIX EVER. (I thought Fender had this award sewn up, lol...but his didn't actually officially clip) :D :D

Seriously, what were you using to limit?
 

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Oh, and since I've broken my "no comment" rule to poke a little fun at Sluice, I'll add that honest, the drums sound a ton better on yours than they actually sound, lol. Did you bump them anywhere or do anything else to them?

I've got lots of positive shit I want to tell people, but I'm waiting for mixmkr's submission... :D
 
I know there's some crazy clipping! No limiter...I just had it clipping in Sonar and I think when that happens and you mixdown, it just cuts it off. How much time were we supposed to spend? :)
 
BTW, do you actually want a quieter mix, or did ya get the idea?

Oh and I bumped some 250 into the drums and cut a little 2k and some 8k (hissy cymbals!)
 
fenderlikingood said:
OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:mad: I just spent 2 hour's doing a drumless, bassless mix......guess what????????


C.E. MOTHER FUCKIN' P CRASHES ON MIX DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Dude, that's weird. When I did my official entry mix, I wasn't kidding...I used the mp3 files to keep it all (sort of) even...

So I opened the mp3's as wav's, like I'm sure you did, and worked that way...and near the end, it started getting really weird...misreading the amount of available space on my hard drive, some weird glitches on playback, then...(of course) it crashed during the mixdown. Did you get the session back? It should pop right back up next time you start it.

At any rate, it was the fuckup that inspired my Psychadelic mix...parts of the tracks started playing backwards in the multitrack view, and it was reading weird stuff from all over the hard drive....like I'm playing back a guitar track, and right in the middle, there's a freaking vocal from a totally different song, lmao.

Anyway, my session came back, and that's when I said screw it and pulled out the Lexicon. However (here's the important part)...Rick, if you do another session, once you open those mp3 files, save them immediately as 32 bit wav files, then start from there. I think it has something to do with the mp3 encoding and decoding that CEP just doesn't handle very well, b/c I'm like you...that just never happens with this software, but I've never mixed all mp3 files either...and actually, even when I have, it's something like one of crawdad's tracks where I immediately save it as a wave file anyway to work with it.

Give it a shot and tell me if the demons come back.

Now somebody comment on my psychadelic mix so that I can stop begging. Just a "yuk yuk chuckle" would be fine.

DAMMIT, DON'T MAKE ME START ANOTHER THREAD!!! :mad:

(kidding, kidding)
 
chrisharris said:
I'm only posting this ss because you've been here longer than I have...
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It says you joined Dec 2001. I didn't find this site 'til Mar 2002. Maybe I just smell like I've been here longer. ;)
 
SLuiCe said:
Oh and I bumped some 250 into the drums and cut a little 2k and some 8k (hissy cymbals!)
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You warmed them up nicely...I'm actually kinda' actually digging the tom rolls :D

Dude, if you wouldn't mind...yeah. I can limit the mp3 that I have, but this is a good mix, and it'd be cool to have one that wasn't hitting the meters quite so hard...as far as clipping distortion, I honestly can't hear it, mainly b/c I already distorted the shit out of the drums...

...I'll learn, someday...if you fuck up a drum track and you've already submixed it to save space on your hard drive...just freaking do it over again, b/c compressing the mix to make the snare softer just fucks up more than it fixes.

I'm learning a lot in this thread, actually...I wish somebody else would put tracks up so I could violate them LIKE I DID ON MY PSYCHADELIC MI...oh, nevermind :D
 
SLuiCe said:
It says you joined Dec 2001. I didn't find this site 'til Mar 2002. Maybe I just smell like I've been here longer. ;)
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I signed up when I ran across the CEP forum one day, then forgot about it for a long time...found it again later and tried to sign up, and it told me I was already a member...

I'm dumb.

You were here when I *got* here; I remember your posts on Bottle Of Wine, actually...something about driving to Montana, I believe :D
 
Ahhh yes. That's a good tune too. You and your daughter. It has a driving fee... but then a lot of your stuff does I suppose.

Ya, for some reason it doesn't distort when it clips it during export. Dobro noticed the same thing a few months ago. I don't do any mastering so I don't really look very closely at the mix wave too often. But I can see there are definitely some severred heads dancing in there. Interesting. I wouldn't mix down so loud if it was going to be mastered. I wasn't really paying much attention to that...sorry. I'll repost.
 
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