Public Mix Contest #4!!!!

[xfinsterx]

yup, I agree....I'll try mix # two.

C

This mix seemed a little thin to me.
The snare was a little overbright, and somehow lost its weight.
Also, the kick drum..i could feel it, but i couldnt really HEAR it.
A good effort, but a remix of the drums would be in order IMO.

 

[xfinsterx]

NOT FINAL!!!!!

any suggestions???

http://webpages.charter.net/caoboy/

Did you compress or limit the whole mix?
If so, it sounds like you-

a.Overcompressed it.

or

B.didnt set the attack release times correctly.

The entire mix was also a tad underbright or lacked presence.

But that could be due to the quick attack of the compression in question.

You tell me.

 

[LemonTree]

Finster you do things to me mate. I gated the kick and the snare. that was it. This desk is such a beast as you know...still getting to grips with the combo of it and the Wharfdales. Said i'd never mixed this style before, went for the crisp n punch everything in its place mix....not sure if that's what you're meant to do with this style. Was dissapointed with the lack off kick defenition and as I said...prolly a little too brite. Great to take part thoug. I love these comps, takes me away from my usual which is usualy one performer singing with acoustic guitar. Be well my friend

Alec

 

[LemonTree]

This is what i heard here.

Like no other is a Lemon mix. .

You've no idea how much i dig that man. The Lemontree sound? LOL. In Scotland it's Saturday night Finster. I'm half way throu a bottle of Vodka, it's not brite man it's downright brittle n nasty. Hardest thing I listen to is chilli peppers.,.all new and all amazing playing I have to add. Tight unit there, very!

 

[chrisharris]

Anyone got any comments on mine? The more I listen the more the bottom end bugs me and I think it's a bit overbrite too

Maybe, maybe not. So much is subjective. It's brighter than I would have (or did) mix it, but it doesn't bother me at all.

I wish I'd mixed the kick louder, lol. Oh well...NO TAKEBACKS!!!

dough - You'll hate me, but I actually liked your first mix better. Even worse is that I have absolutely no basis for it. Well, I have some basis for it, and it's basically the midrange. It's more hyped in your second mix, and I just prefer the first one....but if you listen to mine, it sounds like I took a backhoe to everything between 800Hz and 3K, so take it for what it's worth, lol.

I'm loading every mix into my editor and making them all the same volume and then just soloing each submission...makes for a quick reference; mostly, it's just frustrating for me, lol...but fun too.

 

[xfinsterx]

[size=+1]NOT MY FINAL MIX[/size]

Well, I am having a hard time with this one, so I'll put this up to make everybody feel better about their mixes ...LOL

Feel free to give me a TON of advice!

Thanks,

NL5

[size=+1]NOT MY FINAL MIX[/size]

Nice tight representation of the rythm section Gun!
A good improvement.
Try adding a little bump of 10k in the overheads.

 

[xfinsterx]

This was a fun one to play with. I wasn't too fond of the keys in parts though.

So here's my entry
PMC4 6.2MB

dcWAVE

A good solid blend Dcwave.
Guits were a little low, and lacked bite for my taste, but really a fine blend.

 

[xfinsterx]

ok, here's my first try. Shoot, but don't kill me. =D

the ambience is intentional.

i took some live performances of "nightwish" as reference, cause I love their keyboards in the background.

But the presence is a little bit more decent in the mix.

So much bass guitar in the mix that alot of the "unit" got lost.

 

[xfinsterx]

http://www.fronder.com/bands/388/music.php
All the way at the bottom... PMF 4 Final

Okay this will be my final entry, as I'm tired of nitpicking...
Unless of course amybody has any insight
And points out something blatantly wrong...

I'm used to having a max of 6 tracks or so...
So this is really tough for me...

Hope I did ok at least.

Good solid blend, good imaging, nice work man.
A quick mastering and you'd really have something there.

 

[xfinsterx]

Alright, got a friend to let me post it on his FTP. This is my final mix.

I tried putting a few enhancers on it like BBE and i just felt it made the sound too tinny so i decided i would use oldschool EQ and stuff instead. Anyway, if i get ripped apart for anything on this mix is that its pretty compressed. Its not really noticable but it is. I thought it was the only way to really balance everything out. The snare was the hardest thing i guess out of anything to get to cut through because everytime i put enough highs in it, it came out too thin. I think i balanced it out good enough for the highs to cut through and still be thick and powerfull.

Heres the link to the file, and again it is my final mix.

Darnolds Final Mix -

Later,

Danny

This mix reminded me of my own.
Only major contrast was the level of the vocal on your mix Darnold.
IMO its a little too outfont, but thats a minor detail.
Nice work, im impressed.

 

[xfinsterx]

Ummm this is really fucking gay to say the least, LOL. I think what happened is that I created another account with a different email and username but i used my same address and personal info so they banned this account too, because my other account was banned.........oh well. Heres a link that I guarantee will work.

http://pmc4.neveryonnzz.org

lumbago, Steinberg Nuendo is my main recording/mixing software. I used an overdrive/speaker simulator plugin on the guitars with a small low-mid cut and a smidge of reverb and chorus. Heres the signal chain:

Among the current players in the field this is the best sounding mix ive heard yet.
Nice work Kid.
Sounds like you used an exciter or a miximizer in spots.

 

[xfinsterx]

Finster, just out of curiousity, what was your mic setup for drums? and were the guitars Amplitude?

Audix d6
Audix d2
sm 57
sennheiser 421
Audio technica 4047
Blue dragon flys

The guitars?
Yes its amplitube.

 

[xfinsterx]

Ok, here's my final mix. I did this one in just a few hours, I find that if I take too long my mix suffers in the end.

Cool song btw!

Thanx Nik.

So there seems to be an awful lot of bass guitar here.
Strangely enough though, the bass drum slices right through it.
Sonicly this is a great mix.
Blend wise its a little funky.
The imaging could have been better too IMO.

 

[CGibson]

This mix seemed a little thin to me.
The snare was a little overbright, and somehow lost its weight.
Also, the kick drum..i could feel it, but i couldnt really HEAR it.
A good effort, but a remix of the drums would be in order IMO.

I think this is a great learning experience for me.
I've actually never mixed on a computer before so this is all new ground for me.
This may also be the first time I've mixed something I didn't actually record.
I'm mixing so far out of my element that I'm not sure if I'll get a handle on this thing at all.
I might just get so frustrated at some point I'll take my computer to my studio and do the mix in a familiar environment. ha ha
No real studio monitors and a different room has thrown me so far off my game I'm kinda lost.
I know this sounds like a bunch of excuses but I'm really using this as a test pilot for a much needed future studio upgrade. Not sure if I want to cross over to the computer side of things but it sure opened a few doors/eyes.
Anyway nice song man, It was a great first project for me to dip my computer recording foot into.
I'll probable continue to poke around at it until the last day. Hell I'll probable start completely over and try another angle. Ha!


C

 

[Doug H]

I would have liked to gate the toms to get the ride out of them, but I haven't got that sort of voodoo going on yet.

tx xfinsterx,
chris, maybe cause the first one had the big assed bottom that glued it together a little better. It was pretty overpowering and sure to earn me a "yikes" in three categories. Not that I'm cooking the mix or anything <whistles>.

Seriously, I probably should have gone the extra mile and enveloped it a bit. It totally rails in the versus (yes I'm trying to make "rails" happen) and I would have liked it a bit hotter there, but seemed too big to me in other areas, so I went with a more subtle approach this time other than my patented "bass cab in the audience" sound.

 

[Doug H]

yup, I agree....I'll try mix # two.

C

Ya, this is better. Nice definition. Kick is still pretty heavy, but that is more just a preference now.

ouch, those vocals are a bit strong, especially right off of the top. I find it easy to imagine the compressor at work. I can't say for sure I actually hear it tho.

Mix came the closest so far to rattling my speakers, maybe it could be backed off a bit.

 

[producerkid]

Among the current players in the field this is the best sounding mix ive heard yet.
Nice work Kid.
Sounds like you used an exciter or a miximizer in spots.

Only sort of maximizer persay I used anywhere was a BBE plugin. I BBE'd the kick, the snare, and the bass to bring out the deffinition of each, rolld off anything below 30hz on the kick while boosting 5.5k with about a .8 Q, boost on 315 and 3k on the snare, and the toms i totally rollercoastered out. bunch of different stuff here and i use a slight bit of compression at the master fader. just a little bit of mix info for ya fin.

p.s. gating is your friend you just have to know what your doing.

 

[thajeremy]

Did you compress or limit the whole mix?
If so, it sounds like you-

a.Overcompressed it.

or

B.didnt set the attack release times correctly.

The entire mix was also a tad underbright or lacked presence.

But that could be due to the quick attack of the compression in question.

You tell me.

I used 4:1 compression with an attack time of 24ms and release of 100 ms but not on the over all mix...just on a couple of tracks...the bass track and the vox.
those settings were suggest by other people on here...not for this song...but from what i have read...it seems to be fairly common settings...guess i just dont know enough about compression but im learning...but thats what this contest is all about right???
also...to me, underbright means that its lacking high end. Is that accurate? If not, please let me know what you mean so i can work on it, and also help build my "studio/recording vocabulary". thanks for the feedback. Ill work on it and post my results...

 

[Doug H]

I'd say that's too quick an attack for this bass track.

 

[underp]

i'm a little bit confused about how drums should sound, and how loud should be the kick and cymbals.

Can someone please tell me, what i'm doing OK and what's not good ?

here's a small sample of the drum track only :

i'm not to happy with the kick yet.