Public Mix Contest #12!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter xfinsterx
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Llarion, Oh.... and the stuff on your site is really good too... I like Dewpoint... nice job... but I digress.... this is the PMC thread.... carry on... :D
 
Llarion said:
And if it can't; download the 30-day trial of Adobe Audition, it's what I use, works great.
Well I have a problem with Adobe products. They make really heavy installs and insist on installing all sorts of "plug-ins" on your computer. Later when the program is starting, it spends an eternity "loading" those "plug-ins". I mean a heavy metal band could technically write a very depressed song about just loading an adobe product.

After that point tho, they do have very good features. But then comes the end of the 30 day trial period (20 out of which you spent just loading the program) and you have to spend another couple of days uninstalling the program.
</end_adobe_products_related_rant>
 
Alright, who recorded this piece. I am curious as to what guitar gear was used.

Very nice and enough crunchy and on initial listening sounds like the at least the gating on the guitar was done nicely. I can never get my dist guitars sounding that clean. :)
 
bigbubba said:
Well I have a problem with Adobe products. They make really heavy installs and insist on installing all sorts of "plug-ins" on your computer. Later when the program is starting, it spends an eternity "loading" those "plug-ins". I mean a heavy metal band could technically write a very depressed song about just loading an adobe product.

After that point tho, they do have very good features. But then comes the end of the 30 day trial period (20 out of which you spent just loading the program) and you have to spend another couple of days uninstalling the program.
</end_adobe_products_related_rant>

You must have your computer configured incorrectly. I use Audition and when I click on the session file for this contest it opens the program and loads everything in under 10 seconds.
 
Sorry I didn't mean about Audition specifically. I was complaining about Adobe products in general. I haven't used Audition, to the best of my recollection. I did use Premiere (sp?) and it was just really heavy on the computer. As opposed to Ulead VideoStudio. Also Acrobat hasn't been the best of applications lately. Especially for something that's just a lousy reader. All Adobe product seem to take forever to start up. Although, Audition is something I haven't tried.

Installation and uninstallation time is also a factor. I'm lazy sometimes. What can I say? hehe. :)

Anyhoo, I might still give it a try sometime. :)
 
bigbubba said:
Alright, who recorded this piece. I am curious as to what guitar gear was used.

That would have been our host, xfinsterx. Although originally there were 49 tracks, I had a guest spot on one track, but despite my vociferous arguing, he dropped my 4 minute bass tapping solo :mad:
 
bigbubba said:
Sorry I didn't mean about Audition specifically. I was complaining about Adobe products in general. I haven't used Audition, to the best of my recollection. I did use Premiere (sp?) and it was just really heavy on the computer. As opposed to Ulead VideoStudio. Also Acrobat hasn't been the best of applications lately. Especially for something that's just a lousy reader. All Adobe product seem to take forever to start up. Although, Audition is something I haven't tried.

Installation and uninstallation time is also a factor. I'm lazy sometimes. What can I say? hehe. :)

Anyhoo, I might still give it a try sometime. :)

Acrobat is the piggiest application ever written. Audition, on the other hand, is slick and VERY sweet.
 
Llarion said:
It starts you with a 1-star ding, I hate that! I liked your new mix! You have a sampled snare in there, sounds like, and I'm pretty sure I'm hearing some latency in it, like if you could slide the whole snare track forward 1ms, it would line up... I dunno... Anyway, I'm at work, so I have to listen real soft-like...

I definitely have to revisit mine one more time.
Cheers Llarion.
I only used the tracks I was given didnt add any more samples or anything. It was lined up the way that Finster traked it.
Thanks for listening.

Eck
 
Maybe I should just quit. All the people here already seem to have done a good enough job. Plus different versions are really really making me feel like I don't know what I really envision the song to be. :)

vanbas2 - I like it a lot better than mine. :)
 
My 1st attempt

Guys, please listen to this and criticize as much as possible. What do you all think. I think the kick needs to be boosted quite a bit.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=1293

Finster, sorry I removed the lyrics for now. I'm not too big of a growling fan and also I'm not sure how to mix all of that info. I might try to mix those in the end. :)
 
bigbubba said:
Guys, please listen to this and criticize as much as possible. What do you all think. I think the kick needs to be boosted quite a bit.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=1293

Finster, sorry I removed the lyrics for now. I'm not too big of a growling fan and also I'm not sure how to mix all of that info. I might try to mix those in the end. :)

Yeah, it needs a *lot* more kick, and the snare sticks WAY out from the rest of the drums. You've got a wash of white noise/clipping over most of this (except the snare), like it's got a small speaker screaming for its life... Or that all the tracks are overboosted from 80-200Hz...

I like the choices on fading the drums out and lettign the guitars have it, gives it an interesting dimension!

Is the bass guitar in there at all? If so, it's buried by the crunchy guitars.

I also didn't hear any of the keyboard parts, at least clearly...
 
yeah the whole track is clipping by about 7.0-8.0db. I figured, if I start lowering volume, it will take forever. So I thought, what the heck.

Plus, it's my first time mixing real drums that were played by a drummer. The drums don't have a dedicated mic per instrument. And you can hear other instruments in the mic. So I can't place the clash cymbals track and so on. Took me a while. I guess, the best thing to do here would be to just lower all track to 0db and slowly bring them up all the while making sure the guitars can have their day with their b*tching tunes.

Does the hard panning in some places do anything for you?
 
bigbubba said:
yeah the whole track is clipping by about 7.0-8.0db. I figured, if I start lowering volume, it will take forever. So I thought, what the heck.

Plus, it's my first time mixing real drums that were played by a drummer. The drums don't have a dedicated mic per instrument. And you can hear other instruments in the mic. So I can't place the clash cymbals track and so on. Took me a while. I guess, the best thing to do here would be to just lower all track to 0db and slowly bring them up all the while making sure the guitars can have their day with their b*tching tunes.

Does the hard panning in some places do anything for you?
Well, it's actually really hard to perceive much, if any imaging at all, it's so distorted. But, I'm not a hard-pan fan in the first place, so never mind about that for now; let's get the basics in line first.

One thing; 0db should, in a broad sense, be the MAX gain applied to any mix channel. Try lowering all tracks to about -12db and working up from there.

As far as the drum tracks go, or anythign where you have multimple open mic in a session, you can sometimes isolate crosstalk/bleed with judicious EQ. For example, let's say you have a mic on the bass drum that is also picking up all the high guitars. Well, just roll off everything above 400Hz or so, and your kick will suddenly isolate itself a lot better; and since the kick drum doesn't usually have a lot of edge in the sound, you won't ruin what you actually recorded. Same with cymbals, just the other way; it they are picking up low sounds in the vicinity like toms, just roll off the whole bottom.

Or, Use the bleed to your advantage; shape the primary tone on it's track, then use that instrument's bleedover onto another track to receive shaping and placement that augments the primary track. I did this on this mix; I applied different settings to the overheads, knowing that the snare was in there a little, and I wanted to capture the ambience of them; the slight distance and natural reverb. Of course, in a piece this unsubtle, nuance is mostly lost, but you get the idea.

These are crude, sweeping generalizations, but they will point you in the right direction, I hope. :)
 
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sorry i haven't been around much lately.. my work has been, well, "working" me to death; i've been mixing this and also listening to many mp3s posted, it sucks that i can't always reply.

...cuz i know you all value my opinion... hahaha :rolleyes:
 
turnitdown said:
Llarion, I really like your mix, and the intro....

But when I visited your website, I got turned on to Pete Huttlinger.... man, he's good!!!! Thanks! ;)

Yeah, Pete is amazing... :) What an experience that was...

Thanks for the kudos, it's hard to get a grasp for if I'm doing well; I'm so far out of my genre it's not even funny!! I did have a great time putting the intro together... :)
 
Is anybody having a hard time keeping the guitars loud while making kick and snare audible?

Is this where compression comes in?
What is limiting? Other than a thing that "limits". How is it effectively used. I am looking at some article that talks about RMS levels and how to use a limiter to get it to where you want it to be. Is anybody here worrying about thsoe things.
 
bigbubba said:
Is anybody having a hard time keeping the guitars loud while making kick and snare audible?

Is this where compression comes in?
What is limiting? Other than a thing that "limits". How is it effectively used. I am looking at some article that talks about RMS levels and how to use a limiter to get it to where you want it to be. Is anybody here worrying about thsoe things.
Well a limiter stops any (brickwall limiter) wave above a chosen threshold getting through. This can be used to bring the overall volume of the bounced track up to commercial volume. I usually stick with around -11 to -10 dB RMS. Depends on how much the mix can handle getting squashed and distorted really.
System of a down sqaush to fuk as do Queens of the stonage. around -6dB!

Anyway the kick snare thingy is more about EQ than compression. if you feel that the kik ans snare arent consostent enough in volume then use som hardish compression to get a more consistent level. Think more about frequency spaceing though.

Eck
 
Ok, I have another version up and available. This one was a little more carefully planned. And therefore is less louder.

about 2.0db clipping on snares (max) and about 0.5db clipping on kick (max). Nothing else clips.

And still the snare sounds like it's not loud enough. The kick sounds like it's not loud enough but in some places sounds just fine.

Please let me know guys what you all think of this effort. :) Thanks.

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=1299
 
ecktronic said:
Well a limiter stops any (brickwall limiter) wave above a chosen threshold getting through. This can be used to bring the overall volume of the bounced track up to commercial volume. I usually stick with around -11 to -10 dB RMS. Depends on how much the mix can handle getting squashed and distorted really.
System of a down -6dB!
ecktronic - So by giving a negative value the limiter will first make the sound louder and then limit it at a specified place? I've heard what you said before also but I don't quite understand how a "limiter" instead of "limiting" is actually bring "up" the volume. - Thanks.
 
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